Transcript
This is my partner, Shira, getting a life-changing treatment for chronic pain and anxiety. It's called a stellate ganglion block, and not enough people know about it. And I don't use the term life-changing lightning. Four months ago, this treatment helped her go from barely managing to eat and work without collapsing, to being able to perform her music and exercise regularly for the first time in years. Let me explain it. Our nervous systems see-saw between the parasympathetic rest and digest mode and sympathetic, or fight or flight mode, depending on the situation. If a tiger is chasing us, we want to feel our chest pounding and our muscles tight and ready. But our bodies can't tell the difference between real tiger-level dangers and the daily stressors like an annoying boss or noisy traffic, leading us to stay too long in the fight-or-flight mode and causing problems. Shira's struggled with complicated health issues for years, and a key component of it has been her getting stuck in that fighter-flight mode. Feel nauseous in the air. This leaves her muscles tense, it disrupts her sleep and digestion, and even small stressors can cause weakness, nausea, anxiety, and burning nerve pain up and down her body. Even loud noises have caused her to literally collapse on the floor, overwhelmed by pain and stress. Last year, I learned about the Stellate Ganglion Block, a procedure where a doctor goes and takes a local anesthetic and injects it into a nerve cluster in the neck called the Stelic Gangley, system. Initially, I thought it was a new treatment, because I'd never heard of it before, but my research showed that it was actually in use since 1925 to treat chronic pain, and then after World War II, it was used a lot in soldiers to treat PTSD and anxiety. Since then, there have been hundreds of studies showing how it can be used to treat all sorts of neurologically based pain and mood disorder. So we started looking for where she could get it in New York and ended up finding this cool clinic called Hudson Mind. We went in for a consult, and the doctor confirmed that Shira was a perfect candidate, First, they gave her anesthesia to partially knock her out. Her veins were hiding at first. And then the dock came in. There he is. How you feeling? Okay. There is. Okay. There is. Interested. Okay. Okay. Hello. Hello. Okay. You need a good tumor and back. These days, the good clinics use ultrasound to very precisely guide the needle and ensure that it goes to the exact exact. right spot, minimizing the risk of complications. The whole process took five minutes. Why didn't I was awake? No, actually, like, I don't know. I have the whole thing on video, you can take a look at it. My eyes were open. Two days later, she signed up for a yoga studio and started exercising regularly for the first time in years. Before the block, she was collapsing, at least once per day. Afterwards, she went more than two months without a single collapse. It's not a cure, but it allows for increased function in a way that allows her to just build her body up and strengthen it, finally. In the last month, it started wearing off a bit, which is normal because the research shows there's a lot of individual variability there, but we're going to go and get another one ASAP. And subsequent ones may last longer. It took us so many years before finding this as an option, and it has helped more than anything else that we have tried. So, If you guys have any questions for me or for Shira, let me know down below.
Additional notes
Posting this was hard for both of us, but i hope that it might lead to helping someone in a similar situation. (In case anyone is wondering, we ended up having to pay out of pocket, but apparently some insirance plans will cover it for certain conditions) Thank you to @Jonathann Kuo MD for being kind and supportive throughout this scary process! And for his stable hands 😉 And also to @Shira Bouskila for putting up with me and my need to share things with you guys 😊 #health #science #chronicpain #anxiety #stellateganglionblock
References
- Original source notes.
- Stellate Ganglion Blocks - StatPearls.
- Stellate ganglion block overview/source.
- Safety and Patient Acceptability of Stellate Ganglion Blockade as a Treatment Adjunct for Combat-Related PTSD - 2015.
- Effect of Stellate Ganglion Block Treatment on PTSD Symptoms: A Randomized Clinical Trial - 2019.
- Stellate Ganglion Block Reduces Anxiety Symptoms by Half: A Case Series of 285 Patients - 2023.
- Ultrasound-guided block pain source.
- Post-operative pain meta-analysis/source.