The God Shot: The Controversial Procedure That Resets Trauma | Dr. Eugene Lipov

0:00 Your proposal is that trauma is a physical injury.

0:04 Which actually has a location in the body.

0:09 And just like a broken bone, that wound at that location can be fixed.

0:15 Now, if what you're saying is true,

0:17 it doesn't just change treatment, it changes how we understand human suffering.

0:22 Give us the big picture on this idea.

0:29 All psychiatric conditions or all psychological dysfunction is biological.

0:33 That's how I see it.

0:34 If it's biological, you should be able to diagnose it,

0:37 one, and treat it biologically.

0:39 The closest analogy I can make,

0:41 which kind of makes sense, I think, think of a computer.

0:44 So, it's malfunctioning.

0:46 So, if you have a chip malfunction,

0:49 you can put all the software you want to fix it, it won't work.

0:54 So, talk therapy is not going to work particularly well if you're hyped up.

0:58 If you fix the chip, now the patches will work.

1:02 So, part of what I was able to come up with is how to fix the chip.

1:06 Chip in this scenario is the brain.

1:09 So, if the brain is a problem, fix the brain, and then talk to the person.

1:15 Yeah, let's take that analogy a little bit further.

1:17 If the human body, just using the computer analogy, is there,

1:20 and you have a chip that has been malfunctioning,

1:24 if that chip is malfunctioning,

1:26 then all the improvements you try to make or the software updates,

1:29 they don't take place in some conditions if the chip is off.

1:32 Translate that to something like somebody who's dealing

1:36 with a really traumatic experience from the past.

1:40 What is the chip inside of their body?

1:42 So, if I may, I think what you were asking is what's PTSD?

1:47 And we'll talk about the term later, but let's say PTSD.

1:50 So, let me just walk you through the biology of it.

1:53 So, event happens, be military operation, being a sexual attack,

1:59 being whatever, it doesn't matter what it is.

2:01 It's irrelevant.

2:03 Something bad happens, two things happen.

2:05 Number one, your body produces something called norepinephrine.

2:08 Norepinephrine is a brother of adrenaline.

2:11 So, if you're standing in front of the bus that almost hits you,

2:15 you feel hyped up, you're hypervigilant,

2:17 you want to make sure the bus doesn't hit you.

2:19 But, if it's not bad enough, meaning you almost got hit,

2:23 but it was not a big of a deal, the next day you're okay.

2:26 Everything's gone.

2:27 Second thing that happens, if the event is bad enough,

2:31 let's say military trauma or other type of trauma,

2:34 or continuous bullying, I'm like, uh,

2:38 body produces comes something called NGF, nerve growth factor.

2:41 That's produced in the brain,

2:43 and it's carried from the brain to the stellate ganglion,

2:46 which is a nexus between fight or flight nerves in the chest and the brain.

2:51 A cluster of nerves.

2:52 Cluster of nerves.

2:53 So, once the NGF hits this ganglia, called nerve, uh, stellate ganglion,

3:00 the nerves that go from the stellate ganglion to the brain,

3:04 called sympathetic nerves, fight or flight nerves, start to sprout.

3:08 Technical term, basically, it looks like extra leaves.

3:13 So, let's say normally it's four nerves,

3:16 and now after this happened, NGF increased, you have now eight nerves.

3:20 Each nerve produces norepinephrine.

3:23 So, but it stays like that.

3:26 It could last like that 50, 60, 100 years.

3:29 As long as the NGF leaves in the ganglion, this extra nerves are there.

3:34 Too much norepinephrine gives you all the symptoms of PTSD.

3:38 Can't sleep, hypervigilance, sexual dysfunction, anxiety,

3:44 all of that, feeling of doom.

3:46 That's all too much norepinephrine.

3:48 In fact, there was a study done,

3:49 if you take the fluid around the brain, called CSF, cerebrospinal fluid,

3:54 norepinephrine level is twice as high in the fluid

3:59 in a person who has PTSD as opposed to somebody who doesn't.

4:03 So, that's that state can persist for a very long time.

4:08 So, too much norepinephrine, basically.

4:10 But, one of the questions people ask me is, "Why can't I just snap out of PTSD?

4:15 Like, one day I get up like, I'm not PTSD for me." Well,

4:19 you can't because your brain has been rewired.

4:21 So, the chip is broken.

4:23 Yeah, an actual physical rewiring.

4:26 Correct.

4:27 And that has been shown in rat experiments.

4:29 It actually happens.

4:31 It's not like this is just my guess.

4:33 So, the next level, once you understand

4:36 that, too much norepinephrine in the brain activates amygdala.

4:41 Amygdala is a part of the brain, it looks like almond.

4:44 It's kind of sits in the middle of the brain,

4:45 I can't really show you what it is.

4:47 And as long as that's active or overactive,

4:51 all the symptoms I described is going to continue.

4:54 What's interesting is if you have a brain scan

4:57 using functional MRI or advanced scanners like a PET scan,

5:00 you can actually see the overactivation of the amygdala.

5:03 So, when people tell me PTSD is invisible wound,

5:07 I heard that term in 2025, people still using it.

5:11 I think that's crazy.

5:12 You have the wrong scanner, you won't see it.

5:14 You got the right scanner, you can actually see PTSD.

5:17 So, it's biological, it's real, it exists.

5:20 So, people are not crazy, it's just a biological effect of severe trauma.

5:26 All it is.

5:27 Yeah.

5:28 So, just to make sure that our audience is with us, right?

5:30 The core idea here, which you also talk about in your new book,

5:34 we'll have the link in the show notes,

5:36 The God Shot, very strong title, we'll talk about the background.

5:39 yeah.

5:40 We'll talk about the background, it's one of the questions we'll get into.

5:42 You know, spoiler alert, I'm not God.

5:44 I'll tell you that right now.

5:46 So, to set the foundation of what we're talking about today,

5:49 traditional medicine, traditional psychiatry,

5:52 looks at trauma as a little bit more abstract.

5:57 It's a real thing, but it can be invisible

6:01 inside of the body in terms of where it exist,

6:04 and a lot of people think of it that way,

6:06 and they think of it as something that we just cope with.

6:09 We try to do our best using the tools that are available in the current toolbox.

6:14 To lifestyle.

6:15 Lifestyle.

6:16 And your vision and your theory and your proposal

6:18 here today that you're putting out in your clinical

6:20 experience through all these patients that you've worked

6:23 with is that trauma is a physical injury, which actually has a location,

6:29 and just like a broken bone, that wound can be fixed.

6:33 And you talked about it kind of quickly,

6:35 but we'll just touch on it to make sure that everybody's on the same page.

6:38 It's the stellate ganglion, that cluster of nerves that are there,

6:43 that's part of this, again,

6:45 just reducing this down to make sure the basics are there.

6:49 Of course, of course.

6:50 This connection between the brain and the chemicals that are being produced,

6:55 this cluster of nerves and the amygdala have

6:57 this relationship when this cluster of nerves sprouts,

7:01 so to speak, and stays on forever,

7:03 you are stuck in this loop of trauma that you can't

7:07 shake out because physically your body has actually changed from this trauma.

7:14 Am I understanding that correctly?

7:15 If I may, I'd like to add one more thing.

7:17 Please.

7:18 So, fight or flight system, sympathetic nervous system,

7:23 starts in the brain, goes down the spinal cord,

7:25 comes out in the chest, thoracic spine, and goes up to stellate ganglion.

7:30 Stellate ganglion is a nexus between fight or flight nerves and the brain.

7:36 So, once stellate ganglion is activated by those NGF thing we're talking about,

7:43 there's actual rewiring of the brain,

7:45 there's a increased number of fight or flight nerves, sympathetic nerves.

7:50 That's the key.

7:51 That is a whole key to this, to understand what trauma truly does to the brain.

7:57 There's a lot there about trauma.

7:58 Before we go into it and how it can actually be passed down biologically,

8:04 even in addition to the experiences and life experiences that somebody had.

8:09 Right.

8:09 You've had many yourself.

8:11 We'll get into that in your story.

8:13 I think it's important to for people

8:15 to understand that this is something that you

8:19 accidentally came upon based on an existing

8:23 treatment for women who are going through menopause.

8:27 Can we set that backstory that's there?

8:29 You want me to tell you how it all happened?

8:30 Yeah.

8:30 Sure.

8:31 So, I had a patient who was about, I think, 50, and she had severe hot flashes.

8:38 Uh, she also had neck pain, I took care of her neck pain.

8:40 So, she said, "I also have hot flashes." I said, "I don't do hot flashes,

8:43 that's not my thing." I sent her to my brother,

8:46 who is a really brilliant physician.

8:48 He tried to treat the hot flashes using conventional methods,

8:52 whatever those were.

8:53 Everything failed.

8:54 So, he said, "You do this procedure for hand sweats,

8:59 and then this is the whole body sweating.

9:02 So, the block should work for that." I was like,

9:05 "No, it won't work." He goes, "How do you know?

9:07 Nobody's done it." He says, "Yeah,

9:08 try it." I did it, and poof, hot flashes went away.

9:12 She was able to sleep through the night first time in the last, uh, 15 years.

9:18 She had severe hot flashes.

9:19 That's kind of how it started.

9:21 Then I kept treating it, and I kept getting really good results.

9:24 So, then Chicago Tribune came by to interview me about it,

9:28 and I thought it would be another lovely discussion.

9:32 And it was a hit piece.

9:34 And the way they did it, like, the first line,

9:36 I knew I was in trouble when I read this line.

9:38 It said, "Bianca Kennedy, this beautiful breast cancer survivor, 34 years old,

9:44 was so desperate to get rid of hot flashes, she'll let Dr.

9:47 Lipov plunge a strange needle in her neck." Mhm.

9:51 It went downhill from there.

9:52 They went to Northwestern, where I went to medical school,

9:55 and they interviewed chief of Gunny College and he said that's totally terrible.

10:00 Shouldn't do it.

10:00 That's bad.

10:02 Yes, it's working, but you don't know how it works.

10:03 It's garbage.

10:05 And it got worse.

10:07 So, the main concern was that it was working,

10:10 but they said you don't know how it works.

10:12 So, go away.

10:15 So, I got a little upset by that.

10:16 I read about 3,000 articles and I read article in Finland where they

10:20 were trying to treat hand sweats by putting a clip in the chest here.

10:25 Fight or flight nerves we're talking about.

10:27 They found hand sweats went away and PTSD went away and anxiety went away.

10:33 So, I read that I was like, why would that possibly happen?

10:35 Cuz I don't understand that.

10:37 So, then I looked at the anatomy and turns out those nerves

10:41 in the chest go up to the neck and up to the brain.

10:44 Once I figured that out, I called up my brother.

10:46 I said, send me a PTSD patient and we'll treat him.

10:50 We did that and he was on way to be admitted to psychiatric ward.

10:55 His PTSD went away and we sit today talking about it.

10:59 Yeah.

11:00 And so, just unpack a little bit of that.

11:02 Your background is in anesthesiology.

11:05 Yes.

11:05 Right?

11:06 And so, when you talk about treating

11:08 it and we're talking about these nerve clusters,

11:11 explain to our audience of what did that look like?

11:14 You know, you've mentioned her neck,

11:16 you've mentioned treating it, but just paint a picture.

11:19 actually?

11:20 Yeah, paint a picture since we're just

11:21 at the beginning part of this conversation.

11:22 Well, I started as anesthesia.

11:24 Well, first I started as a trauma surgeon.

11:26 Then my mother took her life in my first year, so I left that.

11:30 I went to anesthesia.

11:32 Then I did pain medicine.

11:33 So, as a pain medicine, our job is to numb up various nerves

11:37 to take care of pain and treat pain conditions basically.

11:41 So, stellate ganglion block the first one I did.

11:43 So, basically numbing up the cluster we're talking about.

11:47 The first one I did was 1987.

11:50 Uh so, the way it works physically is we have a patient lying on a table,

11:55 clean up the neck, numb up the skin.

11:57 Now, we use ultrasound which is better than what we used to use before.

12:01 And then we put a needle and I'm plunging needles.

12:05 Pretty short amount of distance.

12:07 You what you need to do is go through the skin

12:10 and numb up the nerves in the neck under ultrasound guidance.

12:14 You put in some local anesthetic just like going to a dentist,

12:17 except we're numbing up this particular cluster of nerves.

12:22 And there's no other drugs but the local anesthetic in that.

12:24 That's That's how it works.

12:26 So, people are getting a shot in their neck as their anesthesiologist

12:29 using ultrasound to guide and that procedure is called the SGB.

12:35 It's the block for that nerve clusters that are there.

12:39 And when that block happens, is it correct for us to understand that you

12:43 see that as putting healing or, you know,

12:47 putting a cast almost around a broken bone.

12:50 What's the what's a physical analogy that you would describe it as?

12:54 The part of it that is when I talk about broken bone

12:57 analogy is like you can diagnose a broken bone, take an X-ray.

13:01 And you can put a cast on and fix it.

13:02 So, it's a biological physical fixing it.

13:06 The closest analogy is a computer reboot.

13:09 When your computer is not working right,

13:10 what do you first thing you do is control all delete.

13:12 You rebooting it.

13:14 So, if you can turn off the computer, when it comes back, it works better.

13:19 This is the same thing.

13:20 When I put it to sleep for 8 hours,

13:23 and you can talk about what actually happens biologically,

13:26 but it resets at two pre-trauma state.

13:29 So, block that last 8 hours, the anesthetic last 8 hours.

13:34 The longest outlier is 17 years.

13:36 So, it can last much longer.

13:37 So, when it's reset, is that sprouting process uh now condensing?

13:45 Explain physiologically what's happening with those clusters

13:50 that's part of that reset.

13:52 You already have the background, so you understand that.

13:54 We are in the phase where somebody has PTSD.

13:57 So, instead of four nerves, now you got eight.

14:00 Each one of those produce norepinephrine.

14:02 So, when I do the block,

14:04 when we numb up the nerves in the neck, two things happen.

14:08 Number one, norepinephrine drops like a rock.

14:12 So, a lot of times people go, "Oh my god,

14:14 they could first deep breath in last 20 years." It was always holding my chest.

14:19 Or I feel feeling of doom is gone.

14:22 We're talking about 5 10 minutes after the procedure.

14:26 The second thing that happens through very complicated mechanism

14:29 which I won't bore you with, it reduces NGF.

14:32 NGF is required to maintain those extra nerves that's in the brain.

14:36 So, when you take the NGF away, uh something called pruning occurs.

14:43 You know, somebody a scientist came up

14:44 with those terms must have been a gardener, right?

14:46 So, you go from eight back to four.

14:49 So, now a block that lasts again 8 hours,

14:54 since you're actually wiring the brain to what it should be

14:57 and not as much fight or flight nerves can function much better.

15:00 Talk to us about who seeks this procedure out as we're starting to set

15:08 the landscape for our audience and they're creating a mind map of okay,

15:14 I'm understanding a little bit of the background.

15:16 I'm understanding what's happening in this procedure.

15:19 I'm understanding what physiologically is going on inside the body.

15:24 Connect the dots.

15:25 You know, we talked about PTSD.

15:27 Who are some of the people that you've treated?

15:29 What are they dealing with?

15:30 That's two separate questions.

15:31 So, there is symptoms and the population that have them.

15:36 Right?

15:37 So, let's start with the symptoms.

15:39 And they're all the same.

15:40 So, to me, it doesn't matter where the trauma came from.

15:43 Bullying, military action, rape, it's the same.

15:47 The effect on the brain is the same.

15:48 So, it doesn't really matter.

15:50 The symptoms of PTSD are pretty universal.

15:53 No matter what cause of the trauma was.

15:57 So, most people think of PTSD is a military related issue.

16:01 Turns out that's not true.

16:04 Most of people have PTSD are women who are abused by factors of magnitude.

16:11 So, we treat men, women, children.

16:14 We go as young as 8 years of age.

16:17 There's no difference.

16:18 If somebody has trauma and they have symptoms of PTSD,

16:21 fight or flight nervous system is overactive, we can reset it.

16:25 You've worked with veterans, special forces, Canadian military members,

16:31 United States military members in addition to lay

16:34 population of people that come and seek you out.

16:37 I had a uh podcast listener, Glenn,

16:40 who was the person that told me about your work

16:42 and sent me some of the clips that were there.

16:44 And I spoke to a few people whose family members have gotten

16:49 the treatment to understand the difference that it made in their life.

16:52 You've worked with people who were literally on the verge

16:54 of telling you that they're about to commit suicide.

16:57 I think actually be good to tell at least one of these stories right now.

17:00 There's a very notable story about a sniper from the military

17:05 who sought you out and begged you for this treatment.

17:08 Can you talk about that story?

17:10 Yeah, it was it was a pretty stressful story for me.

17:16 Uh now, so this gentleman was he was a sniper.

17:21 I took care of his back.

17:22 So, he came back um a year later and I said, "Is your back hurting?" He said,

17:29 "My back my back is great, but I'm suicidal." Like,

17:33 I I'm going to take my life unless you fix me.

17:36 I was like, his wife and he both come in.

17:38 They're both crying.

17:40 He was a sniper for the Marines.

17:42 And I said, you know, I you should be in a hospital.

17:46 I I don't and I still do not encourage people to do that to me.

17:49 That that was really problematic in many fronts.

17:52 Somebody who's like actively suicidal,

17:54 we prefer not take care of that group because we

17:57 need to calm people down and then we treat them.

17:59 With that preface, so he came in.

18:02 He said, "I'm suicidal." So, I said, "Sorry,

18:05 I can't take care of you." He said, "Well, too bad.

18:07 You have to take care of me." So, he kind of put me in an interesting position.

18:13 Anyway, so I took him to the operating room.

18:15 I did the procedure on him.

18:17 And um he goes, "I'm still thinking about doing the same thing." So,

18:26 this was like So, 40 minutes later, I did the second part of the procedure.

18:30 So, we did two level procedures called DSR, dual sympathetic reset.

18:36 So, we take him back to the operating room.

18:37 I did the procedure on him.

18:38 On the way out, 5 minutes later, he said, "Doc, I feel great.

18:42 I don't feel suicidal." Gave me a high five.

18:44 The following 5 years, he did great.

18:46 Cuz it happens like that.

18:48 The thing that's great about this procedure, the compliance is very high.

18:52 Meaning, if you're on if you're with me, I'm going to do the procedure,

18:57 your symptoms goes away about 80% of the time.

19:00 Rapidly.

19:02 You don't have to keep taking the pills or wait for 6 months.

19:05 When you're suicidal, you don't have that time or the interest, right?

19:10 Cuz people are miserable.

19:12 In fact, there's a lot of papers written

19:15 that suicide is associated inflammation of the brain.

19:17 So, your brain's on fire.

19:19 You feel terrible.

19:20 You need to do something now.

19:22 You don't have time to talk about it or think about it.

19:24 How long does that fix last for?

19:29 You've mentioned a couple things right now

19:31 that it works in your clinical experience

19:33 and your team's clinical experience is that it

19:35 works typically in 80% of the people.

19:37 So, it doesn't work for everybody.

19:38 We'll get back to that.

19:40 How long does this relief uh of the trauma last?

19:46 It's variable.

19:47 We don't know.

19:48 Everybody is different.

19:49 So, the first military man we treated we treated him 17 years ago.

19:55 Did a procedure then, he's still doing great.

19:57 It's pretty cool.

19:59 It depends on three things.

20:00 It depends on genetics, it depends what you do after the procedure,

20:04 and depends what happens to you.

20:06 For example, we took care of a Chicago policeman.

20:09 He was doing great for a year.

20:11 And then he was on the street, he had to kill somebody in the line of duty.

20:15 He came back to see me.

20:16 Mhm.

20:17 Right.

20:17 So, it depends.

20:19 So, the additional trauma reactivated.

20:22 It can, doesn't always.

20:23 A number of our special forces guys went

20:25 back to military action and they were okay.

20:28 In the case of the Chicago police officer, did he get the treatment again?

20:33 Yes.

20:33 And he got the relief again.

20:35 Yes.

20:35 Sorry to interrupt, but memory loss is on the rise

20:39 and that's why I've created a free guide that you can

20:41 get right now featuring the top brain-boosting foods that you can

20:46 include into your diet starting today to help you combat this.

20:51 I've worked with a few of my friends to feature

20:52 five foods in this free guide and guess what?

20:56 A couple of them will probably surprise you.

20:59 Make sure you're one of the people that focuses

21:01 on keeping your brain sharp by downloading this guide today.

21:05 Just click on the link below or scan the QR

21:07 code and I'll send you the guide right away.

21:10 Let's go into a little bit of the backstory,

21:13 your personal story which you write about in your book.

21:15 You have known trauma yourself starting from your early years in life.

21:22 Before I was born.

21:23 Before you even born.

21:25 Can you talk about that and how this touches on the themes of how trauma can

21:30 sometimes even be passed down biologically and sort

21:32 of these early life experiences that can shape people?

21:36 Anyway, so the whole concept that DNA can change with experience.

21:42 Not mutation of DNA, but you can turn the genes on and you can turn them off.

21:47 It's a fascinating concept.

21:48 It's called epigenetics transmission.

21:51 So, when somebody has trauma, you can transmit PTSD two, three generations.

21:58 That's been shown actually a number of times now.

22:00 What's interesting is the gene that you can measure controls NGF.

22:05 Remember we talked about NGF that makes things grow?

22:07 That's the gene.

22:09 You can actually track it down.

22:11 There was a paper on that in 20 17 from Walter Reed Hospital.

22:18 I think that's just fascinating.

22:20 So, my particular story is my grandfather was living

22:24 in Ukraine and there was like horrible things happened.

22:27 He gave those genes to my father who was involved in World War II.

22:33 He volunteered at 17 years old dropping bombs on German ships.

22:38 Out of 10,000 people in his squadron, 100 made it home.

22:42 So, that trauma got exacerbated.

22:45 My mother was alive during the war, but she was not involved military action.

22:50 So, when he came back from the war, he was not a charming man.

22:55 Unfortunately, he was not that easy to deal with.

22:57 Doctor P I understand, but he was interesting later.

23:01 So, he induced PTSD in my mother.

23:03 It's called secondary PTSD.

23:06 Because if you have like strained relationship or so it's intense,

23:11 all of that, it leads to brain changes

23:14 in DNA changes in the spouse and the children.

23:17 I'm one of those children.

23:19 So, eventually my mother took her life with that PTSD.

23:22 There you go.

23:22 I mean, that kind of tells you where

23:25 and you can actually know which gene that is.

23:26 I I find that fascinating.

23:28 If people have like their 23andMe data, do you think that, you know,

23:31 you can upload it to AI and and and see if you have that, you know,

23:35 that gene that's there?

23:37 Uh they, as far as I know, they didn't do epigenetic analysis.

23:42 That's a different analysis.

23:43 You could do it potentially, but I don't know enough about that company.

23:49 But for example, there's a whole Harvard clock.

23:52 You can measure biological aging,

23:54 when people are going to die and from what they're going to die.

23:57 It's beautiful.

23:58 They look at 1,100 alleles which is part of DNA.

24:02 We were able to demonstrate that Stella in special force from Canada,

24:06 we were able to reverse aging by 2.5 years Mhm.

24:10 using Harvard clock.

24:11 So, the point is DNA is much more pliable than you think.

24:16 Well, I know it was a long time ago,

24:17 but I'm very sorry about your mom and everything

24:19 that she went through and I appreciate you telling your story

24:21 because so many families without even them knowing it

24:24 have gone through this generational trauma that has impacted them.

24:27 In addition to the generational trauma,

24:29 you've had other major life experiences that really rocked

24:34 your own world and contributed and stacked on to that trauma.

24:37 When you were really young, you came across uh your you and your friends were

24:42 playing and there was a uh very unfortunate incident that happened.

24:45 Can you talk about that?

24:46 Place where I was born was close to a large tank battle during World War II.

24:53 So, we had older friends two,

24:56 three years older than us and they found this piece of metal,

24:59 rusty piece of metal.

25:01 So, they showed it to my father who's a vet and he

25:04 said that's like anti-personnel mine or anti-personnel shell from a tank.

25:09 So, he took from them, he hid it.

25:11 They figured out where he hid it, they dug it out.

25:14 So, my father didn't let us play with those guys cuz he had a premonition.

25:19 They threw it against a rock and it exploded.

25:22 So, one kid, and I was probably four, five at that time.

25:27 One kid lost two arms, another one lost a leg.

25:30 So, s- I mean, that was a serious explosion.

25:34 So, so let me just give a quick story

25:37 of my highlights of my trauma, shall I say?

25:40 Let's focus on my trauma history.

25:42 So, that was interesting.

25:43 Uh then we went to Moscow when I was six,

25:47 which was a change, but you know, it's like nothing highly traumatic.

25:50 Then from there at 14 we came to United States,

25:53 which was adolescence is not the best time to change countries.

25:57 Um then I was I went to medical school.

26:02 Uh I was when I finished medical school or I was about to finish,

26:05 my parents gave me a trip to um uh Puerto Vallarta.

26:11 And I took a lovely snorkeling tr- uh trip

26:15 and then we were uh swimming in this little alcove.

26:20 So, this gentleman, I use the term loosely,

26:24 was drunk and his boat came across the buoys

26:27 and hit me with a prop- propeller blade.

26:30 So, I lost half I lost half my blood volume in about 5 minutes, give or take.

26:35 So, I had out-of-body experience and all of that.

26:37 I crawled into the boat and I was able to stop the bleeding.

26:43 All the bleeding points.

26:44 I had enough medical training to do that.

26:47 So, I survived that.

26:48 You had to use your own hand as a tourniquet.

26:51 No, no, no.

26:51 He had towels.

26:53 Okay.

26:53 used towels to put pressure.

26:55 Yeah.

26:56 But, you know, I've had enough medical training.

26:58 Next year got even more better.

27:01 So, my mother took her life when I just three months into my surgical training.

27:07 So, I had a little trauma, I'd say.

27:10 Well, where this is all leading up to in addition

27:13 to talking about the background of trauma and how

27:15 it shapes people and their lives is that at some

27:19 stage you also underwent the treatment as well.

27:22 Yes.

27:23 That was interesting.

27:23 So, what happened was we have a child,

27:27 my wife and I, and he was triggering me all the time.

27:30 I had a complex childhood to put it very politely.

27:35 And then I had this feeling of a hand holding

27:39 my heart and squeezing my heart and I couldn't take a breath.

27:42 I was very functional at work.

27:44 I run a big pain clinic.

27:46 I was totally useless at home.

27:48 Mhm.

27:49 My wife said, you know what?

27:51 Your kid is attacking me and you're not doing anything.

27:54 What is wrong with you?

27:55 And I'm very functional.

27:56 I used to run trauma units.

27:58 Your kid is attacking?

28:00 He was attacking my wife.

28:01 Like physically?

28:02 Yeah.

28:02 He was biting her and stuff.

28:04 Wow.

28:05 So, it turns out I was having fugues.

28:08 Fugues is when you're pretty much out of it,

28:10 like walking in a daze, shall we say?

28:12 Mhm.

28:12 That's a very well-known side effect of severe trauma.

28:16 Fugues?

28:17 It's called a fugue, yeah.

28:19 So, I talked to a friend of mine,

28:22 Stephen Porges, which is an amazing physiologist.

28:26 And he said, "You're having fugues, go get fixed." So,

28:29 I called up my chairman, I said, "Do my block." He did the block.

28:34 The next day I was like I came back and I said, "All right, here's the deal.

28:39 All the is over.

28:40 Now we're going to have like Now it's going to be for real, right?

28:44 I mean, I wasn't being shot down.

28:45 I was in a normal function that I know I always had.

28:49 But his behavior is really freaking me out.

28:54 On a physiological base, I couldn't help myself.

28:56 And this is somebody who's pretty resilient.

28:59 Was your son's behavior a byproduct of some

29:02 of the trauma that he inherited from you guys genetically?

29:06 Well, he's a genetic- he's adopted.

29:08 So, definitely not genetic, but then he had his own separate issues.

29:12 Uh but I couldn't really be a good parent Yeah.

29:15 at all cuz I was pretty useless.

29:17 Wow.

29:18 What did your family notice after you getting the procedure yourself?

29:21 I wasn't walking around like a zombie.

29:24 And I was like I was a commander like I should be.

29:27 I was like I I told them, I said, "Hey, I'm a commander.

29:30 Don't do bad things, there'll be consequences and I will hold you

29:33 to it." Before I couldn't physically actually stick to it.

29:37 The first thing I did is I stopped the borders.

29:39 I said, you know, these are the borders that you will not cross.

29:44 There's no violence in in none of this.

29:46 Don't do this, don't do that.

29:49 Before my you know my wife unfortunately had to do

29:52 it and that that was very hard for her.

29:53 She did the best she could.

29:55 But then you know when we started working together,

29:57 working together as a team they did much better.

30:00 You know you're wearing a pin during our interview

30:02 for those that are listening, they can't see it.

30:04 Can you describe the pin and how this relates to the idea

30:09 of naming and the difference between a disorder versus an injury?

30:15 So well first of all if you look at the term disorder,

30:19 disorder is what's wrong with you.

30:21 Injury is what happened to you.

30:23 Pretty straightforward.

30:25 So as I was doing more and more procedures I've had a lot

30:30 of people trying to say we don't understand how that could be.

30:34 How could an in an injection in the neck do anything to mental condition?

30:40 We don't understand that.

30:41 In fact if you look the first time I was on Dr.

30:44 Show that was the first question they asked.

30:46 I was like I thought what?

30:47 I I I don't get it.

30:49 So one way or another I was able to connect to Frank Ochberg,

30:54 a famous psychiatrist who's still alive thank god.

30:56 I talked to him last week.

30:58 So he came up with the terms uh Stockholm syndrome,

31:01 you may have heard of it so he's well known.

31:03 So he was part of the committee in 1980 that named PTSD PTSD.

31:09 That's when the term started being used.

31:12 Through his experience he believes term is

31:15 antiquated and it's wrong because it's shaming

31:18 and stigmatizing and it doesn't reflect what

31:21 we know now that it's a biological condition.

31:24 He and Peter Raley former surgeon from the army

31:29 whose job was to prevent suicides for the US

31:32 Army went together to American Psychiatric Association said

31:36 please change the name from PTSD to PTSI,

31:39 post traumatic stress injury means biological.

31:41 There would be less stigma and you'd think the APA would change it.

31:45 They said no.

31:46 This was 2013.

31:48 Frank now was getting older so he handed this hot potato to me.

31:52 So I did the study in 2023 and it showed based on 3,000 people

31:57 that if you change the name PTSD to PTSI there would be less stigma,

32:02 there would be more hope and more treatment.

32:05 I took that information to APA 2024 and I

32:09 said please change the name because it's stigmatizing, causes harm.

32:12 They said no, not enough information.

32:15 So if you could propagate my uh new survey which

32:21 I'm trying to go 100,000 people it's the website is itsptsi.com.

32:29 It's two minute survey but what I want

32:33 to do with that the name needs to be changed.

32:35 I truly believe if you change the name the stigma will go away,

32:40 a lot more people get treated successfully.

32:43 Right?

32:44 That's what I'm trying to do.

32:45 I'm I'm a clinician, I'm trying to help people.

32:48 So that's why this is my term.

32:50 I just did a TED Talk talking about exactly that.

32:53 That's how we met.

32:53 So the idea that post traumatic stress disorder,

32:56 a disorder becomes an identity and now you sort of step into this idea

33:01 that it's just there and it's who you

33:05 are and you're switching the conversation to injury,

33:08 post traumatic stress injury and it's something that happened to you,

33:11 it doesn't define you forever.

33:13 Well it's like do you have a broken like disorder?

33:16 Does it define who you are?

33:18 Or do you have an injury that needs a cast?

33:20 I mean I'm a biological guy as it gets, right?

33:24 I mean when you know when somebody comes in trauma you fix a chest.

33:28 It's not a trauma disorder.

33:31 What what does that even mean?

33:33 Somebody's dying, you have to fix them.

33:35 Okay, you fix them and that's it, they're done.

33:37 They're not that's not that's not a lifestyle.

33:39 That's the whole thing.

33:40 To me a lifestyle and a life sentence is the same thing.

33:43 I'm imagining that in traditional medicine there could be

33:46 a reluctance to see it as an injury because there's

33:48 also not an acceptance or sort of openness

33:52 to the fact that there are ways to address the injury.

33:58 If you don't believe that there's a way to uh fix that injury you

34:03 may be less likely to want to call it an injury in the first place.

34:07 Do you think that's part of it?

34:08 Mm I think that's a small part of it.

34:09 There are bigger forces in play.

34:11 Cuz if you think about it you know

34:14 they're always the whole point I it's interesting.

34:17 So I had a um Colonel Sutherland came out.

34:20 He was in charge of the joint uh chiefs of staff uh family relations.

34:28 He looked I said you know what do you think of stellate ganglion block?

34:31 I think it's going to save lives.

34:32 He said you have a big problem.

34:33 You're being slow rolled.

34:35 They're going to go very slowly.

34:37 He's and I said why do you think?

34:39 He said they said do you have any problems?

34:40 No, it works.

34:41 I've I've seen people my my guys got better, no problem.

34:45 You're asking people who are in charge to be in charge of second best thing.

34:48 Sorry, let me make sure I heard that correctly.

34:50 You're asking people in charge Like psychiatrists.

34:53 Yep.

34:54 to be in charge of second best thing.

34:56 Second best thing.

34:57 Like pharmaceuticals are clearly not very effective.

35:00 They have mixed results.

35:01 Let me throw a stat at you and see what you think of that mixed result.

35:05 So there was a paper written by in JAMA.

35:09 It Dr.

35:11 Hope HOGE HOGE HOGE from Walter Reed psychiatrist.

35:15 Like he knows something about psychiatry.

35:18 He said current therapeutics in the VA

35:22 of psychotherapy and pharmaceuticals due to lack of compliance

35:26 blah blah blah and lack of efficacy will have an impact on 40% of the people.

35:32 Placebo is 35.

35:33 What do you think of that statistic?

35:35 Yeah, that's wild.

35:36 That's all good, right?

35:37 Yeah.

35:38 Because if you think about the medications they take a long time to work.

35:40 Medications have a lot of side effects.

35:43 We could talk about that forever.

35:44 People develop resistance, have to change the medication.

35:47 I'm not talking about just that.

35:48 Yeah.

35:48 So number two drug in the VA that's used is atypical antipsychotic.

35:53 Seroquel and things like that, Risperdal.

35:56 One out of a thousand per year or two out

35:59 of a thousand two years will have the heart stops and they die.

36:05 Causes diabetes impotence.

36:08 That's not good.

36:10 Increases suicide rate by factor of three.

36:14 That's not good.

36:16 Causes anger.

36:18 Besides that it's a great drug.

36:19 I mean how how can you even argue with something like that?

36:22 Mm.

36:23 So there was a paper uh there was something written

36:26 I think it was New York Times that there is

36:29 a they call it toxic cocktail that average number of different

36:32 drugs that the veterans are taking in the VA is seven.

36:36 This one goes up, this one goes down, this one goes up down down down.

36:39 They're all it's it's a it's

36:40 an uncontrolled experiment and it doesn't really work.

36:44 That's If it worked great but it's not working.

36:47 So the point is we need to do something different.

36:49 And I think it's happening they just I wish it would happen sooner.

36:52 Just to zoom out a little bit so that our audience can follow along.

36:54 It's in your bio here but part of your story is that you started

36:58 with your clinic and these procedures and taking

37:00 care of individuals initially women who are

37:02 dealing with these hot flashes severe hot

37:05 flashes as they navigate menopause and then seeing

37:09 that they were coming back to you and saying that you know I feel better,

37:14 my anxiety is gone which led to other patients you

37:18 know seeking you out and more clinical experience and then

37:21 ultimately through a series of uh just continuing that work

37:26 uh getting your fair share of criticism along the way.

37:29 You've talked a little bit about that.

37:30 We'll chat more about that later on.

37:32 You ended up having um someone who who who

37:36 connected you with with a group and now you have

37:38 a group of clinics that are out there right now

37:41 in the US but also coming overseas as well too.

37:44 Called Stella Mental Health?

37:46 Yes, so we have I think 24 sites in the United States.

37:49 We have one site in Israel and we have four in Australia.

37:52 I I'm very fortunate to have met a group of people,

37:55 like-minded people who understood financial aspect of it

37:59 and knew how to run a business.

38:01 I am good at science, running a business mm I'm not the best.

38:06 Uh but yes, so basically the idea is

38:09 to have it available stellate ganglion block and other modalities.

38:14 We are we're a little more mature now than just one procedure, right?

38:19 So the new thing I believe the future

38:21 of psychiatry is interventional psychiatry which is ketamine,

38:26 stellate ganglion block and TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.

38:30 So a combination of those and who knows what else happens.

38:32 Maybe psilocybin, those kind of things but that's not a conventional

38:37 approach because conventional approach with all

38:39 due respect just not that effective.

38:41 That's the key.

38:42 Before we continue on and we talk about trauma in the body and its effects

38:45 on the body and how trauma really shows

38:47 up as something physical and has physical consequences.

38:51 Just again because our audience is getting familiar with this and we

38:54 have some links to some videos that you can watch online.

38:57 Walk us through somebody who's coming in for this block procedure, right?

39:02 Walk us through what this looks like, right?

39:04 Sure.

39:05 And and and the step by step process so they can kind of paint

39:07 a picture in their head to just wrap their head around okay this is

39:11 a treatment for a group of nerve clusters that then leads to all these positive

39:17 benefits in 80% of the people that go

39:20 through it based on your team's estimation.

39:22 But what it what does it actually look like?

39:23 How long does the procedure take?

39:25 What are they going through?

39:26 Paint that picture.

39:27 Sure sure sure.

39:28 Well since I've kind of done I can tell you what happens.

39:30 So first of all we do an assessment.

39:32 What's I mean so this is not a fly by night operation.

39:36 Uh our nurse practitioners talk to patients.

39:38 We want to make sure they're the right candidates to have it done.

39:42 And it also makes sure physically there.

39:45 Um healthy enough to go through it.

39:48 So, as far as mentally, if they're actually suicidal,

39:51 we have to wait until they're stable.

39:55 Uh if they're psychotics, we typically don't do it.

39:57 Occasionally we do, but you know, it's debatable.

40:01 Physically, if people are too big, meaning it's 500 lb, and they have no neck.

40:07 So, my my day my my saying is no neck, no shot.

40:11 Somebody comes in and there's no place to put a needle,

40:13 so we're not going to do it.

40:14 Somebody has a bad heart, bad lung,

40:16 bleeding disorder, we don't do the procedure.

40:19 It's just normal kind of thing.

40:21 Think if if you go to pain clinic for an epidural, the same process.

40:26 Cuz I'm a pain guy, we follow the same process.

40:28 Simple.

40:29 Assuming that's been okay, then about half our patients want to be

40:34 asleep when we do the procedure, half do not.

40:36 The cool thing about we give people choices.

40:38 Right?

40:38 Some people are completely freaked out by needles.

40:41 And some are not.

40:42 It's variable.

40:43 We also do kids.

40:45 So, it goes young as eight.

40:47 So, we have an anesthesiologist put a a child asleep, so we can do it.

40:52 So, the point is somebody says, "Well,

40:53 I kind of don't like the idea of needle in my neck." So,

40:56 "Okay, if you want to go to sleep, we need to put an IV and give medicine.

41:00 You wake up and you're done." It's a passive thing.

41:03 You don't have to talk about horrible thing that happened in your life.

41:06 That's what I like about it.

41:07 It doesn't really matter.

41:08 I tell people I don't care about your trauma.

41:10 People try to describe to me.

41:11 Doesn't matter.

41:12 Needle doesn't see the spot.

41:14 So, once we agree that we're going to do it,

41:18 let's say we do it with or without sedation,

41:21 the patient comes, lies down on the table.

41:24 We I use ultrasound to find where we need to go or we don't go.

41:29 We see blood vessels, we see bones, all the usual things which are in the neck.

41:34 Then I clean off the neck with a little sponge.

41:37 Numb up the skin.

41:40 It's hurts less than tooth injections because it has less nerves in the neck.

41:45 Then I put some towels on.

41:47 And then I guide the needle under ultrasound.

41:50 Whole thing is about 5 minutes.

41:51 We put one needle at C6, one needle at C4.

41:56 Done.

41:56 Thank you.

41:56 We observe the people.

41:58 Uh what happens is they will have a droopy eye for about 4 to 8 hours.

42:04 That means I'm in the right spot.

42:05 When you numb up sympathetic nerves, the eye starts to droop.

42:10 That means I hit the right spot.

42:12 It doesn't mean it's going to work for psychological conditions,

42:15 but I know I'm in the right spot.

42:17 It's not a side effect, it's an effect of it.

42:19 We want that to happen.

42:20 This works in your clinical experience on 80%

42:23 of the population that has come to see you.

42:27 What separates out why you think it works for some

42:29 people and then doesn't work for the 20% of the people?

42:31 Well, that's a good question.

42:34 We are getting closer to that all the time.

42:36 There are a couple of couple of reasons it can be.

42:39 Um Some people can have other conditions,

42:44 like infections of the brain, things like that.

42:46 There's also cross connection between the right side of the nerves

42:49 and the right side can go to the left side and vice versa.

42:53 Sometimes we need to do a procedure closer together to knock out both nerves.

42:58 We can get some details of that.

42:59 I think I that's part of it.

43:01 The other thing is I have a new body who is very big

43:04 into figuring out uh immune aggressive attacks

43:12 on um dopamine receptors in the brain.

43:16 So, it could be autoimmune problems, which we don't don't know about.

43:19 So, we're talking about possibly testing

43:21 for those autoimmune conditions and treat that.

43:23 We don't don't really know.

43:25 So, there could be other pathways of insult

43:29 that are ramping up their fight or flight system

43:32 that are separate from or or or using

43:36 different pathways to to ramp up this whole process.

43:41 That's how I'm saying.

43:43 Fight and flight system, I think we got it handled.

43:47 Most of the time.

43:48 But there could be other processes going

43:50 on, like brain toxicity or post-COVID brain.

43:53 We use this for post-COVID,

43:55 but COVID may have done too much brain damage for this to reverse.

44:00 Right?

44:01 Or the autoimmune condition has now chewed up certain part of the brain,

44:04 we cannot get it back.

44:06 I don't know.

44:06 In the case of just cuz you mentioned it, post, you know,

44:09 post-COVID syndrome, is this Are you talking about like long COVID Yes.

44:12 as people describe it?

44:13 Yes.

44:15 So, you guys are using it for that.

44:16 What do you think is missing from the long COVID conversation that you've seen

44:19 out there from individuals and why your treatment is getting to the root of it?

44:24 I've seen big institutions.

44:26 I'm not sure what they are actually how they are actually treating it.

44:29 There's no real good treatment.

44:32 Our treatment looks at So, if the way to understand what stellate does,

44:36 there is a couple of things.

44:38 One, if you put tracers into the if you inject a tracer in the stellate,

44:44 it connects to the thymus and bone marrow.

44:46 Thymus produces T cells.

44:48 Bone marrow produces uh B cells.

44:51 Right?

44:52 That's the immune thing.

44:54 So, stellate has been used to treat autoimmune conditions.

44:58 Mhm.

44:59 So, it's been shown.

45:00 In fact, when you do stellate ganglion block,

45:02 interleukin-6, which is marker for inflammation, goes down.

45:05 So, if you think of stellate,

45:07 not only does it affect uh fight or flight system, it affects immune system.

45:13 So, what kills a lot of times in COVID, at least killed people in the units,

45:17 they have interleukin storm, too much interleukin-6 and all that stuff.

45:21 But persistent high levels are still making them drowsy, they can't sleep.

45:26 All of those problems is related to I think autoimmune condition.

45:30 Stellate seems to be very effective autoimmune conditions.

45:33 I think that's why it works.

45:35 So, it's a combination of interleukin-6 reduction or autoimmune activation,

45:41 as well as sympathetic nervous system overactivation.

45:45 So, what I the immune system talks to the sympathetic system.

45:48 They interact with each other.

45:50 So, if you can combine both of them going down, people can sleep.

45:54 Sleep, if you have somebody abnormal sleep,

45:57 it activates what um autonomic nervous system.

46:02 So, if you can calm it all down,

46:03 have people get good night's sleep and reduce their inflammation,

46:08 they're going to do much better.

46:09 Is that one of the first things that people notice

46:10 after getting this shot and procedure done is that their sleep,

46:14 besides the sense of feeling like the weight off their chest?

46:17 I've seen some videos.

46:18 You have some patients who pretty much immediately that day

46:22 feel like a weight has been lifted off their chest.

46:24 other thing is it takes away the fog.

46:26 I think when people describe brain fog,

46:29 which is very common unfortunately in COVID,

46:31 it's uh interleukin-6 attacking the brain.

46:35 The brain on fire, people I love that term cuz I think that's true.

46:38 It is the autoimmune effect on the brain.

46:41 And that's all leads to depression and other things.

46:44 Let's talk about this idea that trauma just doesn't affect the mind,

46:48 it reshapes the entire body.

46:49 This picks up on some of these themes that you've been talking about here,

46:52 like interleukin-6 and inflammatory cascade that ends up happening,

46:56 one inflammatory marker that's inside of the body.

47:00 What what are some other physical consequences of people living with trauma?

47:04 There's a couple.

47:05 One, there is very clear progression that you can say that somebody has PTSD,

47:11 the chance of heart attack is twice as high.

47:14 That's pretty big one.

47:15 It's huge.

47:16 Yeah.

47:17 Infertility is another.

47:18 We are able to reverse some infertility.

47:20 I have to tell you a cute story about our first SGB baby, I call her.

47:25 You can reverse infertility using stellate.

47:27 85% of men have sexual dysfunction, even young men with PTSD.

47:33 And that's reversible.

47:35 Point it affects hormones, it affects immune system.

47:38 Uh there have been a number of studies

47:39 showing that ulcerative colitis can be treated using stellate.

47:44 Right?

47:45 And why why why would I do that?

47:46 The reason it does, it reduce interleukin-6,

47:49 which is part of the inflammatory response,

47:51 and the part of Crohn's in the colon.

47:53 Talk about the infertility case.

47:55 I think there's one story that you talk about in the book,

47:56 but I don't know if you have a different story in mind.

47:58 I took care of this gentleman.

47:59 I think he was from Seattle.

48:02 He was a firefighter or he still is.

48:04 And we treated him and his wife.

48:06 So, a lot of times we try to treat couples together, primary and secondary PTSD.

48:10 Considering my mother's death, I'm very interested in that.

48:13 So, we treated both of them.

48:15 And he calls me back later, 2 years later, he said, "Hey, I feel great, doc.

48:18 Thank you so much." I said, "Great.

48:20 Thank you very much." He said, "You don't understand.

48:22 We had a child." I said, "Congratulations." He said,

48:25 "No, you don't you don't get it.

48:26 We tried for 20 years to conceive.

48:30 We conceived the day after the procedure.

48:32 So, it was a big deal for us,

48:33 so thank you." I said, "Great." He sent me pictures.

48:36 Guess what they called the child?

48:37 Not Eugene.

48:38 What do you think?

48:39 Uh is it a boy or girl?

48:41 Female.

48:41 Stella?

48:42 No.

48:43 Jordan.

48:43 The long way Michael Jordan.

48:45 So, they called her Jordan.

48:47 I thought it was the cutest thing.

48:48 So, I call her a first SGB baby.

48:50 Wow.

48:51 What do you think was going on there?

48:52 Obviously, infertility is multifaceted.

48:54 There's so many different things that play a role in it.

48:57 There's biological components, you know,

48:59 we talk about in our modern life like microplastics impacting,

49:03 you know, uh you know, especially like the male body.

49:06 There's There's updated I'm an investor in a company called We Natal,

49:10 which looks at uh how, you know,

49:12 deep nutritional issues on both even the male side for sperm

49:16 quality can play a role in infertility and uh miscarriages.

49:19 So, what do you think was going

49:20 on in this instance with the connection between trauma and infertility?

49:23 Well, I've been interested in that for years.

49:26 The reason I've been interested, I wrote the paper on that.

49:29 How stellate can affect sexual function in men.

49:32 But when I was doing my deep dive in anything stellate related,

49:36 I found a paper from Italy from 1972.

49:41 They showed that stellate ganglion block changes hormones.

49:46 LH, FSH, all of that.

49:48 Actually, hormonal switch occurs, which is a big deal.

49:52 Also, if you think about it, we also treated women who had uh severe

49:58 pain during their periods or they had the dysmenorrhea,

50:01 which is periods at various times.

50:04 It's inconsistent.

50:06 What happens is in order to conceive,

50:08 you need to build up the endometrium or the lining of the uterus to 10 mm.

50:13 Needs to be thick.

50:15 But if the fight or flight nerves are overactive, it never gets thick.

50:20 So, it's 2 3 mm.

50:21 So, that's what causes spotting.

50:24 So, if you can readjust the hormonal status, one.

50:28 Two, if you can reduce the sympathetic tone,

50:36 then you can have a nice endometrial lining.

50:40 Right?

50:41 So, what happens is the block stabilizes everything.

50:47 And it also reduces stress.

50:49 So, if women have orgasm during sex,

50:52 their chance of conception is significantly higher because

50:55 uterus is designed to suck the sperm back in.

50:58 So, you can get implant.

51:00 Wild.

51:00 Weird.

51:01 Wild.

51:01 So, but the point is they both had good mood.

51:04 They both relaxed.

51:06 Male function improves clearly.

51:09 All of that leads to more successful conception.

51:13 You also have this idea that trauma accelerates aging.

51:17 So many conversations in this podcast are about longevity.

51:21 And when people think about longevity, of course they think about sleep

51:24 and physical exercise and they think think about,

51:27 you know, diet and reducing ultra-processed foods

51:30 and all things that play into reducing inflammaging.

51:34 Right?

51:35 That's a term that's come out over the years.

51:39 term.

51:38 And there seems to be some connection with trauma

51:41 as being a major inflammager in the body.

51:46 So, we do know that PTSD makes people age faster.

51:51 I I I think it's pretty much a not debatable issue at this point.

51:56 So, if you look at GrimAge, which is my favorite epigenetic test for aging.

52:02 That's what I had done on me.

52:03 GrimAge?

52:05 GrimAge is what it's called.

52:06 G R I M Age.

52:08 It was developed by Dr.

52:09 Horvath, amazing man from UCLA.

52:12 Not far from here.

52:13 That's one of my partners that I've done study with.

52:17 So, we know that trauma makes people age faster.

52:25 I don't think there's debate about that.

52:27 We know that in successful intervention for trauma, reverse staging.

52:33 That's been shown using talk therapy.

52:36 It's been shown ketamine.

52:39 I've shown it using stellate.

52:40 So, if you go to my website, drgigliotti.com, and look at my presentations,

52:46 one of them we were able to reverse aging.

52:49 I was referring to about 3.5 years, I think.

52:52 In Canadian special forces by doing stellate.

52:55 Trauma.

52:56 leads to inflammation, you're right.

52:58 So, interleukin-6, back to that, the whole thing.

53:03 Uh inflam- inflammaging.

53:05 So, you can reverse it because the problem is if your body is always stressed,

53:12 so sympathetic overactivity, fight or flight overacting,

53:17 disregulates uh immune system.

53:20 That's what this inflammation.

53:21 That's what leads to aging.

53:23 It potentially leads to cancer because the reason not everybody has cancer,

53:28 everybody develops cancer cells.

53:30 But the scavenging, which is immune system, eats those up.

53:34 So, you need to develop into the cancer.

53:36 So, if you look at the cancer rates in military personnel and first responders,

53:42 they're significant.

53:44 Which makes perfect sense.

53:45 But that effect is reversible.

53:48 But if you don't sleep, interleukin-6 goes up.

53:51 All of those things work together.

53:53 They're all connected.

53:54 You have this quote quote from the book, "Trauma floods the entire system,

53:58 breaking you down from the inside out." And that's how

54:02 we should think about it if we care about aging, if we care about, you know,

54:05 living our best life and even just day-to-day

54:07 happiness separate from health span and and life span.

54:12 Uh trauma is that thing in the background that's always attacking your body.

54:18 And without having a plan If I may, let me give you a analogy.

54:24 Please.

54:25 If you have a car and it's idling normally, 2,000 RPMs, right?

54:31 Engine's going to live X amount of time.

54:34 If now you have a heavy foot and you're idling at 5,000 RPMs,

54:38 the engine's not going to live as long, right?

54:40 It's going to burn out.

54:42 When your sympathetic system is on all the time, you're driving much faster.

54:49 You're burning out the body faster for no good reason, right?

54:52 That's the easiest way for me to look at it.

54:54 You mentioned this about your mom's story,

54:57 but I think it's worth touching on a little

54:59 bit more here at in this phase of the conversation,

55:02 that trauma is in a way a social disease.

55:07 And it can be spread through this idea of secondary trauma, right?

55:12 You mentioned that earlier about your mom.

55:14 Secondary PTSD.

55:15 Secondary PTSD.

55:17 I'm imagining, you know, a question from some of our listeners would be,

55:21 "Can loving someone with trauma change their own brain and their own experience?

55:27 Can be can be being in close proximity with somebody who has this PTSD,

55:33 PTSI how does that impact their own brain and body?" Uh badly.

55:43 Let me give you more detail on that.

55:45 So, what happens is So, let's say if somebody comes home,

55:49 so let's say it doesn't have to be a woman, but let let's assume it's a female.

55:56 Uh the woman is at home with a child, let's say.

56:01 The husband comes home, first responder, military, whatever, doesn't matter.

56:06 And you don't know what kind of Are they in a good mood or in a bad mood?

56:11 A lot of times when people have PTSD, they don't want anything.

56:16 They want absolute quiet.

56:19 And they want any kind of thing and they're angry.

56:22 That's part of PTSD.

56:24 You know, my experience with my father.

56:26 So, if let's say a child screams or a toy drops,

56:30 whatever, it could trigger them, right?

56:32 And you don't know if they could become violent, verbally, physically, whatever.

56:37 So, the best way to give PTSD to someone is to feel insecure and unpredictable.

56:44 So, it could be good, could be bad,

56:46 could be at the same time, they could be flipping back and forth.

56:49 So, if you're walking on eggshells in your house, your body knows that.

56:54 Oh, but what it's not a big deal.

56:55 It is a big deal.

56:56 If you do it over years, it's a big deal.

56:59 It changes your DNA, changes your child's DNA.

57:02 So, for example, some special forces from Canada,

57:06 I love to treat them and their spouses.

57:09 And sometimes their children.

57:10 Because to me, PTSD like STD.

57:14 In a sense, you fix one and that one she has it, it's going to come back.

57:19 Because now you don't know how they're behaving, goes back and forth.

57:22 So, you want to treat both at the same time.

57:25 Mhm.

57:26 And, you know, we've had some amazing stories along those lines, but you know,

57:31 it's like one of my favorite story was I

57:33 had this uh pre very successful man from Puerto Rico.

57:38 Came in, we did a treatment for him, we did his wife, blah blah blah.

57:41 So, he sent me a video from his 5-year-old child.

57:45 She's a spunky kid.

57:47 And he said, "Thanks for giving my daddy back.

57:50 He's so nice now." That was maybe cry.

57:54 Somebody would have done it for my family,

57:57 I wouldn't have lost my mother, right?

58:00 But it was so sweet.

58:01 She said and I I asked the mother and she said,

58:04 "Yeah, the temperature of the household is down." Right?

58:07 Think about it.

58:08 High temperature, like you don't know what's going to happen,

58:10 people are cranky as opposed to everything's fine,

58:13 nothing to see here, everything is good.

58:15 That's a big difference.

58:17 And the body knows that.

58:18 That's the whole thing.

58:19 You're always prepared You're always prepared to run.

58:21 You're always prepared to think of how do I avoid this?

58:24 You spend 90% of your time avoiding another blowout.

58:28 That's not healthy at all.

58:30 That's a problem.

58:31 Yeah, and reading your book, I knew this, but really the strong connection

58:35 that I was walking away from that I think about

58:38 as you were just sharing is that even people who

58:41 have gone through like deep uh bullying through, you know,

58:48 maybe they were obese or there was this or that or whatever sort of reason

58:53 that was there that they went through this really tough time in their life,

58:58 they could have gone through, you know, they can have PTSD from that, right?

59:01 It doesn't have to always be this sexual abuse.

59:05 Now you're walking away You're walking around with that.

59:08 You could have grown up with a parent that you have

59:10 to constantly be on eggshells with or a caretaker or somebody that's there.

59:14 You inherit that as part of your own survival mechanism.

59:17 It's part of your injury response as well.

59:20 And now you're spreading that inside of your own

59:21 family where you're the person where everybody feels

59:24 like they have to walk on eggshells around

59:25 with and you don't want to be that way.

59:27 And many of these individuals have an insight

59:30 that I I don't want to be this way, but I don't know how to break out of it.

59:34 I don't know how to snap out of this way of being.

59:38 And they often have partners that, you know, love them.

59:41 That see the best of them.

59:43 That's around and know that they're

59:45 a deeply caring and amazing person that's there.

59:48 Until they don't.

59:48 Well, if you think about it, when somebody wants to have,

59:51 I think most of us, unless you're a psychopath,

59:54 which is thankfully a small number of people,

59:57 we want to be the right thing for the family.

59:59 We We want to show up the best part of us.

1:00:02 When somebody says, "I can't help it." Our society says, "Why not?

1:00:08 Snap out of it.

1:00:09 Behave like this, right?" It's the same thing as somebody

1:00:12 who has an MPT asking him to run a marathon.

1:00:15 It's not going to happen.

1:00:17 You can ask him to do it.

1:00:18 He can't help it.

1:00:20 And then then it comes back to is this a weakness of the soul?

1:00:24 Is that because you're just a nasty human being?

1:00:27 No.

1:00:28 You just have extra nerves in your brain, too much norepinephrine.

1:00:31 That's how I see it.

1:00:32 So, blame, if you truly absorb

1:00:35 that and truly believe the name, there's no blame.

1:00:39 There's no shame.

1:00:40 There's no blame.

1:00:41 What's the difference?

1:00:43 To me, I mean, you know, I've done many different medical things.

1:00:47 I'm not going to ask an MPT to go run up the up and down the mountain.

1:00:51 That's stupid.

1:00:52 Why would you do that?

1:00:55 Right?

1:00:56 Nobody would do that.

1:00:58 But somebody who has If I showed you brain scans and say, "Oh,

1:01:01 his amygdala is overactive." You ask him to be calm, he's not going to be able.

1:01:05 He cannot do it.

1:01:06 His neurocircuitry are hijacked by the trauma he experienced in the past.

1:01:11 Why even asking that?

1:01:13 Oh.

1:01:15 And we're not talking about living with this forever.

1:01:18 We're talking about thinking of fixing it.

1:01:21 It's not a lifestyle.

1:01:22 That's the whole thing.

1:01:23 It's not a life There is hope.

1:01:25 Nobody kills themselves if they have hope.

1:01:28 If there's no hope, you got problems.

1:01:31 So far, you know, we've been talking about your story,

1:01:34 how you came up with this procedure,

1:01:37 how you work with a group of people to now, you know,

1:01:40 make it available in clinics throughout the United States and the world.

1:01:44 Give me the critical lens that you've dealt with over

1:01:48 the years and that you are actively working on addressing.

1:01:56 So, the first thing that we've mentioned,

1:01:57 and I mean that not from like the devil's advocate point of view,

1:02:00 more from the sense of the limitations, what do people talk about?

1:02:05 What is needed to further have people get on the train of this?

1:02:09 So, you've already mentioned one thing.

1:02:10 This works in 80% of the people.

1:02:13 20% of the people, there's different theories as to why.

1:02:16 There could be different pathways that are

1:02:18 impacting them that need to be addressed.

1:02:20 Your team is working on getting there.

1:02:22 Uh what other criticisms are there that people should have

1:02:25 a healthy view of any sort of procedure and understand?

1:02:30 Uh so, let's start off with the data.

1:02:32 You have a lot of clinical experience that's there.

1:02:35 What data exists?

1:02:36 What data doesn't exist on this procedure?

1:02:38 Most of the studies have been done have

1:02:39 not been particularly good in the sense clinically.

1:02:43 They've been good studies, but they're not rigorous.

1:02:46 The other thing that's problematic,

1:02:48 people in medicine are used to placebo studies.

1:02:52 Meaning, you give somebody a sugar pill and a real

1:02:54 pill and you can see which one works.

1:02:56 Straightforward.

1:02:58 You cannot do it with this.

1:02:59 It's impossible cuz if the eye droops,

1:03:01 the patient knows there's eye droop, right?

1:03:05 So, there's no placebo.

1:03:06 That's a That's a problem because scientists

1:03:11 don't really buy into that kind of approach.

1:03:13 It's not used They're not used to it.

1:03:15 So, nobody's even attempted it because they say,

1:03:17 "You can't even do a placebo control." We'll be getting to that.

1:03:21 My point is you cannot do a real placebo in this space.

1:03:24 It's impossible.

1:03:25 Even though people have done it, it's still spunky.

1:03:29 Let me tell you some of the some of the studies that's available.

1:03:31 Dr.

1:03:31 Al Ka'ai did a study, Long Beach, California, not far, VA.

1:03:37 He did a PET scan before and after.

1:03:40 PET scan demonstrates what's really going on in the brain.

1:03:43 Amygdala overactivation.

1:03:45 If you do Stellate, it decreases the function of the amygdala.

1:03:48 It was only eight patients, so a small study.

1:03:51 There was also a study done which really

1:03:53 was very damaging and I'm very upset with them.

1:03:55 I will always be upset with them because they

1:03:59 spent years trying to discredit me and this whole thing.

1:04:03 And whatever.

1:04:04 We'll we'll we'll deal with that in a second.

1:04:06 That came from San Diego uh military hospital.

1:04:10 Yeah, so another military study.

1:04:11 All right.

1:04:13 That was a placebo done and they said it's no better than placebo.

1:04:17 So, people Every time I talk to anybody about this, they throw the study at me.

1:04:21 That's one of the first things that comes up.

1:04:22 Correct.

1:04:23 They go, "No, it's placebo." What are the common problems with that study?

1:04:28 Just set that study up.

1:04:30 How many people was it?

1:04:31 10 of 42.

1:04:32 Okay, so it's 42 people.

1:04:36 Right.

1:04:35 Done through the military uh hospital that was there.

1:04:38 Through the naval hospital.

1:04:39 Through the naval hospital in San Diego.

1:04:41 You got a big naval outfit over there.

1:04:43 Yes.

1:04:43 When was it done?

1:04:44 2016, I believe it came out.

1:04:47 2016.

1:04:48 Right.

1:04:49 And uh anything else important to mention about

1:04:51 the setup of the study that was there, the people that were part of it?

1:04:55 I mean, these are all probably young Yeah,

1:04:57 there's a lot of problems with that study.

1:04:58 So, that study was evaluated on Stellate.

1:05:03 And they said it's garbage.

1:05:04 That study is garbage.

1:05:05 So, the VA themselves said that this naval study useless.

1:05:08 said it was garbage.

1:05:08 Was this Is this public?

1:05:09 Did they publicly say that it was garbage?

1:05:11 It's on my website.

1:05:12 It's on your website.

1:05:13 Yes.

1:05:13 So, this was done through a position paper or their own review of the study?

1:05:17 Correct.

1:05:17 Okay.

1:05:17 We'll link to that in the show notes so that people can see that.

1:05:20 it's on my website, 2017 VA position.

1:05:22 So, let me tell you what is wrong

1:05:23 with the study and I'll tell you how ugly it got.

1:05:26 I knew it was happening.

1:05:27 I knew I was having the study because um I met a lovely woman who was

1:05:36 a naval uh captain and she was starting

1:05:39 to do procedures in that hospital and they did great.

1:05:41 Great response.

1:05:43 And then they did the study and the people

1:05:46 who did the study were interesting, shall we say?

1:05:48 We won't get into who it was,

1:05:50 but they selected the patients if they said it worked for them,

1:05:54 they would lose $2,000 a month stipends.

1:05:58 For disability.

1:05:59 For disability.

1:06:00 That's not the patient that should have been studied in that study.

1:06:02 How do you know that that was the case?

1:06:04 Did you have patients that were telling you?

1:06:05 Were they informed ahead of time?

1:06:07 who ran the study said told me that.

1:06:10 Told me that's a fact.

1:06:11 And they had let the individuals know, these 42 men, that hey, if this works,

1:06:17 you no longer are classified as depressed or PTSD or suicidal or whatever.

1:06:22 It doesn't It doesn't matter how they knew.

1:06:23 They It was known.

1:06:24 It was known.

1:06:25 Right.

1:06:25 You know, just to set this up, just having seen this from like financial

1:06:29 different financial podcasts that are out there.

1:06:30 If you are a military veteran that is

1:06:33 dis- disabled or if you're you're active, right?

1:06:36 But you cannot be sort of active because you're on disability, yeah.

1:06:41 This is your livelihood.

1:06:42 So, you're saying that you're saying from the military.

1:06:44 That's what they call it.

1:06:45 Okay, they're separation from the military,

1:06:47 but they're still getting paid every month because they have some disability.

1:06:50 they're 70.

1:06:52 Until they're 70.

1:06:52 Right.

1:06:53 So, you are threatening somebody's livelihood if they

1:06:56 say that this ends up working for them.

1:06:57 Correct.

1:06:58 That was a bad group of people to be picked for that study.

1:07:03 Which And also some of the technical stuff, the woman who ran it was great.

1:07:08 They transferred her to Okinawa and they put somebody else

1:07:10 in charge who was not as good, shall we say?

1:07:13 If the woman who did it was great,

1:07:15 wouldn't they have thought of the fact that it would have been uh you know,

1:07:19 n- a complete disadvantage for people to say that it would would have worked?

1:07:24 Like the study design.

1:07:26 Like the study design was flawed from the beginning

1:07:29 if people are disincentivized through losing losing their livelihood.

1:07:33 What What are your thoughts about that?

1:07:34 If the woman was great, wouldn't they have seen that in the study design?

1:07:37 To me, they had secondary agenda.

1:07:40 They wanted to sink this whole concept, in my opinion.

1:07:43 That's what they were trying to do.

1:07:44 The higher-ups.

1:07:46 Whichever way they wanted to do it, that's what they were doing.

1:07:49 That's your opinion.

1:07:50 That's how they That's how they explain it.

1:07:52 Mhm.

1:07:52 It got more interesting.

1:07:53 So, the study comes out and I don't So, in medicine, when you publish something,

1:08:01 all the physicians who read the study have the right and the responsibility

1:08:05 to comment anything that's wrong or a lie about the study.

1:08:09 That's how it works.

1:08:09 It's called letter to the editor.

1:08:11 Mhm.

1:08:11 Right?

1:08:12 So, I wrote a letter to the editor and they told me, "No,

1:08:14 we're not going to publish it." "Why?" "No." "Just not

1:08:17 going to do it." That has never happened to me before.

1:08:20 I've written What was the reason why?

1:08:21 Did they say it's a conflict of interest or Oh, here's what they said.

1:08:25 "No." That was it.

1:08:27 That was the explanation.

1:08:28 "No." That was it.

1:08:30 That was That was the extent of discussion.

1:08:33 Pretty big organization.

1:08:35 To no It sounds like you have individual people

1:08:40 that are part of the military or retired or veterans,

1:08:44 some that are active, that are strong advocates for you.

1:08:47 Then you have other groups like the VA

1:08:50 wrote out this position paper that you're mentioning.

1:08:52 We'll find it.

1:08:52 We'll link to it in the show notes to saying that hey,

1:08:54 this study was not done correctly or is garbage, right?

1:08:58 In whatever way that they were saying that.

1:09:00 And then you have other groups, you know,

1:09:02 the Navy, the higher-ups that you're alluding to.

1:09:04 It sounds like you don't want to mention

1:09:05 any names that for some reason your belief is,

1:09:08 allegedly, that they were trying to, you know, discredit you.

1:09:11 It was designed to sort of discredit you from the beginning.

1:09:14 using Stellate to save lives.

1:09:16 That's what they were trying to do.

1:09:17 They're trying to discredit the whole idea.

1:09:19 Oh, yeah, not me.

1:09:19 They didn't care about me.

1:09:20 So, you have almost like a complex body.

1:09:22 You have some things that are working for you and some

1:09:24 things that are sort of autoimmune that are working against you.

1:09:27 better believe it.

1:09:28 That's true.

1:09:29 That is a true statement.

1:09:30 What did you learn from this study's publication in terms of your mission

1:09:35 and vision of getting this treatment out there to the world?

1:09:38 When you face with something like that, it's

1:09:40 just basically a decision has to be made.

1:09:42 Are you going to pursue it or you going to just fold up and go home?

1:09:48 And you find out who you are.

1:09:49 I'm the most resilient SOB you'll find.

1:09:54 My brother called me BB, brother bulldog.

1:09:57 I just don't let go.

1:09:58 If it's something that's really important,

1:10:00 and keep in mind this is a personal thing for me because my mother is dead.

1:10:03 Right?

1:10:03 So, it's like if I wasn't going to fight it,

1:10:06 nobody else would going to fight it.

1:10:08 So, fortunately I had some other champions who were doing it as well.

1:10:12 But, the reason I really would not let go

1:10:14 because I could see all the people who could help.

1:10:17 And if those guys study really change a lot of minds.

1:10:20 As is, I've killed tons of people.

1:10:22 But, that genius decision to do the study the way they did it.

1:10:26 You believe that they have contributed to the deaths of people because

1:10:29 people look at that and say that this shot isn't worth it.

1:10:32 Yes.

1:10:32 So, that's that's my position.

1:10:34 And I may be little putting a little motion into it,

1:10:38 but I feel very strong they worked very

1:10:40 hard to 5 years to describe this whole concept.

1:10:43 Do you ever feel like you have to throw

1:10:44 in the word "allegedly" so that, you know,

1:10:46 people don't come after you or, you know, I said it's my opinion.

1:10:50 It's your opinion.

1:10:51 What's the difference allegedly and that I don't know.

1:10:53 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:10:53 And if they come after me, I'll just say, "Okay, here's the study.

1:10:58 Here's what it says.

1:10:58 Nobody's arguing that, right?" It's published.

1:11:01 Yeah.

1:11:01 Here's what the VA said.

1:11:03 All the other stuff, do I believe there was a conspiracy?

1:11:06 I don't know that's true or not.

1:11:07 No, but your belief is your opinion is that you

1:11:11 were being actively discredited SGB SGB as a treatment option Yes.

1:11:16 that is available to people.

1:11:19 And there could be a multitude of different reasons why.

1:11:21 That's totally fair.

1:11:23 What what is your main belief

1:11:24 that the reason that somebody would want to discredit,

1:11:26 separate from let's say ideas that the pharmaceutical industry,

1:11:30 which is an establishment, may not love additional new options that are

1:11:33 coming unless they can unless they can control it.

1:11:36 What would be the reason that somebody would want to discredit it,

1:11:38 especially when it comes to saving the lives

1:11:41 of To quote the guy I was telling about, Colonel Sadman said,

1:11:45 "You're asking people in charge currently to be in charge

1:11:47 of second best thing." You lose prestige and finance.

1:11:51 You know, there's a German physicist and Nobel Prize winner,

1:11:55 a lot of people quote him.

1:11:56 Many many many years ago, Planck.

1:11:59 He's my man.

1:12:00 Do you want to share our audience about his very

1:12:01 famous quote that applies to so many different Yes.

1:12:04 aspects of health and Brilliant guy.

1:12:06 1920s.

1:12:07 Planck constant for those of you who are geeks or nerds, which I am.

1:12:13 I'm very proud to be one.

1:12:14 Uh he said, "Science move ahead of funerals." Basically,

1:12:20 you need people who are in charge of other

1:12:22 things to die before new ideas can come to light.

1:12:25 Yeah, it's hard to get an old dog to admit

1:12:28 that the way that they've been doing things in any sort of field,

1:12:31 and you know, his field was physics, math,

1:12:34 everything like that, but whether this be in medicine,

1:12:36 technology, whatever it may be, all the sciences that are out there,

1:12:39 it's hard to get people who have been doing things

1:12:41 one way to all of a sudden wake up and say,

1:12:44 "Hey, we got it wrong.

1:12:47 This is a different approach that we should

1:12:49 explore." There was another study done from Fort Bragg.

1:12:52 So, they did that was study was well designed.

1:12:56 It was a um What year?

1:12:58 How many people?

1:13:00 It was 2019, 112 people, I believe.

1:13:03 So, a larger study than the 42

1:13:06 Uh the other part is none of them were separating from the military.

1:13:10 So, they took into account what was wrong with the study.

1:13:15 So, they found that and it was done in three sites.

1:13:18 So, naval side was on one side.

1:13:20 This was done in three sites.

1:13:22 It was done in Fort Bragg, special forces,

1:13:25 Hawaii, Tripler Hospital, and Landstuhl in Germany.

1:13:29 And they found stellate worked twice as good as placebo.

1:13:33 Which is not a surprise.

1:13:35 Which is great.

1:13:37 But, it's was still it's still ignored to this day.

1:13:41 I believe part of it was and it was a little small.

1:13:44 The response were okay, but there's no You can still say,

1:13:49 "I think this is all placebo effect." You can argue that back and forth.

1:13:54 So, in the interim, I ran into an amazing lady and her husband,

1:13:58 um Linda Greenberg and Glenn Greenberg.

1:14:02 They've been philanthropists for a long time,

1:14:05 and she's knew a number of SEALs who lives got better.

1:14:09 So, she said, "I would like to the team told

1:14:12 us that they would like to prove that stellate works.

1:14:16 What would it take?" So, they gave us significant amount of money.

1:14:23 I designed the study.

1:14:25 And then NYU took it on and did the right study.

1:14:29 It's been done for 3 years.

1:14:30 Placebo-controlled study done the same way control, but Yeah.

1:14:34 This is and we were going to do 150.

1:14:37 I think they did 90.

1:14:38 That's all they needed.

1:14:40 But, they did FMRI.

1:14:41 They did functional MRI before and after.

1:14:45 So, there's no argument placebo.

1:14:46 That's the key to this study.

1:14:49 Right?

1:14:49 You always need FMRI.

1:14:51 VA in that position paper in 2017 almost said, "Oh, we agree with Dr.

1:14:55 Lipar." because I was one one of the consultants

1:14:57 of that paper that a functional MRI study should be done,

1:15:01 but they never paid for it.

1:15:02 Here, we are able to do it.

1:15:05 So, that should be out in September.

1:15:07 And I think at that point people just go, "Aha!

1:15:11 I guess it's the right thing to do." So, it's not out yet.

1:15:14 The trial's finished, and they're working on They're analyzing the data.

1:15:18 They're analyzing the data,

1:15:19 and then eventually it'll be published in some journal.

1:15:21 It's going to be in a big journal.

1:15:22 You know, in medicine,

1:15:24 the study you do you want to be you want to be involved in this landmark study,

1:15:27 meaning like from here it changed medicine.

1:15:32 Mhm.

1:15:32 You don't have to wait for anybody to die.

1:15:34 God bless everybody.

1:15:36 But, there's going to be much less debate because if you have big study,

1:15:40 large number of people, functional MRI, big institution,

1:15:44 NYU is a an amazing institution in so many ways,

1:15:49 but they did the right psychologists, they had functional MRI,

1:15:51 they had everything everything everything that is a unimpeachable study,

1:15:56 and I wasn't involved in it.

1:15:57 I helped start it, but I was like, "Here's the money.

1:16:01 Here's the design.

1:16:02 Do whatever you think is right." and they did everything.

1:16:04 Yeah, so you don't know the results right now, but you have a you know,

1:16:06 you feel just based on the way that it was

1:16:08 set up and that that that it's going to be positive.

1:16:12 I believe it's going to be positive, but we won't get into details of that.

1:16:15 Sure.

1:16:16 Sure.

1:16:16 Well, that'll be out in September,

1:16:17 and we'll update our show notes so our audience can take a look at that.

1:16:20 What was the motivation behind these benefactors of why

1:16:22 they wanted to get behind this and spend serious,

1:16:25 you know, hundreds of thousands, if not, you know,

1:16:27 a couple million dollars to do a study like this?

1:16:29 It was north of that.

1:16:30 The motivation was So, Linda was a foreign correspondent.

1:16:35 So, she was anchor for NBC News.

1:16:38 So, she's she's been embedded with a lot of military personnel.

1:16:44 She's seen all type of horrors in her life.

1:16:47 And then um So, eventually I got to treat her actually, which helped her.

1:16:54 But, she was sitting around the campfire

1:16:58 campfire with some SEALs, and they said,

1:17:00 "You know, stellate is really helping me,

1:17:04 you know, us and you know, our people." So,

1:17:06 she called me up and she said, you know, it's like uh if it works for me,

1:17:11 I'd like to sponsor you actually treating people and maybe studying it.

1:17:16 That was the motivation.

1:17:18 That was it.

1:17:19 They're they're an amazing family that really they helped us do the research.

1:17:23 They have supported our nonprofit our nonprofit is called Erase PTSD now.

1:17:28 So, if people want to donate to it, that'd be amazing.

1:17:30 It's Erase PTSD now.

1:17:32 Uh dot com or dot org, one of those.

1:17:35 Uh but, the point is they have helped us so much, and they helped I mean,

1:17:40 this is one without their support,

1:17:44 we would not be where we are today by any measure.

1:17:48 And the amount of lives that we have saved,

1:17:51 I mean, it may sound like exaggeration,

1:17:53 but I I I get like every 2 3 weeks, I guess, you know,

1:17:57 saying you saved my life, you saved my marriage,

1:18:00 you saved this, my children different, but it's like, "Oh my god." They're just

1:18:05 I I cannot be more thankful to that couple.

1:18:08 Give us the background story of the title of the book, God Shot.

1:18:12 I love that title.

1:18:13 There's a there's a there's a patient that received the treatment,

1:18:18 and you know, he plays into this.

1:18:21 But, yeah, tell the story.

1:18:23 Yeah, so it was funny.

1:18:23 So, one guy came in, he was a marine.

1:18:26 And he said, you know, it's like,

1:18:27 "I I'd like to have the God Shot." I was like, "I don't know what that is.

1:18:32 What do you mean by that?" He said, "Well,

1:18:34 in in our unit it's called the God Shot." So,

1:18:37 one of his friends had stellate ganglion block by somebody else, not me.

1:18:41 And it changed his life.

1:18:42 So, the only entity can change life is God.

1:18:45 So, that's why they call the God Shot because it changes lives.

1:18:49 So, I was taking care of this guy.

1:18:51 His name is Matt.

1:18:52 So, Matt was a really good writer, and he was a lieutenant in Iraq.

1:18:58 So, he was asked by Playboy to write

1:19:02 an article about his experience having stellate ganglion block.

1:19:06 So, if you want to read that article in Playboy in 2016, it's on my website.

1:19:10 It's pretty funny.

1:19:12 That's why he called it the God Shot, and we really loved that.

1:19:15 So, when I met with my writer,

1:19:17 and she looked at the paper that's hanging in my wall,

1:19:21 I said, "Let's call the book that, the God Shot." It makes perfect sense.

1:19:25 Yeah.

1:19:26 Well, Because it changed lives.

1:19:27 I mean, it changed my life.

1:19:28 It changed so many people's lives.

1:19:29 Changed my son's life, my wife's life.

1:19:32 Because, you know, I became a more normal person.

1:19:34 Are you religious yourself?

1:19:36 Do you believe that uh do you have any belief

1:19:37 of of higher power and their involvement in our lives?

1:19:40 Well, I was born in Ukraine and I lived in Moscow.

1:19:43 So, in Russia at least at that time,

1:19:45 I don't know now, uh religion was opium for the masses, right?

1:19:49 So, they they're not big into religion.

1:19:51 That's not the thing.

1:19:52 But, the thing that we're in they're like I had

1:19:55 an out-of-body experience when I got hit by propeller blade.

1:19:58 So, I was in a tunnel talking to people in the tunnel.

1:20:01 It was an amazing experience.

1:20:03 So, I can tell you about that.

1:20:05 But, I believe there's definitely a higher power.

1:20:07 So, I think I thank God every day for everything I have.

1:20:12 It's an amazing It could be, you know,

1:20:13 people could say, you know, it's like whatever, a shining feeling.

1:20:16 We can talk about all of that and I don't know.

1:20:19 I don't know from that, but I do know that being in a tunnel made me

1:20:23 a much better person and appreciate what I

1:20:27 have and my family and everything around me.

1:20:29 An opportunity to do this.

1:20:31 This is just an amazing gift.

1:20:32 You know, I'm thinking about especially in the context of trauma

1:20:36 for people who are religious or are open-minded or at least,

1:20:40 you know, have some belief of a higher higher power,

1:20:42 whatever that might be, the universe, whatever.

1:20:45 There's often this feeling that when people go through very traumatic things

1:20:47 of why would God or this higher power allow this to happen, right?

1:20:53 That's a That's a That's a question that Right.

1:20:55 religions have struggled with and answered over

1:20:58 the years and there's many more people

1:21:02 that are way more smarter and qualified than

1:21:05 me that have explored this conversation that's there.

1:21:08 But, I'm thinking about your story and one of the things that stands

1:21:11 out and I'd like to phrase it as a question to you

1:21:14 is that do you think that the higher power that you believe

1:21:18 in a part of some of the challenging experiences that you had in life,

1:21:25 it almost feels like reading your story in your book that you

1:21:28 wouldn't have ended up coming up with this idea that there's this procedure,

1:21:34 there's this shot that could help people if it

1:21:37 wasn't for the extremely tough times you went through.

1:21:41 So, one of my favorite terms is hormesis.

1:21:43 I don't know if you've heard that term.

1:21:44 Very much so.

1:21:45 Yeah.

1:21:45 Hormesis, for the audience,

1:21:47 is basically what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

1:21:51 So, that is a term that was initiated in 19th

1:21:53 century where an experimenter was working with fung- fungi.

1:21:59 He gave fungicide not at the level that would kill the fungus, but close to it.

1:22:06 So, the fungi that survived the attack of fungicide turned out to be stronger.

1:22:11 So, now we know there's actually it activates certain genes when somebody almost

1:22:17 dies or gets injured either can break you or it can make you.

1:22:22 My case, it didn't break me,

1:22:24 it made me in the sense that it activated my genes or whatever.

1:22:28 So, if it wasn't my mother's death I would never have First of all,

1:22:35 I would have been a surgeon.

1:22:36 I would not have been an anesthesiologist.

1:22:38 Profession I really never liked very much.

1:22:41 Uh I would never have had the opportunity to figure this out.

1:22:47 Also, without her death, even if I would have been common anesthesiologist,

1:22:50 I would never have fought everybody had

1:22:53 to fight with and argue and spend large amount

1:22:56 of money trying to survive through all

1:22:57 of this because I felt like this is really helpful.

1:23:02 So, if it wasn't for her being my guiding

1:23:04 star in that, I would never have done that.

1:23:07 I would not recommend fighting with powers that be on a continuous basis

1:23:11 for years where people tried to dismantle things you try to put together.

1:23:17 I do not recommend for fun.

1:23:19 Do not recommend that.

1:23:21 So, to give you a direct answer,

1:23:22 I'm not sure how much higher power uh had to do with that.

1:23:28 To me God helps those who help themselves in the sense

1:23:31 that if you have a direction, you have focus,

1:23:34 and you have a reason why you're doing it like I work very hard to exercise,

1:23:39 take stuff for longevity, all of this.

1:23:41 I will not operate in my 90s.

1:23:44 Because I think somebody like me, you know, I'm training people,

1:23:48 I'm writing textbooks, I'm publishing, I'm very active in everything.

1:23:52 I think it's important to do that.

1:23:54 It gives me so much joy to do it, frankly.

1:23:57 But, I also see the result, right?

1:23:59 If there's no result, there's no reason to do any of this.

1:24:01 You talked about your near-death experience.

1:24:02 I'd love to just go on a quick tangent because it's

1:24:05 one of those things that we've explored on this podcast before.

1:24:09 I don't know if you know,

1:24:09 but University of Virginia actually has a department

1:24:11 that's there that uh looks at near-death experiences.

1:24:15 I read about it, yes.

1:24:16 They published on it.

1:24:17 They've They've written about it.

1:24:18 We've had one of their uh primary teachers and he's

1:24:23 a physician himself who had a near-death experience that not himself,

1:24:27 but he was the recipient of somebody who had a near-death experience.

1:24:30 His name is Bruce Grayson.

1:24:33 And we've done a podcast with him.

1:24:34 I think it's we can link to it in the show notes.

1:24:36 Um tell me about your near-death experience.

1:24:40 You talked about this tunnel and this white light.

1:24:42 What what was going on and you know, what how did it what you know,

1:24:45 what sort of lasting impact has it had on you?

1:24:48 Oh my God.

1:24:49 I think completely changed my mind.

1:24:51 So, first of all, let me let me give you a background.

1:24:54 So, I was always very introverted.

1:24:57 Like, you know, I couldn't really do I was very introverted,

1:25:02 shall we say, and very inhibited.

1:25:03 After the experience,

1:25:05 you don't I don't strike you as a introverted at this point.

1:25:08 No, in fact, uh one of our common friends said uh he loves to talk a lot,

1:25:13 so make sure you guide him in the process.

1:25:17 Well, that is my problem.

1:25:18 There's no doubt about it.

1:25:19 But, you're asking questions.

1:25:21 Uh anyway, so the So, I was snorkeling.

1:25:24 I got hit by a propeller and I was in white tunnel.

1:25:28 So, I remember being very comfortable.

1:25:29 So, it was the most comfortable at peace place I've ever been.

1:25:34 Which is most commonly is described like that, I think, by a lot of people.

1:25:38 And then, so I never saw God,

1:25:41 but I saw angels and some of my ancestors talking to me.

1:25:46 It's like, "How you doing?" You know,

1:25:48 it was more of a It wasn't really specific conversation.

1:25:52 But, I was kind of floating in this tunnel,

1:25:54 probably a minute, cuz I was drowning.

1:25:57 At that time, I was bleeding and drowning.

1:25:59 Mhm.

1:26:00 Not a good thing, obviously.

1:26:02 And then, the part that was really interesting.

1:26:04 So, I was like, "Oh, this is a great place to be.

1:26:07 This is I hope I can I can stay here." So, I heard this voice.

1:26:11 It's like, "It's not your time." And poof, I woke up and I was a sea of blood.

1:26:15 And I you know, since I did trauma surgery as a medical student,

1:26:19 I had training I looked around, I examined myself, and I I looked at the wounds.

1:26:24 I was like, "This is going to be a problem to fix." I remember that.

1:26:29 And I crawled in the boat and I grabbed the towel,

1:26:31 put it in the bleeding points, and I survived.

1:26:34 It's interesting you've talked about that because we've had

1:26:36 uh we interviewed um a past podcast guest who

1:26:39 had her own near-death experience that led to a whole

1:26:43 revolution of her helping people through her methodology.

1:26:46 I'm blanking on her name, it'll come back to me,

1:26:48 but we'll link to it in the show notes,

1:26:49 but she described a very interesting intersection as well.

1:26:53 Her dad who had passed away previously

1:26:55 who she had a very challenging relationship with.

1:26:59 In fact, he was the source of a lot of trauma that was there, very tough on her.

1:27:04 Uh forced her to get married to somebody that she didn't

1:27:08 want to get married to and she ended up running away.

1:27:11 And then broke free of that pattern in India.

1:27:14 But, in the father's passing and in the sort of uh

1:27:20 field of consciousness where everybody now has dropped their layers,

1:27:23 their trauma, other stuff, her dad spoke to her and said, "It's not your time.

1:27:29 You're needed and you have a very important message.

1:27:33 So, please go back." At that she was dealing with uh I believe it was cancer she

1:27:37 was dealing with and she was hospitalized for a period

1:27:39 of time where she had this near-death experience.

1:27:42 And I think even she she died and was resuscitated, right?

1:27:46 She was she was medically um diagnosed as being uh dead and she

1:27:51 was resuscitated and uh was told to come back and then she came

1:27:55 back and that was part of her story of what helped her That is

1:27:59 the bring the information back that uh she had to share with people.

1:28:03 Well, I heard that voice.

1:28:04 It's like, "It's not your time." And it's like the abrupt change was like that.

1:28:08 Mhm.

1:28:10 Intense.

1:28:10 Are there other people outside of this group of clinics that you've

1:28:14 set up uh Stella Mental Health that also are doing this uh procedure?

1:28:22 And is that one of your hopes that you see more anesthesiologists,

1:28:26 institutions, individuals that are doing this uh procedure?

1:28:29 So, are other anesthesiologists doing

1:28:32 this procedure that are unaffiliated with you,

1:28:34 but have been inspired by your work,

1:28:35 convinced, or arrived there through their own?

1:28:38 And is that part of your goal is to have this procedure more widely available

1:28:42 through other institutions, hospitals, clinics?

1:28:45 Yes and yes.

1:28:47 So, a number of physicians are doing it.

1:28:49 Uh Some very good clinicians are doing it.

1:28:53 One of the great thing about Stella is everybody who works with us,

1:28:58 I I had a chance to vet them.

1:29:00 There are some really good docs out there.

1:29:03 Not everybody is an anesthesiologist.

1:29:04 So, here's my advice to people who would like to have it done outside Stella.

1:29:09 Make sure they're trained.

1:29:11 Number one.

1:29:12 The people who should be doing this procedure are pain board certified,

1:29:18 meaning they did, let's say they're physiatrist and anesthesiologist,

1:29:23 but they are pain doctors,

1:29:25 meaning they know how to how to treat pain conditions,

1:29:29 and they're trained in ultrasound-guided procedures.

1:29:32 Some do this x-ray.

1:29:34 To me, that's second second rate.

1:29:37 It's not as good.

1:29:38 Ultrasound is better.

1:29:40 But you want to make sure they're doing it.

1:29:41 They had Somebody showed me a video of a chiropractic physician

1:29:46 physician doing it blind.

1:29:47 Scared me to death.

1:29:49 I reported him to state.

1:29:50 It's like, first of all, chiropractic should not be doing it, number one.

1:29:53 Number two, he wasn't using any guidance.

1:29:56 That's not good.

1:29:57 That just That's wrong.

1:29:59 Absolutely not.

1:30:00 Ask how many procedures have that person done,

1:30:04 what kind of problems have they had.

1:30:05 But make sure they have ultrasound guidance.

1:30:09 Make sure they're pain board certified.

1:30:11 That's crucial.

1:30:13 And I Yeah, my hope is absolutely.

1:30:15 That's why we're doing the study.

1:30:16 Once study comes out,

1:30:17 I think institutions there's going to be a much more of it available.

1:30:22 When you think about other adjunct things that people are exploring,

1:30:27 and some of them that you are rolling into your offerings of your clinic,

1:30:32 and just to go on the record, I have no relationship at all with your clinics.

1:30:36 Uh you know, sometimes uh different testing facilities will offer, you know,

1:30:39 me or a family member to come in and get a procedure done,

1:30:42 you know, I I I deny those.

1:30:45 You know, I don't know I don't know I don't I don't accept any of those.

1:30:47 You guys haven't offered.

1:30:48 We have no financial ties.

1:30:50 I have no connection.

1:30:51 It's literally because I have a podcast listener

1:30:54 that I've befriended who knows people who've gone

1:30:57 through this that said that you have

1:30:59 to dig into this and then mention your book.

1:31:02 That's why we're having this conversation.

1:31:03 I have no other relationship to you.

1:31:05 I appreciate it.

1:31:06 But with your offerings at Stella Mental Health

1:31:09 and some things that people have independently done,

1:31:11 like psychedelics, you've mentioned psychedelics.

1:31:13 Some of the benefits that people have gotten from psychedelics,

1:31:16 it almost sounds similar that I've heard stories of people

1:31:19 that have felt like this weight that was on my chest.

1:31:23 Not everybody, right?

1:31:25 works for everyone.

1:31:26 Nothing works for everyone, but similarly,

1:31:28 you hear these stories of people who've gone through

1:31:31 psychedelics or uh other procedures that might be there,

1:31:35 transcranial magnetic stimulation,

1:31:37 which is a service that you guys offer as well, too.

1:31:39 TMS.

1:31:41 That they've gotten these benefits.

1:31:43 Do Do you think that where people have experienced these things,

1:31:47 that it's also potentially working on the same nerve cluster,

1:31:50 or that they have different ways that they're arriving to the same conclusions?

1:31:55 That's what you're asking.

1:31:55 When they work.

1:31:56 They work in different ways.

1:31:57 So, let's compare and contrast if you don't mind.

1:31:59 I had a psychedelic experience.

1:32:01 I think I had psilocybin, for example.

1:32:04 So, it was interesting.

1:32:05 So, the way that works, psilocybin, I think is a really excellent drug.

1:32:10 It probably be available relatively soon, we hope.

1:32:12 Works well for depression.

1:32:14 It grows neural tissue back.

1:32:17 Right.

1:32:17 So, PFC So, in order to understand what's happening, pretty straightforward.

1:32:21 So, you need to you need to know,

1:32:24 let's say, three structures in the brain, simplified.

1:32:28 PFC, prefrontal cortex, right here.

1:32:31 Amygdala.

1:32:32 That's the bad one.

1:32:33 So, if when you The the lizard brain, our sort of brain, exactly.

1:32:35 Ancestral brain.

1:32:37 Exactly.

1:32:38 Emotional brain, limbic system.

1:32:40 Right.

1:32:41 And then uh hippocampus.

1:32:43 Hippocampus is memory.

1:32:46 Or state, you know, not emotional memory, but regular memory.

1:32:50 So, if PFC is active, it can suppress the amygdala.

1:32:55 If you can suppress the amygdala, you are not going to be anxious.

1:32:59 Hippocampus, if you can Hippocampus can suppress the amygdala as well.

1:33:05 So, if you think about it from those Those are

1:33:07 the three organs you need to know about.

1:33:10 Uh psychedelics, at least psilocybin,

1:33:15 will activate PFC and can suppress amygdala.

1:33:18 Right?

1:33:20 Playing Tetris game will activate hippocampus,

1:33:24 will help PTSD by suppressing the amygdala.

1:33:27 Tetris, the video game that was invented in Russia.

1:33:30 Yeah, that's the one.

1:33:31 And then ketamine grows PFC as well.

1:33:37 Transcranial stimulation grows PFC as well.

1:33:40 All that suppress amygdala.

1:33:42 But does it affect the amygdala directly?

1:33:44 Not really that I'm aware of.

1:33:46 Stellate affects amygdala directly.

1:33:48 So, either raise the bridge or lower the water.

1:33:51 Mhm.

1:33:51 Right?

1:33:52 So, what we found, I came up with the term SOF method,

1:33:56 combination of ketamine and uh stellate.

1:34:00 SOF method, the special operator force method,

1:34:03 because ketamine does some very good things,

1:34:06 like grows neural tissue back and works

1:34:08 with It's used for depression quite often.

1:34:10 But it also activates fight or flight nerve growth.

1:34:13 That's not good.

1:34:14 So, combination of the two seems to work better.

1:34:17 It's a synergistic effect.

1:34:20 That makes sense?

1:34:21 Yeah, that makes sense.

1:34:22 So, that's why I mean,

1:34:23 if you look at those three structures, it's a way oversimplification.

1:34:26 There's no question about it.

1:34:28 But that kind of gives you a feel.

1:34:30 But the great thing about stellate for me,

1:34:32 I can isolate just the sympathetic nervous system, just to the brain.

1:34:36 Because if I give you a pill to do what my blood does,

1:34:39 you're not going to be able to walk.

1:34:40 Your blood pressure will drop.

1:34:42 Yeah, other places sympathetic should be working.

1:34:44 But stellate is a separate place.

1:34:46 Well, what are the uh you know,

1:34:48 anytime somebody thinks about a shot in the neck,

1:34:51 which you guys have demonstrated is very safe,

1:34:53 every medical intervention has some risks that are there.

1:34:56 That's why, you know,

1:34:56 you mentioned earlier that if somebody has really challenging,

1:35:01 you know, heart problem or you know, other severe issues, lung breathing issues,

1:35:06 no different than like getting an epidural,

1:35:07 you would say this is not for you, right?

1:35:10 This is not for you.

1:35:10 True.

1:35:11 How do you guys measure essentially things going wrong, adverse reactions?

1:35:18 Is that something that you track?

1:35:19 Is there the possibility?

1:35:21 Is there any sort of history, just as you're mentioning,

1:35:24 if you were interviewing somebody that was separate from your clinic,

1:35:27 not trained from you guys, are they pain board certified?

1:35:30 How many procedures have they done?

1:35:32 And has anything gone wrong, right?

1:35:34 What are examples of things going wrong,

1:35:36 and how would somebody ask that even for your your own operation?

1:35:39 Sure.

1:35:40 I mean, that's totally I I think that's reasonable.

1:35:43 So, I've done 5,000 procedures.

1:35:47 I can tell you that.

1:35:47 I had no fatalities.

1:35:50 I have not had any permanent complications.

1:35:53 Knock wood.

1:35:54 Just to be sure, we'll do two two of them.

1:35:57 I mean, that that's my stats currently.

1:35:59 So, that's a very commonly asked question.

1:36:01 What are the possible side effects?

1:36:03 How often do they really happen?

1:36:04 And what can you do about it?

1:36:06 Right?

1:36:06 That's fair question.

1:36:08 So, when I gave testimony in Congress, if you want to see that, by the way,

1:36:13 when they called me interesting names in Congress in 2010.

1:36:16 Here's what I told them.

1:36:17 I said, "Stellate ganglion blocks been around since 1925.

1:36:21 My father was born in 1925.

1:36:24 It will not cause a tail.

1:36:26 It will not cause any weird complications.

1:36:28 It's like, when you have new drugs, you don't know long-term what's going to do.

1:36:32 Bupivacaine has been used.

1:36:34 That's what drug we use.

1:36:36 It had been clinically used since 1970s.

1:36:38 Yeah, that's actually what you're injecting in the neck.

1:36:42 right.

1:36:42 And this is a drug that's used for pregnant women.

1:36:45 You know it's going to be pretty safe.

1:36:46 You're not going to give spunky stuff to pregnant women.

1:36:49 So, drug itself, we know is safe.

1:36:53 Now, the needle can go in the wrong areas and can cause problems.

1:36:56 So, there was only one big study done on complications.

1:37:01 1992 in Germany.

1:37:03 The country of Germany did 45,000 stellate ganglion blocks that year.

1:37:08 Now, this is before x-ray, before ultrasound, right?

1:37:11 So, before we used to do it, before we had the equipment,

1:37:15 we would palpate, we would feel where we were at, and stick a needle.

1:37:19 So, you know it's safer now because we can see where we're going.

1:37:22 That's why I insist on people using guidance.

1:37:24 Anyway, 45,000 stellates, nobody died.

1:37:28 They had 11 seizures, which they were able to deal with.

1:37:34 Seizures happen if you hit a blood vessel, inject inside the blood vessel.

1:37:37 It'll cause a seizure.

1:37:40 And we can talk about how to treat it and all of that.

1:37:43 Two, they had nine people had pneumothorax.

1:37:47 So, standard stellate ganglion block is done at the bottom of the neck,

1:37:50 or C7, which is the lowest vertebra.

1:37:53 That's why it's seven.

1:37:54 I do it at C6, and everybody pretty much now does C6.

1:37:59 So, you're away from the lung, cuz there's a lung right here.

1:38:02 You're staying away.

1:38:02 Plus, you could see it with ultrasound.

1:38:04 And they So, again, out of 45,000, they had, I think,

1:38:08 11 seizures, nine pneumothorax, and three allergic reactions to whatever.

1:38:15 That that That was the experience.

1:38:18 You know, it is possible to do really bad things

1:38:20 with needle if you really don't know what you're doing.

1:38:23 Uh but you have to work pretty hard, because it's a safe area.

1:38:28 It's pretty close to the skin if you know what you're doing.

1:38:31 It's I mean, it's been done since 1925 for various pain conditions,

1:38:35 like headaches, CRPS, which is burning in the hand.

1:38:40 Can it go wrong?

1:38:40 Yes, but part of what I do as a CMO

1:38:44 of a Stella Mental Health is make sure you have the equipment.

1:38:49 For example, resuscitation equipment, intubation equipment, that kind of stuff.

1:38:53 Also, if if the drug, bupivacaine,

1:38:57 goes into an artery or vein, and somebody starts to seize,

1:39:02 there is a substance called intralipid that you can

1:39:03 inject and just sucks it out of the blood.

1:39:06 It's really cool.

1:39:08 They didn't know about it in the '90s.

1:39:10 It's such a cool thing.

1:39:11 So, I don't ever go I was in Colombia 2 weeks ago.

1:39:16 I said, "I'm not going there unless I could bring

1:39:18 my intralipids." I brought my intralipids, made me very happy.

1:39:23 Happy intralipids.

1:39:25 Have you guys had to use that ever?

1:39:27 You know, We used it twice for people like a little confused.

1:39:31 I wasn't sure.

1:39:33 You weren't sure if they were getting a seizure.

1:39:35 Or well, they didn't have a seizure seizure,

1:39:37 but they were really not behaving the way I wanted them to behave.

1:39:40 Yeah.

1:39:40 So, we watched them.

1:39:43 And then if they're not behaving quite right,

1:39:45 it's like because the intralipids have no downside.

1:39:48 It's nothing.

1:39:49 It's just fat.

1:39:51 So, I'd rather give it than not give it.

1:39:53 And they got better.

1:39:55 Was it because they were a little confused?

1:39:57 I don't know.

1:39:58 But the point is if you think of it, do it.

1:40:01 That's how I teach and train everybody.

1:40:02 I had like um somebody who was had

1:40:07 a pre-seizure episode when I was doing a different procedure.

1:40:11 lumbar sympathetic block And he was like he didn't speak English.

1:40:15 I wasn't sure.

1:40:15 And he was like completely confused.

1:40:17 I gave him intralipids.

1:40:18 Came right back.

1:40:20 No problems.

1:40:21 You're going back to this uh you were

1:40:22 talking about this German study that was done.

1:40:24 That was like in the '90s, you said.

1:40:27 '92.

1:40:27 In Germany they had it done 45,000 of these procedures that were there.

1:40:31 You know, with this this um this shot having been around so long,

1:40:37 were there other people in the literature,

1:40:41 case studies, journal, you know, conferences that were proposing that, hey,

1:40:45 you know, you treat 45,000 people for pain.

1:40:48 Many of them probably have, you know,

1:40:50 some version of trauma or PTSD or something like that.

1:40:55 You know, were there other people that were hypothesizing that, hey,

1:40:58 this should actually be a first line approach for, you know,

1:41:03 for for for, you know,

1:41:05 helping with this injury in the way that you came to that conclusion.

1:41:09 mental condition?

1:41:10 Yeah.

1:41:11 That's a tremendous nuance question.

1:41:13 Let me give you a complete answer to that.

1:41:15 So, first of all, pain physicians are not psychiatrists.

1:41:20 Take care of pain, goodbye.

1:41:22 I don't understand your mental state.

1:41:23 We we I just take a needle and go away.

1:41:27 So, 1947 in Cleveland Clinic,

1:41:31 there was a publication using stellate ganglion block to treat depression.

1:41:34 1947 forgotten 1955,

1:41:39 there was an article that was written I don't know from where,

1:41:43 but um mental disorders.

1:41:47 Oh, it was climacteric um psychosis.

1:41:52 Climacteric Climacteric is another term for saying menopausal psychosis.

1:41:57 They treated with stellate 1955.

1:41:59 forgotten Right?

1:42:02 There was a paper written in 1992 where they

1:42:04 did stellate for burning of the hand and PTSD.

1:42:09 Burning of hand went away and PTSD went away.

1:42:11 And they thought, well, because the hand doesn't burn,

1:42:16 they don't have PTSD, they felt better.

1:42:19 Right?

1:42:21 Then the question many many you're asking I think

1:42:23 one of the questions that very commonly asked to me,

1:42:25 especially by my colleagues, like, "Okay, you're not that smart.

1:42:29 Let's start with that." That wasn't my question.

1:42:31 No, but I'm telling you what they're asking.

1:42:33 But I'll I'll get to that.

1:42:34 I actually came to the different conclusion, but I'll get to that in a second.

1:42:36 Their point was like, "You're not that smart.

1:42:38 All the doctors that came from 1925 to now,

1:42:42 why you and this was anybody else that has done stellate?" I said,

1:42:48 "Well, smarter than you." Just for the fun of it.

1:42:51 But number two, I came at it from perspective that it will work.

1:42:56 I was prepared to treat mental condition because

1:43:00 of Finnish paper when they did the clipping.

1:43:03 I I was trying to treat that cuz I understood the anatomy.

1:43:07 In medicine, if you don't understand it, they want nothing to do with it.

1:43:12 I understood the biology and I was looking for that in isolated group just PTSD.

1:43:17 No pain.

1:43:19 Cuz if you take a pain away and people's depression gets better,

1:43:23 what's so surprising in that?

1:43:24 Your back pain doesn't hurt anymore.

1:43:26 You can walk normally and have sex normally.

1:43:28 You're not depressed.

1:43:30 What what do you think it's working?

1:43:33 Because the pain is gone.

1:43:36 But what made the first case publication 2018 unique?

1:43:41 It was purely for PTSD.

1:43:43 No pain condition at all.

1:43:44 I wasn't trying to treat any pain.

1:43:46 You were divorcing the two, which gave you the momentum to say that, hey,

1:43:50 there's an opportunity to double down on this to actually

1:43:52 help people who are not dealing with pain,

1:43:55 but are just just {quote} having this trauma-based injury to the body.

1:44:02 That's exactly right.

1:44:03 That that's precisely right.

1:44:04 Kapkin did a great review in 2016.

1:44:06 And they were looking at when how long has

1:44:10 stellate been used for psychiatric conditions and for what?

1:44:15 So, the first paper was 1947 Cleveland Clinic.

1:44:19 And there was 1955 about climacteric psychosis and things like that.

1:44:23 Occasional.

1:44:24 There was a paper in 2003, for example,

1:44:26 for schizophrenia where that accidentally helped schizophrenia.

1:44:32 Then there was a paper by me in 2008.

1:44:36 And then all the other papers talking about using stellate for then on 2010,

1:44:40 2011, 2012, and so on.

1:44:42 So, it it started with my 2008 paper.

1:44:46 And then went from there.

1:44:47 In fact, there was a I'm not going to use the name of the person,

1:44:50 but he's worked very hard to discredit that I was the one who came up with that.

1:44:56 And then eventually I had to write a letter to the editor saying he's wrong.

1:45:01 These are the facts.

1:45:02 This is how it is.

1:45:04 No, the guy who did Lipinski was the name of the guy

1:45:07 in 1992 about the hand burning and the PTSD together.

1:45:11 He was saying that's what caused that's what started it.

1:45:14 My point to them, his partner and he

1:45:18 replicated my work in 2010 after I published 2008.

1:45:22 So, no debate, no discussion.

1:45:25 In fact, there was going to be a paper.

1:45:27 There was a um chapter in the book

1:45:29 that was excluded based on uh other recommendations,

1:45:33 shall we say, that addressed that.

1:45:35 So, just to make it more interesting.

1:45:37 So, Amazon in Amazon there is a review.

1:45:40 All the reviews are great except for one.

1:45:42 And they were saying, "This is written by AI." So,

1:45:46 the lady who wrote the book, I said,

1:45:48 "Does your husband know that you're AI?" What?

1:45:50 She's a great writer.

1:45:52 And then they clearly didn't read the book because

1:45:56 some of the quotes from there were just wrong.

1:45:58 And they said the only person that I would let do the procedure

1:46:02 would be this other person who's been trying to downgrade me for years.

1:46:07 And she's quoting his name in the review on Amazon.

1:46:10 I asked Amazon, I said, "Take that down.

1:46:12 That's clearly a prejudicial.

1:46:13 Why would you?" Nah, they don't care about it.

1:46:16 And that is like sad.

1:46:17 Well, you know, I think that in this day and age,

1:46:20 people love hearing all the sides, even if people are motivated by True.

1:46:24 their own intentions.

1:46:25 Yeah.

1:46:25 And I think what's healthy is somebody

1:46:28 like yourself just talking about it head-on.

1:46:31 People are allowed to have their opinions.

1:46:33 They're allowed to have their beliefs.

1:46:34 They're allowed to do their own advocacy.

1:46:36 They think they're doing their own version of God's work

1:46:39 by shutting down people who are grifters or this or that.

1:46:43 And then we present all that information Right.

1:46:45 including the criticism.

1:46:47 Yeah.

1:46:47 And it goes back to this idea that, you know, human beings are smart.

1:46:51 And the ones who have been suffering or know family members that have been,

1:46:55 they understand risk reward and they can navigate it, ask people,

1:47:01 get opinions from people, listen to patient testimonials, talk to people,

1:47:05 understand the valid criticisms that are out there,

1:47:08 ask very tough questions to providers.

1:47:11 And and it and it's great.

1:47:13 Right?

1:47:13 That's like the beauty of this modern day and age.

1:47:16 And, you know, one of the benefits that have come from, you know,

1:47:19 long-format podcast conversations that are out there is that, hey,

1:47:22 let's just talk about it all.

1:47:24 Right?

1:47:24 And let's be Exactly.

1:47:25 And let's detail by people who actually know what they're talking about.

1:47:28 Like people who actually like who started something and I can give you

1:47:32 detail endless detail about it because this is I've been focusing it for years.

1:47:37 It's been 20 years actually.

1:47:38 So, the first time I did the block, it's 20 2006.

1:47:43 It's 2026.

1:47:45 It's kind of interesting.

1:47:46 So, the paper came out 2 years later.

1:47:49 But it's been This is a 20 years anniversary.

1:47:51 So, I think this is going to be the year for breakthrough finally.

1:47:54 Yeah.

1:47:55 Fascinating.

1:47:56 Very fascinating.

1:47:58 You know, at the deepest level as we're winding down here,

1:48:01 you know, people are asking themselves this big picture question.

1:48:05 Is this idea of like can trauma truly be healed?

1:48:10 Or are we just learning to live with it?

1:48:13 And you've painted the picture today that there is this possibility

1:48:16 that if we see it through the lens of injury, that there's an opportunity.

1:48:22 It may not work for everyone, but that there are strong signals.

1:48:26 In medicine, if you look through the history of medicine,

1:48:29 you're looking for everything starts off with case studies.

1:48:33 Right.

1:48:33 Even hand washing, you know, if people look at the history of hand washing,

1:48:37 there was outrage at the idea from the early

1:48:41 surgeon uh surgeons and people in delivery.

1:48:45 That story gave me a lot of hope.

1:48:48 Yeah.

1:48:48 I'll I'll I'll tell you why.

1:48:50 So, Semmelweis was the name of the guy.

1:48:53 He was from um Hungary.

1:48:56 He went to medical school in Austria, which was the place to be in his day.

1:49:02 He got there and he looked around and he found that when women

1:49:06 gave birth at home by nurse practitioners as opposed to doctors and hospitals,

1:49:14 the death rate was three times higher in hospital.

1:49:17 So, he's like, "Why would that be?" But you need

1:49:20 to know at that time we're talking about circa 1873, something like that.

1:49:26 And this was bad humors.

1:49:29 Basically, if if it smelled bad, it transmit disease.

1:49:32 That was the thinking in those days.

1:49:35 And then so he starts studying it.

1:49:38 He published an article, wrote a book about it.

1:49:40 He went lecturing.

1:49:42 And he went to the doctors and he said, "Wash your hands.

1:49:44 You're transmitting something.

1:49:46 I don't know what it is,

1:49:46 but you're doing something." You'd think they'd embrace it,

1:49:49 but they said, "No." They said, "You're calling us dirty." So,

1:49:54 they kind of move He kind of lost it and a little little bit.

1:49:59 And he got placed in the psych ward.

1:50:02 He was beaten to death a month after he was admitted.

1:50:07 20 years later though, which is kind of interesting,

1:50:09 20 years now 20 20 years later uh germ theory came online by Lister in France.

1:50:17 And they go, "Oh, yeah, of course.

1:50:18 You're transmitting germs from here to the mother." What turns out is

1:50:25 the surgeons used to dissect dead bodies

1:50:28 autopsies and walk over and deliver babies.

1:50:32 So, they carried stuff from dead bodies

1:50:34 and that's what mothers got fever, childbed fever.

1:50:38 And that's what killed them, infections.

1:50:41 So, he was celebrated 20 years later as a savior of babies.

1:50:44 Now, he was 20 years dead and beaten.

1:50:48 And beaten.

1:50:49 And he died.

1:50:50 But obviously I'm still talking about it and still making a difference.

1:50:54 So, I to be yay, I'm ahead.

1:50:57 It's a great story and there's different

1:50:58 stories inside of the history of health, medicine.

1:51:02 There's another really great story about the gentleman who

1:51:04 had been sounding the alarm about trans fats for years.

1:51:09 For years we knew and there was so much data

1:51:11 that trans fats were deadly fats and yet they were so ubiquitous.

1:51:17 They were sort of modern industrial processing.

1:51:19 We wrote We wrote about a whole newsletter about this.

1:51:21 The gentleman's name is Fred Kummerow.

1:51:24 And fascinating fascinating story.

1:51:26 Sounding alarm and everybody during that time, doctors, researchers,

1:51:31 other stuff there's no way this can't be there.

1:51:36 Industry trying to suppress the idea and he

1:51:39 just didn't He didn't stop the fight.

1:51:42 He just kept on and then finally in his lifetime,

1:51:46 different than the story that you shared

1:51:48 there was started to be progress and recognition,

1:51:51 no different than some of the campaigns around smoking that wow,

1:51:55 trans fats are a unique fat that are

1:51:58 very deadly even at lower levels in the body

1:52:02 and we have to make changes in our food

1:52:04 system to prevent these fats from being there.

1:52:07 The unfortunate thing is that still trans fats end up

1:52:10 in our food system um and we get exposed to them,

1:52:13 but largely these industrial levels that people were consuming it's much

1:52:18 more lower and Fred Kummerow I think lived into his 90s.

1:52:23 Yeah.

1:52:23 Well, I mean I I can feel that that is part H.

1:52:26 pylori.

1:52:28 People thought ulcers were not infectious.

1:52:30 He showed it.

1:52:31 It took him 20 years of fighting, 30 years.

1:52:35 So, uh it's it's endless,

1:52:37 but I I think it takes people who are committed and who are right.

1:52:42 They knew they were right because they knew the information and they

1:52:47 knew what they were talking about and they stuck to their guns.

1:52:49 God bless people like that.

1:52:52 Part of medicine is of course people changing and evolving

1:52:56 their thought as they get presented with new information.

1:52:59 In micro, medium, or heavy ways,

1:53:02 have you evolved how you've thought about this since 2020?

1:53:08 Sorry, since 2006.

1:53:10 You know, you've been doing this now for 20 years.

1:53:12 Have there been uh changes in your uh

1:53:17 approach as you've been presented with new information,

1:53:20 uh clinical guidance that have been there that are worth noting or mentioning?

1:53:25 Yeah, there's a couple of things which are new.

1:53:27 So, it's still the basic things.

1:53:29 Anatomy is basic.

1:53:31 So, if you put a tracer in the ganglion, it connects to the brain.

1:53:35 No question there.

1:53:36 Uh I'm starting to understand stellate as more not just before

1:53:41 I was just thinking about that it changed the sympathetic nervous system,

1:53:45 fight or flight nerves in the brain and norepinephrine out.

1:53:48 That was the only effect I was thinking about.

1:53:51 Now, I think of it as affecting the immune system.

1:53:56 One.

1:53:58 Because it reduce interleukin-6 and all that.

1:54:00 So, inflammation causes brain fire.

1:54:03 Brain fire leads to not functioning well, depression, all those things.

1:54:08 We know stellate reduces inflammation.

1:54:11 I think that's huge.

1:54:13 Further epigenetics, so genetic code can be changed by stellate.

1:54:18 That's huge.

1:54:20 I think that's pretty amazing.

1:54:23 Another thing I am thinking about it now actually

1:54:25 in the last 6 months I became a uh social media expert.

1:54:31 Expert.

1:54:32 Uh but I'm going to be presenting at a conference

1:54:36 anxiety conference next week talking about anxiety in adolescence.

1:54:42 I'm very interested in that.

1:54:44 So, a lot of that is secondary to social media.

1:54:49 So, social media I'm actually writing a paper right now about

1:54:51 PTSD and social media that it's the same in many ways.

1:54:56 Causes inflammation, causes sleep dysfunction.

1:55:00 In fact, if you look at the suicide rate of preteens,

1:55:02 we're talking about 9 to 12.

1:55:05 It's spiking.

1:55:06 It's the highest it's ever been.

1:55:08 Why are 9 to 12 year olds taking their lives, right?

1:55:11 Part of it is screens because if you don't

1:55:13 sleep because if you're watching your screen you don't sleep.

1:55:18 If you don't sleep now it's 1:00 or 2:00

1:55:21 in the morning your inflammation goes up, no question, right?

1:55:24 That happens.

1:55:26 So, now you're depressed, relations increased,

1:55:28 and all of that continues and then you

1:55:30 do especially women or girls are more sensitive

1:55:34 to it because they have a tendency of going

1:55:36 online and comparing themselves and they're beating themselves up.

1:55:39 So, all of that are major problems.

1:55:42 So, part of you know, we're going to go back in our patients and look

1:55:46 has the addictive use of technology been reduced by using stellate?

1:55:53 I don't know if you're familiar with meta just lost their lawsuit

1:55:56 and all this algorithms and all of that, opening, blah blah blah.

1:56:00 The bottom line is we know our children in trouble.

1:56:06 I think stellate will have a function in that, but I think prevention is key.

1:56:11 You need to reduce You need to get no My My only recommendation,

1:56:16 very simple no phones in the bedroom for anybody after 9:30 p.m.

1:56:23 No screens, no nothing cuz blue light is completely screws up

1:56:27 melatonin and you can't sleep and that cause all type of problems,

1:56:30 especially the younger brain.

1:56:32 Your brain children's brain up to 16

1:56:35 years old is building when they're sleeping.

1:56:38 You cannot sleep, you're not building your brain.

1:56:40 It's not good.

1:56:41 And you're already seeing increase anxiety

1:56:43 in and also decrease academic function.

1:56:47 That's not good.

1:56:48 Like in China if you're under 18 after 9:00 p.m.

1:56:54 all the phones go off by law.

1:56:55 That's it.

1:56:56 Plus 6 years.

1:56:57 No choice.

1:56:58 No debate.

1:56:59 Crazy.

1:56:59 Yeah, that mean I work here in the United States in the land of the free.

1:57:02 like that.

1:57:03 But the problem is there and a lot of parents

1:57:08 are struggling with it and they just you know,

1:57:12 and kids know it's a problem and they have this yearning for you know,

1:57:16 life in the 90s before these phones.

1:57:18 Well, the cool thing is kids are smarter than you think.

1:57:22 So, in fact, I was in the news about bricking phone bricking.

1:57:27 So, turns out 10 to 20% of Gen Z's now got dumb phones.

1:57:35 Yeah.

1:57:35 Like I have a website that's it's dumb is smarter.com.

1:57:41 That's yours?

1:57:41 That's my website.

1:57:43 Take a look.

1:57:43 It's got It's I I think it's cute.

1:57:44 It has my new book I'm working

1:57:46 on, but what's important though is that they're realizing So,

1:57:50 one of the questions the newscaster said, it's like,

1:57:51 "Okay, why why is a bricking going on?

1:57:58 Are the kids under technology?" No, they feel bad.

1:58:00 They can't sleep.

1:58:02 Remember, they don't sleep and they feel

1:58:04 terrible and they can't function and they're cranky.

1:58:08 Why is it happening?

1:58:09 Because the dopamine drops, right?

1:58:11 So, if the dopamine goes up and down all the time, your body is out of control.

1:58:15 And a lot of people are getting into bricking Bricking.

1:58:19 B R I yep.

1:58:21 Brick Yeah.

1:58:22 ing, bricking.

1:58:23 Bricking.

1:58:24 Is like making a device a brick.

1:58:26 Yeah.

1:58:26 So, there are a lot of software.

1:58:28 In fact, I'm working on a software package for me, young children.

1:58:31 So, we're talking about 1 to 2 years old, right?

1:58:34 And the mothers.

1:58:35 It's a special bond, special time,

1:58:37 dopamine, um oxytocin, people you know, loving.

1:58:41 So, there is a term that was introduced in 2018.

1:58:44 It's called teleference or techniference.

1:58:48 So, technology interfering.

1:58:49 So, there was a study done years ago.

1:58:51 So, if the child is looking at the mother,

1:58:53 the mother turns her head, they get anxious.

1:58:56 Why?

1:58:56 What's going on?

1:58:57 You should be focused on I Yeah, you're ignoring me.

1:58:59 I'm going to die.

1:59:00 I'm going to starve, right?

1:59:01 This is what 1-year-old are thinking about.

1:59:04 What they've been studying with phones because women are doing this.

1:59:07 And then it turns out that children

1:59:11 becoming more anxious and women becoming depressed.

1:59:15 So, I talked to one of the mothers like I said, "Oh my god, I'm so excited.

1:59:19 I have this new thing coming in.

1:59:21 This guy I'm going to break my phone so it's not going to suck

1:59:23 me in and I can spend more time with my child." That's a big deal.

1:59:28 And the problem is we are making anxious children.

1:59:31 We're making And then the other thing I saw like phones attached to the uh crib.

1:59:38 That just mind-boggling to me.

1:59:40 It's it's bad, but it's happening a lot.

1:59:42 So, the point is thank god Gen Z

1:59:46 was the first generation immersed with smartphones from beginning.

1:59:50 And Alpha generation right now, they start to wake up.

1:59:53 It is a huge market for dumb phones and bricking.

1:59:56 Yeah.

1:59:56 I think there's literally like a company called Brick that they you know

1:59:59 Correct.

2:00:00 put this magnet device device that you put it on the phone, right?

2:00:04 It has its issues.

2:00:05 That's why mine is going to be so much better, you know it.

2:00:07 But But Yeah, it's called bricking.

2:00:10 Oh my god, but the mere fact that was the question I said,

2:00:12 "Why are the children getting away from the phone?" Because they feel bad.

2:00:18 And the parents should be parents

2:00:20 in the sense that you can exercise parental control.

2:00:25 You can set it.

2:00:27 So, people can have access to their phones let's say 1 hour a day.

2:00:35 You don't need to play all those video games.

2:00:36 You don't do all of that.

2:00:39 But the key point is no phones in the bedroom.

2:00:43 Definitely.

2:00:44 And you know, average number of time uh hours

2:00:47 that kids play is 7 to 9 hours per day.

2:00:53 It's horrible.

2:00:54 On the phone?

2:00:54 On the phone.

2:00:55 The reason I got into it at all,

2:00:56 my son was very avid user of video games, phones, all that.

2:01:02 A year ago he said, "I just want to do I'm I'm done with this.

2:01:05 I'm just going to do Legos." Let's get some Legos

2:01:09 and I'm going to make You should see his room.

2:01:11 Big ass ships in his room.

2:01:14 Because he knew smart enough to know this was bad for him.

2:01:18 And he switched from that.

2:01:20 And now he's getting old consoles black

2:01:22 and white because it doesn't suck him like that.

2:01:24 Every Tuesday now he's doing board games.

2:01:27 No screens.

2:01:29 Before I told don't do it.

2:01:30 I don't I don't you know you're you're an old man.

2:01:33 You don't understand.

2:01:33 This is This is what it's This is what it says.

2:01:35 Like, "No, it's not." I love that.

2:01:38 That's my arrows and it means that the next

2:01:41 generation are being self-aware enough to get that.

2:01:44 Yeah.

2:01:44 And we have to support them with the right information and Yes.

2:01:48 and families.

2:01:49 Yeah.

2:01:49 Yes, and go in nature and walk.

2:01:51 The point is so you know,

2:01:52 after like you autonomic nervous system gets controlled or better,

2:01:58 that's what you should be doing, right?

2:01:59 Not get involved back and suck in the game.

2:02:03 But nature, get some sleep, all of that.

2:02:07 I want to give you an opportunity before we mention again where

2:02:09 people can find your book and also the clinics and information about that.

2:02:15 Want to give an opportunity for you to leave our audience with a final message.

2:02:20 You know, there's this quote from the book that I'll share.

2:02:22 It's your own writing.

2:02:23 Trauma is not a life sentence.

2:02:26 It's an injury and it can heal.

2:02:29 What are some final words you want to leave our audience with?

2:02:32 Well, considering my perspective on suicide which I think we've covered.

2:02:37 Um If you're suffering from trauma symptoms.

2:02:42 But to me, I don't know what that you know, it's not a global term.

2:02:46 If you're having symptoms like you can't sleep, you're very anxious,

2:02:50 you feel feeling of doom, know it's a physiologic change in your mind.

2:02:55 It is possible to treat it.

2:02:59 It is important to know that it's treatable.

2:03:01 You can get out of this trauma hell I call it.

2:03:05 If you don't have hope, that's what takes our lives.

2:03:09 You need to have hope that it's possible to do.

2:03:11 If it hasn't happened yet, something hasn't worked.

2:03:17 Look somewhere else.

2:03:19 Don't keep doing the same thing expect different results.

2:03:21 Not going to work.

2:03:22 Whatever you're doing is not working in 3 months, stop.

2:03:25 Find something else.

2:03:27 If you've had 20 years of psych meds medications

2:03:32 and all type of things you're still in trouble, try something different.

2:03:35 I'm not saying Stella.

2:03:36 It could be other things.

2:03:37 Could be ketamine.

2:03:39 It could be ketamine.

2:03:40 It could be psychedelics.

2:03:41 Ibogaine.

2:03:42 There's a lot of choices that are coming online which is not conventional.

2:03:45 But the most important thing is if you don't have hope,

2:03:49 you're not going to pursue it.

2:03:50 You're not going to get treated.

2:03:51 An important message.

2:03:53 Don't give up.

2:03:55 Keep on looking.

2:03:56 Keep on digging to find the They're real choices.

2:03:59 It's not just hypothetical.

2:04:01 It's not taking this antidepressant and you're going to take another No,

2:04:04 we're talking about a completely different approach.

2:04:06 Psilocybin.

2:04:09 Old medications we've run forever.

2:04:11 I mean, it's not a medication.

2:04:12 God made it.

2:04:14 But a lot of a lot of people with depression have amazing results with it.

2:04:19 Try something different.

2:04:20 Don't do the same thing.

2:04:23 And but be careful.

2:04:24 I mean, there are certain things you need like Ibogaine for example,

2:04:26 great drug, but it's not available here.

2:04:30 But you need to do it in the city.

2:04:32 Do not do that particular one in a cave.

2:04:34 That's a dangerous medication or natural substance.

2:04:38 The book is out.

2:04:39 People can get it.

2:04:41 We have a copy right here.

2:04:43 The God Shot.

2:04:44 Healing Trauma's Legacy, the science, the stories, the solution.

2:04:49 Link inside of the show notes.

2:04:51 Stella Mental Health.

2:04:52 You've mentioned the multiple clinics.

2:04:54 Some examples of some cities we're recording here in Santa Monica.

2:04:56 There's a location here I believe in Santa Monica.

2:04:59 I haven't been before.

2:05:00 I think so.

2:05:00 Uh what are some other cities inside of the US that you guys have operations in?

2:05:04 We have uh Boston, uh San Francisco, San Diego.

2:05:11 Um I don't remember.

2:05:12 Yeah.

2:05:13 They can find it on the the website.

2:05:14 Yeah, if you go if you put in a search for stellamentalhealth.com,

2:05:19 I think that pops up.

2:05:20 Eugene, thank you so much for this wide-ranging conversation

2:05:25 on your story, your vision for mental health which is

2:05:29 connected to physical health and physical injury in the body,

2:05:34 your vision for providing patients with hope,

2:05:37 the inspiring stories that you've shared,

2:05:39 the funny stories you've shared, the heartwarming stories you've shared,

2:05:42 opening up about your own family's journey in this process of navigating trauma.

2:05:48 And uh most importantly uh how this shot

2:05:52 which sounds very scary when you first initially hear

2:05:55 about it and something that a lot of people

2:05:56 wouldn't think that they want to actually explore,

2:05:59 the shot in the back actually could be something that could help them

2:06:02 get to the root issue of why trauma exists in the first place.

2:06:05 I appreciate it.

2:06:06 Thanks for spreading the word.

2:06:08 You know, simple I mean,

2:06:10 it's a I'm not saying your podcast is simple or anything like that.

2:06:13 I think the more people get more information, I truly believe it saves lives.

2:06:18 And that's I have for a clinician to come

2:06:21 up with my little cubbyhole and seeing all this grow,

2:06:24 it's just an amazing journey.

2:06:25 Yeah.

2:06:26 Well, I'm excited to have it in my toolbox