A Single Neck Injection Could Cure PTSD

What if Dr. could cure post - traumatic stress disorder with a single injectant to the cervix ? One Chicago - area Dr. claim he can , and has finally convinced someone in the Pentagon to give the idea a dig . And Danger Room has learn that some in the Navy believe the approach might actually work .

The outlandish routine is called radial - ganglion block ( SGB ) . It ’s the inspiration of Chicago anesthesiologist Dr. Eugene Lipov . He ’s touted the method for years , even bring home the bacon then - Senator Barack Obama’ssupport in 2007 , and he ’s treated dozens of military personnel and veterans at his own clinic .

Until recently , Lipov was mostly cut by Pentagon brass and military doctors . All four of his applications for military inquiry funding were denied . The most recent rejection do just last calendar month .

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But someone with the Pentagon ’s financial support limited review boards forgot to severalize the Navy . One of its doctor is now several month into the first - ever military study on SGB – and she tells Danger Room alone that the method acting really appears good .

“ I consider of SGB as being similar to re - take up a computer , only we ’re talking about circuitry of the nervous system and chemical tract , ” enunciate Capt . Anita Hickey . Hickey is the music director of Integrative Pain Medicine at the Naval Medical Center San Diego , where she ’s studied a variety of new approaching to PTSD diagnosing and discussion among military personnel , let in brain scans and stylostixis . “ We ’re meet very positive results . ”

The study is the belated evidence of the Pentagon ’s increasing despair to get a handle on PTSD – a oftentimes debilitating condition that affects an estimated 250,000 soldiers just from this decade ’s wars , and thousands more from earlier engagement . medico across the country are getting Pentagon dollars to meditate idea as far - out as dog therapy and “ digital dreaming ” package . Capt . Hickey says that the Navy alone is presently fund 82 different studies on potential PTSD treatments . So far , nothing ’s prove to be a sorcerous bullet .

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you’re able to credit – or blame – the armed services ’s late embrace of holistics ( acupuncture is now used in combat , and several military infirmary offer yoga ) for Hickey ’s SGB study . Last year , a elderly Naval functionary hear Dr. Lipov demo his idea to the House Veteran ’s Affairs Committee . The official brought the idea up to top Navy medico , all of whom rejected it .

Then Capt . Hickey , a doctor herself , came along . An aficionado of alt - medicine and longtime advocate for armed combat acupuncture , Hickey thought the construct had potential . Hickey applied to the Navy for funding , and got $ 100,000 – even as other military doctors gave Lipov ’s proposals the thumbs - down . She ’s now midway through a prospicient - term valuation of SGB in 42 Naval staff office diagnosed with PTSD .

Capt . Hickey tell she could n’t give away specific data point from the field of study . But she did say that the mental process is double blind and placebo controlled . One radical of patients receive a placebo , and neither medico nor patient knows what was administered . The method is the gold - standard for rigorous aesculapian enquiry because it minimize any immanent diagonal and helps distinguish real termination from guess ones .

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“ Of of course , we ’ve got more work ahead of us , ” Capt . Hickey says . “ But our squad consider itself very open minded – if something works , it works . And with PTSD , we urgently require something to work . ”

Lipov initially used SGB to treat spicy flashes among post - menopausal women . When he fag up an previous Finnish paper on adapting the procedure for PTSD , he in 2007 decided to give it a stab . Preliminary attempts worked incredibly well : SGB seemed to alleviate PTSD symptoms within five minutes , and one former Marine Corps Sergeantenthusedthat “ I immediately felt more relaxed and calmed down . It ’s been great . ”

unluckily , Lipov was n’t entirely certain how SGB point PTSD – scarce what Pentagon brass require to hear about an exciting unexampled treatment candidate .

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After subsequent research , however , Lipov in 2009 put out apaper in Medical Hypothesis – a diary whose stated mission is to “ publish radical , risky and non - mainstream idea ” – report how SGB seems to form . The injection of anaesthetic , administered into a big money of sympathetic nervous tissue paper in the neck , appears to turn off something call nerve outgrowth element . Nerve emergence factor can surge during nerve-wracking experiences and push the sprouting of mettle . That spark inveterate stress – what ’s unremarkably known as the “ competitiveness or flight ” response .

“ If somebody ’s circuitry is snuff it haywire , then the anaesthetic shut it off , and reboots the system , ” Dr. Hickey say .

Of of course , you ’d be right to think that rebooting a soldier ’s unquiet system sounds a little scary . And indeed , SGB is n’t without risk . The shot can spark seizures , hit an artery or even deflate the lung , however rarely .

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Those downside might explain why the Pentagon has n’t jump all over SGB . Most of late , Lipov ’s marriage proposal for a $ 1.6 million study was rejected by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick . Reviewersnotedthat the proposal was too ambitious and expensive for something that still miss “ a convincing neurobiological explanation . ”

Sure , many in the military are open minded about novel approaches to treating PTSD . But lay claim to heal PTSD with one injection , when month of therapy and powerful prescriptions miscarry , hardly seems naturalistic . Not to name that therapy is n’t company by the risk of a perforate lung .

Still , there ’s no question the military is run out of options . Giving more serious consideration to controversial ideas , such as SGB , ecstasy or marijuana , is likely only a matter of time . Lipov , for one , has no plan to check pushing the Pentagon : He ’s written a record on the procedure , and has a new study of his own , on eight veterans , being publish in February ’s edition of the journal Military Medicine .

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Not to mention a new strategy for scoring federal research dollars .

“ I ’m done try on to get any money from the Pentagon , because they ’ve sustain a broken , coloured system of rules for sacrifice it out , ” he tells Danger Room . “ From now on , I ’m just going to go straight to Congress and the Senate . ”

Photo : Katie Drummond

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