A retired Navy intelligence officer who
deployed 10 times over a 28-year career, including seven deployments into
combat zones, Hardy, 53, first suffered what he described as a nervous
breakdown in 2000. Six years later, he started drinking heavily, became distant
from his wife and three children, suffered anxiety issues and was aggressive
and confrontational.
That was before he participated in a
clinical trial for an experimental PTSD treatment at Naval Medical Center San
Diego. Hardy is one of about 30 patients receiving Stellate Ganglion Block
injections in his neck, and he said the shots have worked.
As part of the study, Hardy received
three injections that led to relief from his symptoms ranging from one day to
three weeks, he said. The procedure is meant to numb nerves in the neck that
can cause physical arousal and therefore allow patients to feel more calm and
decrease the symptoms of PTSD.
“Those three weeks, I was not angry, I
was not anxious, I didn’t seek alcohol, and I was very, very calm and gentle
with my kids and my wife,” Hardy said. “It was like being 20 years old again. I
felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It was very
dramatic. It wasn’t a subtle change.”
Stellate Ganglion Block has
traditionally been used as an anesthesia dating to the 1920s, said Robert
McLay, a psychiatrist with Naval Medical Center San Diego and the author of “At
War with PTSD.” Recently, a civilian anesthesiologist from Chicago, Eugene
Lipov, observed what he believed to be improvements in the conditions of PTSD
patients who were getting SGB for pain.
Lipov contacted the military and
co-authored a case report along with McLay and four others about an unnamed
41-year-old chief petty officer who experienced extraordinary improvements in
his battles with PTSD, alcoholism and memory loss as a result of the treatment.
“Despite its limitations, our case
report supports the growing body of preliminary evidence that suggests SGB
treatment results in favorable health outcomes and improved quality of life
among patients with persistent PTSD,” the six authors wrote in this month’s
edition of Military Medicine.
As a result, Naval Medical Center San
Diego first put nine patients through clinical observation, and then began a
formal trial in July 2011. The final results of the trial, which is ongoing,
have not been determined. Researchers did release a preliminary analysis of the
data to the American Psychiatric Association at the one-year mark of the study.
“At that point, we were not able to
definitely say this was anything other than a placebo effect, although
individuals who get two injections of the real medication did seem to be doing
better than any other group,” McLay said. “In all of this, there’s a lot of
variations in how people’s PTSD responds. Some people seem to have a dramatic
effect. Other people seem to have next to nothing.”
Dr. Steve Hanling, principal
investigator for the SGB trial, said most patients have experienced moderate
improvement. However, he cautioned that a larger scale study is needed.
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