Fibromyalgia and neuropathy are two of the most difficult chronic pain conditions to manage. Standard treatments like medication and physical therapy help some patients, but many continue to struggle with daily pain. For a long time, opioids filled that gap, even though they carry real risks with long-term use.
This is part of why ketamine infusions have drawn growing interest in pain management. Ketamine is not a new drug. It has been used safely in hospitals for decades as an anesthetic, and its role in chronic pain care is now better understood.
What has changed is how it’s applied. Pain clinics now use controlled ketamine doses to target the nerve pathways behind fibromyalgia and neuropathy directly.
What Is Ketamine, and Why Is It Used for Pain?
Ketamine is an anesthetic drug. It has a somewhat unusual property compared to most pain medications: it binds to specific receptors in the body, including glutamate and NMDA receptors, that play a role in how pain signals travel through your nervous system.
In simple terms, a lot of chronic pain gets stuck in a loop. Your nerves keep firing pain signals even after the original injury has healed, or even when there’s no clear injury at all, which is common in fibromyalgia. Ketamine appears to interrupt that loop rather than just numbing that pain on the surface.
At Nova Spine and Pain Care, providers describe ketamine as a tool for patients whose pain hasn’t responded well to medications or other treatments. It’s delivered through an IV, using equipment and dosing protocols designed for chronic pain rather than surgical anesthesia.
Which Conditions Can Ketamine Infusions Help?
Ketamine infusion therapy isn’t limited to one type of pain. According to Nova Spine and Pain Care, it can be used to treat a range of conditions, including:
- Traumatic spinal injuries
- Neuropathic pain
- Fibromyalgia
- Cancer-related back pain
- Migraines
- Depression
- Peripheral neuropathy
- Anxiety
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Complex regional pain syndrome
Fibromyalgia and neuropathy both belong to a category of pain that doesn’t always show up clearly on an X-ray or MRI.
That makes them frustrating to treat with standard approaches. Because ketamine works on the nervous system itself, rather than on a specific joint or muscle, it’s being used as an option when other treatments have already been tried.
Why Fibromyalgia and Neuropathy Are Hard to Treat
Fibromyalgia causes widespread pain, fatigue, and tenderness that can move around the body. Neuropathy, whether from diabetes, injury, or another cause, brings burning, tingling, or shooting pain along nerve pathways.
Both conditions share a common thread: the nervous system itself becomes overly sensitive, amplifying pain signals long after any tissue damage would explain them.
This is one reason typical pain medications fall short. Anti-inflammatories target inflammation. Opioids dull pain signals but don’t fix the underlying nerve sensitivity, and they carry dependency risks. Ketamine’s action on NMDA receptors gives it a different angle, one aimed more directly at how the nervous system processes pain.
What Happens During Treatment
Ketamine is given through an IV. At Nova Spine and Pain Care, the team builds a customized infusion plan based on the patient’s individual needs and how severe their pain is. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all protocol. Two patients with fibromyalgia might end up on different plans depending on how they respond.
Here’s what the process generally looks like:
- Consultation: A provider reviews your history, prior treatments, and whether ketamine is a reasonable next step.
- Customized plan: A treatment schedule is built around your specific condition and its severity.
- IV infusion: Ketamine is delivered intravenously using advanced equipment and monitoring.
- Follow-up: Response to treatment helps guide any adjustments to future sessions.
Patients seeking ketamine infusions may notice improvements in pain levels and mood within a few hours of treatment, according to Nova Spine and Pain Care. That’s a much faster response than most oral pain medications, which can take weeks to show any effect, if they work at all.
Beyond Pain: The Mood Connection
One detail worth knowing: ketamine’s effects aren’t limited to physical pain. It has also generated significant interest as a treatment for depression, and it’s known for reducing signals in the brain associated with inflammation.
For patients whose chronic pain has taken a toll on their mental health, which is extremely common with fibromyalgia, this dual effect on pain and mood is part of the appeal.
Why a Multimodal Approach Matters
Nova Spine and Pain Care describes itself as a physician-led practice built around a multimodal approach to chronic pain, rather than relying on a single treatment or medication. Their stated view is direct: protocols that rely only on opioids are outdated, don’t achieve optimal pain relief, and contribute to the broader opioid epidemic.
Their goal is to reduce opioid consumption while still optimizing pain control. Ketamine infusions fit into that bigger picture. They’re one option among several, used when medications and other treatments haven’t given patients the results they need.
The practice also treats a long list of related pain conditions, including peripheral neuropathy pain, complex regional pain syndrome, and cancer pain, which often overlap with fibromyalgia and nerve pain in the same patient.
Who Provides This Care
At Nova Spine and Pain Care, ketamine infusions are provided under the direction of Dr. Chitra Ramasubbu, who is double board-certified in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine. She has practiced as a pain specialist in the Atlanta area for more than 10 years.
Her training includes:
- An Interventional Pain Fellowship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
- A residency in Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Medical school at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
- An internship at NYU Long Island Hospital.
She has also authored textbook chapters on pharmacotherapy and interventional pain, along with published reviews in pain management journals.
What to Ask Before Starting Treatment
If you’re thinking about ketamine infusions for fibromyalgia or neuropathy, a few questions are worth bringing to your first visit:
- Have I tried other treatments, and how did they work?
- What does a customized infusion plan look like for my specific condition?
- How soon might I notice a change in pain or mood?
- How does this fit with my other medications I’m currently taking?
A good provider should walk through these with you rather than rush you into a treatment schedule. At Nova Spine and Pain Care, the process starts with a consultation so the plan can be built around your history and how severe your pain is, not a generic template.
Read Also: PRP Injections for Chronic Joint Pain: How Long Do Results Really Last?
Summary
Fibromyalgia and neuropathy are two of the toughest chronic pain conditions to treat because they involve the nervous system itself, not just an injury or joint. Ketamine infusions offer a different way to approach that problem.
By acting on glutamate and NMDA receptors, ketamine can interrupt pain signals in a way that many standard medications can’t, and some patients notice changes in pain and mood within hours of treatment.
Nova Spine and Pain Care offers IV ketamine infusions as part of a physician-led, multimodal approach to chronic pain, under the direction of Dr. Chitra Ramasubbu. Treatment plans are customized to each patient’s condition and severity to reduce reliance on opioids while improving day-to-day function.
If you’ve tried other treatments for fibromyalgia or neuropathy without the relief you were hoping for, it is worth a conversation.