New PTSD research could change treatment

This shows how real PTSD is for any doubters never having lived with it. If this research ends up not being that beneficial for PTSD, survivors of traumatic events, then at least this research will begin a whole new way of looking for ways to treat it. This study is money well spent. As for the most of the other research done over the last ten years, they have been more repeats of what was already studied. This is in a hopeful direction and a change in the way they look at PTSD. It is a sign of changing that I've waited over 28 years for!

In a paper published in 2009, he proposed a mechanism, based on solid experimental data, that trauma leads to an increase in nerve growth factor. "That leads to sprouting of the sympathetic nerves, which leads to increased production of norepinphrine - adrenaline - and that makes people anxious," he says. A block placed next to the stellate ganglion leads to a decrease in nerve growth factor and a reversal of PTSD symptoms.

Walter Reed Report Confirms Validity of Fast-Acting, Non-Drug PTSD Treatment

Newswise - Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, has published case reports detailing the successful treatment of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder with a stellate ganglion block.

SGB is a 10-minute procedure during which local anesthesia is injected next to the stellate ganglion, a collection of nerves in the neck. SGB has been used safely to treat chronic pain and other ailments since 1925, but Dr. Eugene Lipov, a Chicago-area anesthesiologist and researcher, has pioneered this approach for the treatment of PTSD.

Dr. Lipov has published papers in several medical journals, providing a theoretical model of the biological brain changes that reverse PTSD following the procedure. "Using functional MRIs to show the part of the brain that is active during fear and other traumatic emotions, we can see and measure the physiologic changes that occur during trauma," he explains. "These MRIs are telling us that the cause of PTSD is physical in nature, and not simply a 'psychological condition.'"

In a paper published in 2009, he proposed a mechanism, based on solid experimental data, that trauma leads to an increase in nerve growth factor. "That leads to sprouting of the sympathetic nerves, which leads to increased production of norepinphrine - adrenaline - and that makes people anxious," he says. A block placed next to the stellate ganglion leads to a decrease in nerve growth factor and a reversal of PTSD symptoms.

The coming tsunami of PTSD cases. The Department of Veterans Affairs is seeing an increasing number of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with a mental disorder such as major depression or PTSD. As deployments lengthen, those numbers are expected to grow.

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