Helping those who others can’t is Dr. Tomer Levin’s specialty. Now he is expanding his Great Neck practice to Mineola so he can support even more people through their mental health treatment, recovery and remission.
When people have “hard-to-treat” depression, anxiety and OCD, it generally means they’ve tried a few typical treatments with no luck. That’s where Levin steps in. He offers less widely used, state-of-the-art treatments for mental health issues, including transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, and ketamine therapy, alongside cognitive behavioral talk therapy and divorce counseling.
“The science is our friend,” he said. “It’s really exciting.”
His new Mineola office provides him with more space, allowing him to dedicate entire treatment rooms specifically to TMS, which involves a series of sessions where a gentle magnetic field is applied via a small, wand-like machine to specific regions of a person’s head to promote neuronal plasticity and connectivity in brain areas “responsible” for depression, anxiety and OCD.
TMS is a medication-free, painless treatment option that Levin offers in three different protocols: A standard, six-week treatment where a person comes in daily for one 30-minute session, a five-day treatment where patients receive ten sessions a day, and a one-day treatment where patients receive 20 sessions over the course of the day.
“TMS gives people a very good rate of remission,” Levin said. Data shows 70% of patients who try it can expect improvement in their symptoms, while 30% to 50% can expect a complete recovery.
The new, larger space also allowed Levin to dedicate full rooms to intravenous ketamine treatments, which involve IV infusions of ketamine over a 40-minute period under close medical watch in his office. It has been shown to be a “rapidly effective” treatment for those with treatment-resistant depression, with some patients reporting feeling symptom improvement within hours.
“This is for people who are depressed or suicidal. It’s a way of avoiding hospital admission. It’s all about saving lives, Levin said. “With ketamine, you can potentially decrease the intensity of suicidal thoughts and prevent suicide attempts.”
His practice also offers ketamine treatment via a nasal spray, though it’s been shown the infusions allow for faster relief from symptoms.
Levin emphasized that these specialized treatments work best when done in conjunction with talk therapy, specifically the cognitive behavioral therapy he offers in his office.
“I don’t believe in just giving patients medications or treatments. You have to address the issues that brought them here,” Levin said. “Cognitive behavioral therapy is evidence-based and a really good starting point for getting better. Depression often comes out of the blue. CBT helps you work through the negative thoughts and gives you the tools you need.”
He offers patients available sessions with him or helps them find an outside therapist to work with.
For Levin, psychiatry is personal: he was motivated to move into the field after watching his grandmother struggle with depression and experiencing first-hand the personal and intergenerational suffering the condition causes..
“The first person that I encountered who was depressed was my grandmother, and so I’m acutely aware of how depression can ripple through a family,” Levin said. “That was one of the reasons why I vowed to do this: to figure out things faster, more efficiently and use all the tools that are available.”
“Suicide is just so, so tragic,” he continued. “It’s heartbreaking…and affects so many different people, and it’s unnecessary because we can help to deal with the problem.”
Levin offers a range of other high-tech treatments, including vagal nerve stimulation and genetic testing to determine which type of medication might work best for a patient.
And, all of that work pays off, Levin said: he takes great pride in being able to ring the remission bell he has hanging in his front office when patients overcome their depression, anxiety or OCD.
“We rang the remission bell twice last week,” he said. “It was wonderful. We were able to turn around the suffering and get them to a better place and point them in a better direction.”
Levin welcomes the community to his 300 Old Country Road, Suite 351 office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
