God Shot Injection: Fighting PTSD

PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, affects numerous men and women throughout the country and is commonly linked to veterans who’ve served in a combat theater. Behavioral symptoms include irritability, hyper vigilance, and social isolation, just to name a few.Unfortunately, many who suffer from the disorder take or have taken substantial doses of medications that may or may not work — or cause unwanted side effects.4

As awareness of the condition grows, an alternative to relieve symptoms is gaining some significant attention in the fight against the mental illness.The “God shot” or Stellate Ganglion Block (known as SGB), is making headway as a treatment for our suffering veterans.Here’s how:According to Cedars-Sinai, the stellate ganglion is a collection of sympathetic nerves located in the base of the neck; when a local anesthesia injection is administered into the nerves, the numbing agent blocks pain symptoms from reaching the brain.In other words, the treatment minimizes the “fight or flight” reaction in the brain.For those who aren’t familiar with “fight or flight”, it’s the physical reaction to what the body perceives as danger.For many combat veterans, it can be activated from hearing unexpected and loud stimulus — like a loud bang or backfire. In a dangerous situation like combat, this system takes over and floods the body with adrenaline and chemicals that will help it either escape or confront the danger.But the body struggles with differentiating whether the stressful stimulus is actually life-threatening, and therefore people with PTSD can stay in an agitated state where the body believes it is in danger when it might not actually be.7After the “God shot” is administered, which only takes a few minutes, positive results are shown in around 70% of patients with diagnosed PTSD, according to Medscape.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIoMaObfI-oMore from We Are The Mighty:The VA flubbed private care option after hiring a firm the Pentagon firedNavy Veteran blind for 19 years sees hope again7 life lessons we learned from watching ‘Full Metal Jacket’