How long do I need to fast before a ketamine infusion?

Most ketamine clinics follow the American Society of Anesthesiologists framework: roughly six hours after a light meal and about two hours after clear liquids before procedural sedation. Confirm the exact window with your clinic, since some protocols are stricter or more lenient based on the infusion dose and your medical history.

Can I drink coffee the morning of my infusion?

Usually a small amount of black coffee is acceptable inside the clear-liquid window, since black coffee is considered a clear liquid by anesthesia standards. Skip cream and milk, which count as solids and reset the fasting clock. Always confirm with your clinic, especially if you take medications with caffeine restrictions.

What helps with nausea during or after a ketamine session?

Pre-medication with an antiemetic such as ondansetron is the most reliable tool, and it is standard at most clinics. Eating a light, gentle meal in the hour after the infusion, sipping water slowly, and using ginger tea or ginger chews can also help. A 2018 systematic review in Lancet Psychiatry identified nausea as among the most common transient side effects of ketamine, which is why proactive prevention works better than reactive treatment.

What should I eat right after a ketamine infusion?

Stick to something gentle and easy to digest: broth, toast, plain crackers, scrambled eggs, fruit, yogurt, or a small bowl of soup. Avoid heavy, greasy, or very rich meals for the rest of the day. Hydration matters as much as food. Slow sips of water or an electrolyte drink help your body settle after the infusion.

Should I take my regular medications the morning of an infusion?

In most cases, yes. Routine prescription medications can usually be taken with a small sip of water inside the fasting window. Do not stop or change anything without talking to your prescribing provider and your ketamine clinician. Bring an updated medication list to your consultation so the team can flag anything that needs adjustment.

What to Eat Before and After a Ketamine Infusion

Why food matters for a ketamine session

Ketamine infusions are conducted under sedation, even at the lower doses used for psychiatric and pain indications. Sedation slows down stomach emptying and reduces the airway reflexes that normally protect you from inhaling stomach contents. That is the medical reason fasting matters before any sedated procedure, and it is the reason ketamine clinics ask the same questions an anesthesiologist would.

The other reason food matters is more practical: nausea is the single most common short-term side effect of an infusion. A 2018 systematic review published in Lancet Psychiatry by Short and colleagues looked at the side-effect profile of ketamine for depression across multiple trials and identified nausea as one of the most frequently reported transient adverse events. The good news is that nausea responds well to preparation. The wrong meal at the wrong time can trigger it. The right combination of an empty-but-not-starved stomach, pre-medication, and gentle post-session food can almost always prevent it.

Ketamine is FDA-approved as an anesthetic; its use for depression, anxiety, PTSD, and chronic pain is off-label. Even so, the clinics doing this work have largely converged on the same procedural standards used in any sedation setting, including how patients prepare with food and water.

The night before: hydration and a light dinner

Begin preparing the day before, not the morning of. Drink water steadily through the day. Aim for pale, lemonade-colored urine by evening. Dehydration before a ketamine session makes IV placement harder, increases the chance of light-headedness afterward, and can amplify nausea.

For dinner the night before, choose something balanced and easy on the stomach. A grilled chicken breast with rice and vegetables. Salmon and sweet potato. A bowl of soup with bread. The point is to go to bed satisfied but not stuffed. Heavy, greasy, or very spicy meals the night before can carry over into the next morning and make nausea worse.

Avoid alcohol the day before and the day of your session. Alcohol is dehydrating, interacts with the central nervous system in ways that can stack unpredictably with ketamine, and can worsen post-infusion grogginess. This is one of the most consistent rules across reputable infusion programs. If you regularly use cannabis or other substances, be candid with your clinic during the consultation. They are not there to judge; they need the information to dose you safely.

The morning of: fasting windows explained

The American Society of Anesthesiologists publishes the framework that most ketamine clinics adapt. Their Practice Guidelines for Preoperative Fasting, updated in 2023, recommend approximately six hours of fasting after a light meal and approximately two hours after clear liquids before procedural sedation. That is the working standard at most well-run infusion clinics, including ours.

Translated into a real-world morning, that usually looks like this:

Solid food cutoff: about six hours before your appointment. A 1:00 p.m. session means no solid food after roughly 7:00 a.m. A 9:00 a.m. session means finishing any solids the night before.
Clear-liquid cutoff: about two hours before your appointment. Up until that two-hour mark, water, black coffee, plain tea, apple juice, and clear electrolyte drinks are generally fine.
Nothing by mouth in the final two hours—not even a sip of water—unless your clinician has specifically told you otherwise for a routine medication.

The American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists & Practitioners (ASKP3) publishes best-practice guidance that aligns with this approach. ASKP3 recommends a defined pre-infusion fasting window combined with proactive antiemetic protocols to reduce procedure-related nausea. In practice, that means most clinics give an antiemetic such as ondansetron a few minutes before the infusion starts, regardless of whether the patient feels queasy.

Confirm the exact numbers with your clinic. Some programs are slightly stricter, especially for higher-dose pain protocols. We will tell you the windows during pre-session intake.

Clear liquids, coffee, and routine medications

The phrase “clear liquids” trips up many first-time patients. In anesthesia language, a clear liquid is one you can see through. Water, black coffee without cream, plain black tea, clear broth, apple juice, white grape juice, and sports drinks like Gatorade are all clear liquids. Anything with milk, cream, pulp, or solid bits is treated as a solid and resets your six-hour fasting clock.

If you are a regular coffee drinker, a small black coffee is usually fine inside the clear-liquid window. Skipping it cold turkey can trigger a caffeine-withdrawal headache that gets blamed on the infusion. Do skip the cream, oat milk, sugary syrups, and protein shakes. Save those for after.

Routine prescription medications can almost always be taken with a small sip of water inside the fasting window. That includes thyroid medication, blood pressure medication, antidepressants, and most others. The two categories worth flagging in advance are diabetes medications, which sometimes need timing adjustments to match a fasted state, and certain stimulants. Bring a current medication list to your consultation, and never stop or change anything without talking to the prescribing provider. Our team will review the list with you and flag anything that needs special handling.

Right after: what to eat in the first hour

Immediately after the infusion, most patients spend a recovery period at the clinic before going home with their driver. During that window, plain water in slow sips is the right move. Cold water can occasionally trigger a wave of nausea in someone whose stomach is still settling, so room-temperature is often easier.

For the first meal, aim for something gentle, hydrating, and easy to digest. Good options include:

Broth-based soup or a clear chicken soup
Plain toast or crackers
Scrambled or soft-boiled eggs
Bananas, applesauce, or melon
Plain yogurt
A small bowl of oatmeal

The goal is calories and fluid without overwhelming a system that has just been sedated. Many patients describe their appetite as muted for an hour or two after the infusion and then returning to normal. Eat when you are hungry, not because you feel you should. Skip the heavy lunch even if you are tempted to make up for the morning’s fast.

For more on the broader recovery window, our guide to the hours and days after a ketamine session walks through what to expect physically and emotionally.

The rest of the day: nausea management and what to avoid

If nausea does show up, it usually responds quickly to a few simple steps:

Stay still. Lie down with your head slightly elevated. Avoid screens for the first hour.
Sip slowly. Small, frequent sips of water or an electrolyte drink. Avoid chugging.
Use ginger. Ginger tea, ginger chews, or candied ginger have decent evidence for procedure-related nausea and are easy on the stomach.
Use the antiemetic you were given. If the clinic sent you home with a follow-up dose of ondansetron or a similar medication, take it as directed.

For the rest of the day, treat your body the way you would the day after a minor outpatient procedure. Skip the heavy, greasy, or extremely spicy meals. Skip alcohol entirely—both because it interacts with residual ketamine and because it interferes with the post-infusion neuroplastic window. Skip strenuous exercise. Drink consistently. A second light meal in the early evening—something like grilled fish and rice, or a sandwich with broth—is usually well tolerated.

If this is your first session and you want a clearer mental picture of how the day flows, our walkthrough of what to expect at a first ketamine infusion covers the full sequence from arrival to discharge.

Common myths about food and ketamine

A few persistent ideas circulate online that are worth correcting.

You do not need to follow a special diet for weeks before or after. There is no evidence that ketogenic, anti-inflammatory, fasting-mimicking, or other specialty diets improve ketamine outcomes for depression, anxiety, or pain. Eat the way you normally eat, prioritize whole foods if you can, and follow the clinical fasting window. That is what the data supports.

You do not need to fast for 12 hours. Excessive fasting can actually worsen nausea by leaving your stomach too empty and your blood sugar too low. The ASA guideline of roughly six hours from solids and two hours from clear liquids is the evidence-based window, not an arbitrarily long one.

Supplements are not a substitute for clinical preparation. Some patients ask about magnesium, NAC, omega-3s, or psychedelic-adjacent supplements before a session. Talk to your prescribing provider before starting anything new in the days around an infusion. Most are fine; a few interact with anesthesia or with ketamine itself, and your clinical team needs to know what you are taking.

The simple version, in one paragraph: hydrate the day before, eat a normal dinner, finish solids about six hours before your appointment, sip clear liquids up to two hours before, take routine medications with a small sip of water, and plan a gentle meal for after. Our how-it-works overview and general FAQ cover the rest of the logistics. If anything in your situation feels uncertain, call the clinic. We would rather answer a question the night before than have you guess.