News SGB PTSD Treatment Article

[anthony]

You are heading down a purely biological road though ikop, and that is not factual. PTSD was initially thought to be purely psychological, though with science and medical developments, they discovered it was a combination of psychological which invoked a biological reaction. Think of it like, exposing yourself to the sun can create a biological reaction to form skin cancer. By treating only the biological reaction, which is what SGB does, the psychological component is still present... hence where science and medicine are currently a little concerned, because trauma doesn't just go away from the brain, even though you treat the symptoms, being the biological component with SGB.

This is where the issue lay. They fear people will get SGB, then think everything is ok, do nothing with their trauma, and the problem then stems that you will require ongoing SGB treatment for life, as each shot is unknown for term effect on an individual basis, then the big one, the brain can and does over-power third party entities of treatment if still unstable, hence how medication over time, your body develops an immunity to it. The brain could become more damaged by this treatment, as it treats the symptoms, not the cause, over time.

These are the unknowns to SGB which the mental health industry is concerned about primarily, as are physicians medically, as even they know the outcome of treating symptoms vs. the cause. Usually it doesn't end well for the patient all of the time, or comes with a side effect later in life. Dr Lipov himself admits these unknowns, and even admits he is unsure exactly how this works, and he is only taking estimates and best guesses right now on how its working vs. actually what it is doing.

It is excellent progress, yet still needs more work for overall patient safety.

 

[ikop]

anthony . i wish i could find this article found a month ago , but i cannot find it right now.
but any way , they were talking about a Vietnam veteran with severe ptsd who had stroke in his 50's i thinks .
This man actually forgot about his trauma from the were , denied any avoidance from that experience but he was still suffering from startle responses , fear of crowds ,public, insomnia , anxiety .

like i understand ,
the psychological component, is the trauma itself ,
but as you know , there are people with severe traumas from lets say sexual abuse from the time the were kids , they may have big issues, the may have fears , dreams about the abuse , and psychological problems . But it does not say they have post traumatic stress . because ptsd happens because of the chemical imbalance like you said many times .

 

[anthony]

SGB doesn't treat that imbalance though, another aspect of the treatment.

One aspect they aren't sure about yet, though are hoping may prove, is that with this temporary treatment, the brain heals itself from the actual imbalance, as it is proven now that the brain does regenerate neurons, etc... so something which is unknown to them, is that if removing the symptoms, which are a method of constant retraumatization, then the brain may infact heal itself, regardless the memory still having the trauma.

Lots of unknowns, but I certainly have my fingers crossed this comes through as a possible cure, even the closet thing to a cure we have ever seen.

 

[freakofnurture]

Can you please disclose where it says this can be used outside of c6 for PTSD please? Would like to read.

I thought I read that in the articles quoted here in the thread *scratches head*
But according to ikop's post right under yours it seems to be the case that C7 works fine for PTSD, too. So, if I was imagining things, I was imagining them correctly :)

Ptsd is not a psychological condition compared to just trauma (but not ptsd) . ... the reason is the chimical, structural and functional changes happened in your brain because of what happened to you (us).

I might be persuaded to agree with you in cases where PTSD is developed due to a singular event. But if a patient has a long - or even life-long - history of repeated trauma I feel a merely biological (as opposed to psychotherapeutical) approach wouldn't do the problem justice.

EDIT: I'll be the first to party and dance, though, if a mere injection turns out to be the cure for all shapes and forms of PTSD :)

 

[anthony]

Yes, iKop provided a response here from a question asked, which caters only the c6 & c7 for PTSD, c6 being the safest, though others obviously do not work.

 

[ikop]

it would be interesting to hear from those people treated back in 2008 , to learn what was their course .
I know that one soldier named jason brown is living very good for 3 years now after his 2 injection ( at least from what dr lipov said )
from the articles i found (and i did very obsessive research on that ) there are couple of people who got the shot in 2007 , and 2008 (except of jason ) like amy little, 23 years old woman :

"Little and a friend were approached by two men who tried to force the pair into a car at gunpoint. Little's companion was struck in the head when he refused. Luckily, a passing squad car scared off the men.
But the attempt left Little, now 23, with extreme anxiety. Routine encounters with men who had similar physical attributes as those would-be robbers gave her panic attacks, and irrational fear paralyzed her"

"in October 2007, she went to see Dr. Eugene Lipov and got a shot in the neck. Lipov, medical director at Advanced Pain Centers in Hoffman Estates, injected a local anesthetic called bupivacaine, more commonly used as an epidural anesthetic during childbirth, next to the so-called sympathetic nervous tissue, which induces the body's "fight or flight" response. Since then, Little's anxiety has dropped significantly, and she has been accepted to nursing school, which she will start in the fall.
"It's a completely different feeling when you can actually control your own life again," said Little, who received additional shots in December 2007 and December 2008 but said she has not needed one since"

the article is from april 2010 .

so we see here that the first shoot lasted for 2 month , the second for a year and the third for a year and five months (at least )

 

[Powder]

Since it is basically like getting an edidural but not directly and into the C6/C7 and to the right of the vertebrae, I wonder if they could do some reseach using already completed data. For example, women are getting epidurals at my local hospital at a rate of about 10 per day. That's a lot of women, and that's just for babies. Imagine if those women were polled. Imagine if all of the women with diagnoses of PTSD received one or more edidurals and found that their PTSD symptoms and anxiety lessened after each one. Not gone, just lessened. It would lend the Dr. a huge test based to look at the effects of simply interfering with nerve impulses up and down the entire spinal cord. Obviously, there might be no clinical effect or even correlation.

 

[Kim A4]

Hi. I am new to the forum, but a week ago, I convinced my pain doctor to give me a nerve block injection called a Stellate Ganglion Block. I qualified for one anyhow, due to years of chronic pain, as most of us have (I have had Complex PTSD since childhood) and I had plenty of chronic upper body aches that this block is typically and commonly used for. It is a safe 10 minute outpatient procedure and has been used since the 1920's.

Last year, a doctor in Chicago named Eugene Lipov, working at Walter Reed Army Hospital, has discovered that this block, done at the C6 vertebra, on the right side of the neck, can stop the effects of PTSD altogether. I can testify that as one who received this block a week ago, that my PTSD symptoms have almost completely been lifted.

The morning after the injection, I felt like an exhausted bird that had been airborne for 46 years that had finally been given the "OK" to touch down and rest. It is a miracle. Pain is also greatly diminished all over, as the adrenaline stress factor that amplifies pain is now gone.

I have been through 25 years of all sorts of therapies and meds, and this is like nothing else. It is like the PTSD switch was turned off.

I suggest you Google PTSD and Stellate Ganglion Block or SGB and you will see all the press about this new technique.

I have written my local Senator, Congressman and President Obama to encourage testing and funding.....as Obama is also trying desperately to get the Pentagon to fund this amazing technique for all the dear soldiers that can be helped, perhaps literally within minutes. There are also Youtube videos of at least one soldier before, during and after the technique.

It is no substitute for some other therapies, but I am now wholly convinced that my life-long "fight or flight" state was corrected with this injection, which, in essence, prunes back the excess adrenaline-producing neurons created by trauma, and that cause the snow-ball effect of anxiety with PTSD symptoms. No telling if it is permanent or not yet, but I am so happy to have found anything at all that can help this much. Thanks!

Kim

 

[amethist]

Hi Kim

Welcome to the forum

We are already aware of this treatment, though there is no poof it last as yet. Check out the thread linked below where you will find all information that is available for this at the moment.

[DLMURL="http://www.ptsdforum.org/c/threads/sgb-ptsd-treatment-article.11417/"]http://www.ptsdforum.org/c/threads/sgb-ptsd-treatment-article.11417/[/DLMURL]

Amethist

 

[Kim A4]

I am in Connecticut and had the SGB shot a week ago... and I am a new person. For those of you who feel that that shot is not available in your area, it absolutely is, as any pain management/anesthesiology practice performs this procedure all the time. Many people with regional pain syndromes get up to ten of these shots in a series as a common treatment or diagnostic tool. The trick is to meet with an open-minded doctor and ask if he is willing to help. If you have to pay for it out of pocket, then so be it, it should not be more than $800-$1000, which I can tell you was well worth it so far. I did the same thing with my pain doc......and it was coincidentally justified for my insurance due to long term neck and shoulder pain I have had for years. He was unaware of the use for PTSD, but willing to consider it and thankfully willing to oblige. I brought him the PTSD articles I had found on the Web as well. I will see him later this week and ask how he wants to handle subsequent injections, if needed. I will be fine paying for them out of pocket and will find out the costs. Right now, the oddest thing is still coming to terms with a sense of relaxation I have literally never had in my life.

I will remain positive about the duration of the effects and can understand all the skepticism on this site, but if you read the medical reports by Dr. Lipov and understand how the injection can "prune" and "reset" adrenaline producing neurons, then there is tremendous hope that the effects can be permanent, indeed. As a sufferer of Complex PTSD, I was very skeptical about the injection with all the layers of trauma I have had, but very pleasantly surprised. One other poster tried to explain how this "resetting" effect is visible on a brain MRI, and the procedure makes medical sense. The fear of the injection itself is largely unnecessary...any skilled anesthesiologist, using a fluoroscope during the procedure, will inject at the right spot...and ask the doctor to hit just at the C6 vertebra, and to make sure it is on the right side of the neck. The procedure has been approved and used since the 1920's.
I was awake with light sedation, and the procedure itself took about 4 minutes. Getting me prepped on the table took most of the time involved. I had no droopy eye, no hoarse voice, just some soreness at the injection site and a small "halo" headache for about 24 hours, which was nothing compared to the unbounding sense of relief that kicked in immediately. I have approached all my state and federal politicians about considering more funding, at least at the VA level for this procedure. This can save taxpayers a huge pile of combat PTSD treatment money, no matter how you look at it.
After 25 years of literally all types of therapies and meds, and doing all I can do with PTSD specialists, I knew that whatever work remained for me was at the biological level, and this seems to absolutely prove to me that PTSD "fight or flight" symptoms are produced by physical alterations in the body that can be addressed and corrected, at least for some time, and maybe permanently. It is no substitute for other cognitive therapies, which are also important, but why suffer with physical symptoms needlessly?

 

[Kim A4]

Thank you. I have done a tremendous amount of research on this technique and have seen all the articles you site, plus many others. I am aware that there are no long term studies as of yet and am pressing government entities to fund more studies. I had the SGB procedure myself last week, and it is nothing short of a miracle so far, so I will prefer to stay positive and hope for the best. I have no problem going back for a booster if needed. I consider March 24, 2011 my new "birthday", as that was the day the injection gave me back my life as a calm and happy person.
Also, I erroneously started this thread before knowing that others were out there on the topic already.

 

[cherryblossom]

Hi Kim

I just wanted to welcome you to the forum (since I got distracted yesterday, and forgot to post to this thread, after I sent you a PC :oops:)

I'm so pleased to hear that the SGB procedure has worked miracles for you. I don't know much about it, but will be reading the article that Amethist has referred to. Keep us updated as to how you are doing, and as I said, welcome to the forum :)