Watch what happens to our three PTSD patients, moments after a renowned Chicago doctor delivers the stellate ganglion block, or SGB. Hear the immediate impact of the procedure, in their own words. But the real test is when they return home to their trigger-filled environments. Stay tuned for our next episode where we check in with these frontline heroes three months after their injections.
Joe Merritt, U.S. Marine Corp veteran explains in his own words how he felt before and after the shot:
“This morning I woke up in a Chicago hotel, exhausted, nervous, skeptical and yet hopeful.
Why would I leave my safe bubble of rural Maryland, go to Baltimore and fly to another huge urban landscape during a pandemic?
Well… it’s no secret that I have struggled with PTSD and depression.
The beginning of this year I broke down and asked for help. I stopped drinking, and rededicated myself to the path of finding happiness and bringing others with me. I found new allies and modalities, went back to the things I know help but aren’t comfortable.
There was one thing that was new, a procedure called the “stellate ganglion block” (SGB) I’ll post a link at the bottom with more information:
It was particularly new for me because it’s a medical procedure and not a therapy based on my processing of events or rational ability.
The modalities that have kept me alive up until now, made me a better person, and helped me view the world with an optimistic lens.
All those things never lifted the haze off or took away this tint of the world as I perceive it. I was missing a biological hurdle.
That biological piece happened today, I got the SGB shot this morning.
Now the cylinder has turned again and we are back to now… I woke up this morning feeling tired, anxious and hopeful. I made it through the black tape of my own self destruction and I don’t have words to explain enough how I feel.
I forgot how beautiful life can be, when my brain isn’t reminding me how many living things want to kill me.”
