Ketamine for Chronic Pain and Migraines in San Diego: What the Research Shows

When pain becomes a daily constant, it stops being just a physical problem. Chronic pain reshapes how you sleep, how you work, how you relate to the people around you, and how you feel about the future. For many people in San Diego, standard pain management — nerve blocks, physical therapy, NSAIDs, opioids, and interventional procedures — provides either incomplete relief or introduces its own set of risks.

Ketamine therapy is emerging as a powerful alternative, particularly for patients who haven’t responded to conventional approaches.

How Ketamine Works Differently Than Standard Pain Medications

Most pain medications work by blocking pain signals or reducing inflammation at the site of injury. Ketamine works differently — it targets the NMDA receptor in the central nervous system, which plays a critical role in a process called central sensitization.

Central sensitization is what happens when the nervous system becomes amplified and hypersensitive after prolonged pain exposure. Essentially, your brain and spinal cord “learn” pain. This is why chronic pain often persists long after the original injury has healed, and why standard treatments that work for acute pain frequently fail for chronic conditions.

Ketamine interrupts this learned pain response at the neurological level. By blocking NMDA receptors, it can reset sensitized pain pathways — providing relief that goes well beyond what symptom-masking medications can offer.

Conditions We Treat with Ketamine for Chronic Pain

At Seaside Ketamine, we evaluate patients with a range of chronic pain conditions for ketamine therapy, including:

Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and cognitive symptoms (“fibro fog”). Because fibromyalgia has a strong central sensitization component, it is a well-suited target for ketamine’s NMDA-blocking mechanism — addressing the pain at its amplified neurological source rather than chasing symptoms peripherally.

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)

CRPS is one of the most painful conditions known to medicine, characterized by burning pain, swelling, and changes in skin temperature and color following an injury or surgery. It responds poorly to most conventional treatments. Ketamine infusions — particularly higher-dose protocols — have some of the strongest evidence for CRPS of any chronic pain condition.

Neuropathic Pain

Nerve damage from diabetes (diabetic neuropathy), shingles (postherpetic neuralgia), chemotherapy, or spinal conditions can produce relentless pain, burning, and hypersensitivity. Ketamine’s central mechanism makes it particularly effective when nerve damage is the root cause, because it addresses the brain’s response to that damage rather than the damage itself.

Refractory Migraines

Chronic migraines — defined as 15 or more headache days per month — can be profoundly disabling. For patients who have not responded to triptans, CGRP inhibitors, Botox, or preventive medications, intravenous ketamine has shown meaningful results in breaking refractory migraine cycles. A number of specialized headache centers now use ketamine infusions as an acute intervention for status migrainosus (migraines lasting more than 72 hours).

Chronic Back and Neck Pain

When structural causes have been addressed or ruled out and pain persists, central sensitization is often a major contributor. Ketamine can help reset the amplified pain response in these cases, reducing the neurological component of chronic musculoskeletal pain.

What Ketamine Treatment for Pain Looks Like

Ketamine for pain is often administered differently than ketamine for depression. Depending on the condition, treatment may involve:

• Low-dose infusions (sub-anesthetic, similar to mental health protocols) delivered over a series of sessions
• Higher-dose infusions administered over several hours, particularly for CRPS
• Combination approaches that pair ketamine with integration, nervous system regulation techniques, and metabolic optimization

At Seaside Ketamine, we perform a thorough medical intake and evaluation before recommending any protocol. The right approach depends on your diagnosis, medical history, prior treatments, and goals.

Is Ketamine a Cure for Chronic Pain?

It’s important to be transparent: ketamine is not a cure for structural problems like herniated discs, joint deterioration, or active nerve damage. What it can do is meaningfully reduce the central sensitization component of your pain — which often represents a significant portion of the suffering in chronic pain conditions.

Many patients report significant reductions in pain intensity, improved function, better sleep, and reduced reliance on opioid medications. For some, results are dramatic and lasting. For others, periodic maintenance infusions become part of a long-term management strategy — an acceptable trade-off given how poorly they were managed on previous treatment regimens.

Why Chronic Pain Patients in San Diego Choose Seaside Ketamine

Dr. Scott Gillin approaches chronic pain through the lens of both neuroscience and functional medicine. Rather than viewing pain as purely a symptom to be managed, we look at the whole picture — metabolic health, sleep quality, systemic inflammation, stress physiology, and nervous system regulation — to maximize outcomes.

If you’ve exhausted standard options and are living with daily pain that limits your quality of life, ketamine therapy may offer meaningful relief. The first step is a free 15-minute consultation to discuss your history and whether you may be a candidate.