At SomaVerse, at-home ketamine is a continuation, not a starting point. Everyone begins in office, at our Lawrence, Overland Park or Topeka office. Once you’ve completed at least our main program with us and are medically approved, you may be approved to continue troche sessions at home, with a sober adult or a SomaVerse guide present. It’s for Kansas adults who are medically stable, have a safe setting, and want to keep going with the same local team.
Home dosing is one of the most debated corners of ketamine care. In 2023 the FDA warned that compounded ketamine taken at home, without a provider on site, may put people at risk. In 2024 the American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists & Practitioners (ASKP3) published recommendations for doing it more safely. We built our at-home protocol around both.
Below is exactly how it works: who qualifies to continue at home, who’s with you, what we check, what we limit, and when we’ll tell you home isn’t the right setting. It sits inside our broader ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) program, with the same therapists, guides and medical team.
Continuing at home may suit you if…
- You’ve completed our main program in office, it went smoothly, and you’d like to continue somewhere familiar.
- Even with offices in Lawrence, Overland Park and Topeka, regular trips are hard to sustain from Ottawa or rural Douglas and Jefferson counties.
- You have a partner, friend or family member who is steady, sober and willing to be present.
- You let go more easily in your own space than anywhere else.
- You want to keep a real therapist and a team you can meet in person, rather than switching to an app.
- You want lower costs and less time off work for ongoing sessions, without giving up medical oversight.
Is at-home ketamine therapy safe?
It can be reasonably safe for carefully selected people with strong safeguards, and it isn’t safe for everyone. Most of the risk comes less from the troche than from what’s missing at home: a trained person watching, a blood pressure reading, and a plan if something goes wrong.
The FDA’s October 2023 communication said compounded ketamine is not approved for any psychiatric disorder, and that home use without on-site monitoring for sedation, dissociation and vital signs may put patients at risk. It also flagged misuse, rising blood pressure, slowed breathing and bladder symptoms. A published case report describes an unintentional overdose involving a telehealth ketamine prescription.
Research on at-home sublingual ketamine is growing but early. Large real-world studies from telehealth providers report that many patients improved, but they had no control groups, lost many participants to follow-up, and were run by companies offering the treatment. A 2026 review rated the certainty of that evidence very low. We share these limits so you can decide with clear eyes.
How SomaVerse makes home sessions safer
Our at-home model follows the safeguards ASKP3 recommends, so the gaps the FDA worried about are filled by people and process.
ASKP3 advises supervised in-office sessions before any home dosing. We go further: home sessions are considered only after you’ve completed at least our main program in office and our medical team, led by Psychiatry & Ketamine Medical Director Angel Patterson-Tetuan, PMHNP-BC, approves continuing at home.
- Main program first: you complete at least our main program in office, so everyone knows how you respond
- Medical approval: our medical team reviews your history and how your in-office sessions went before approving home sessions
- Never alone: a sober adult sitter or a SomaVerse guide is present for the whole session
- Blood pressure check: you take and record a reading before dosing, and skip the session if it’s above your provider’s limit
- Medical check-in after every dose: our medical provider follows up each time
- Small quantities: only enough troches to reach your next check-in
- Safe storage: troches stay locked away, out of reach of anyone else
- No driving, caregiving or alcohol: for the rest of the day
Who sits with you: a sober adult or a SomaVerse guide
You don’t dose alone at home. Either a sober, responsible adult you trust stays with you, or a SomaVerse guide supports you through a 2-hour guide dosing session ($250).
A good sitter is calm, unhurried and willing to stay off their phone. They don’t need to do anything therapeutic. Their job is to be present, keep the space quiet, steady you if you need the bathroom, and call for help if something seems wrong. We’ll talk with you about what your sitter needs to know beforehand.
Some people prefer a trained guide, especially for early home sessions or harder material. A guide knows ketamine states well, can help you settle, and connects what surfaced to your integration plan. Ask your team how guide support works for your home; learn more about ketamine guides and coaching.
Setting up your space
A good home session needs a private, quiet room, a few hours with nothing else scheduled, and everything within reach before the troche goes in.
Choose a space where you won’t be interrupted: no children to care for, no pets needing you, the door closed. Recline with pillows and a blanket, eye shades, headphones and a playlist. Keep water, a bag or bowl in case of nausea, and a journal nearby.
Silence your phone but leave it with your sitter. Write your plan on paper: how to reach our team, what your sitter should watch for, and 911 for a medical emergency or 988 for a mental health crisis. SomaVerse is not an emergency service.
Local care, not just an app
National app-based programs made at-home ketamine widely available, and for some people they’re a reasonable choice. What they usually can’t offer is a team down the road.
With SomaVerse, the people guiding you, doing therapy with you and overseeing your care work from our Lawrence, Overland Park and Topeka offices, and they’re the same people who walked you through your main program. If a home session stirs up something hard, you can come into the office. If home stops being the right setting, you move back to in-office sessions without changing providers. Integration happens with a licensed, ketamine-trained therapist and in groups with other people from your area, not only through a screen.
We’ve written a fuller, fair-minded comparison in at-home ketamine apps vs. local care.
When home isn’t the right setting
Even if ketamine suits you, home may not. ASKP3 lists situations that call for extra caution with at-home use, and our medical team applies them, along with what we learn during your main program in office.
Hearing “not at home, at least for now” isn’t a rejection. It usually means we keep sessions in office while things settle, and revisit later.
- You haven’t yet completed at least our main program in office
- You don’t have a reliable, sober adult who can stay for the whole session
- An in-office session brought a sharp rise in blood pressure, heavy sedation or overwhelming distress
- You’re in an acute crisis or having active suicidal thoughts
- Heavy alcohol use, or someone in your home who might misuse medication
- You’re responsible for young children or dependents that day
Missouri residents: please ask first
Missouri residents dose in person at our Kansas offices. At-home sessions come only after completing the main program, and for people physically located in Missouri they also depend on Missouri’s prescribing and controlled-substance registration rules, so we don’t offer them by default. Ask us; we’ll tell you honestly what’s possible.
What is available now: Missouri residents can dose in office at any of our Kansas offices (Overland Park is closest to Kansas City), the medical evaluation can be in person or by secure video, and telehealth psychiatric care may be possible with our Missouri-licensed nurse practitioner. See ketamine therapy for Missouri residents.
