HBOT Conversations:
Laurie Anderson (Part 1)
Healing COVID with HBOT
Through her own journey navigating chronic illness, Dr. Laurie has explored and embraced many forms of alternative and non-traditional medicine to support her body for healing. She has gravitated towards practitioners and modalities that treat the whole patient, with the mantra that tending to mind, body and spirit is the true key to lasting health. Over the years, Dr. Laurie has discovered that this often leads to a ‘less is more’ approach. She discovered HBOT when she was struggling to heal from COVID, and now tells anyone who will listen about the power of oxygen and pressure.
Watch the Podcast
We are thrilled to have Dr. Laurie Anderson join us at the HBOT News Network. Dr. Laurie used Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy to heal from a very serious COVID illness.
Dr. Laurie explains her background to the audience and that she received treatment in Raleigh, NC at the Extivita clinic. Her background is important and intriguing. Dr. Laurie is a Pharmacist by training, a PharmD. While she has done some clinical work in the past, her passion lies in the safety of clinical studies. She focuses on early phase clinical study work, designing risk mitigation strategies for first time in human studies. Dr. Laurie explained that in her line of work she looks at the risk profile of the assets coming out, the design risk mitigation strategies, and then follows them in the clinic to track them to help ensure that they know what’s safe and what isn’t. Essentially, she is part of the team that helps determine if certain drugs are safe and effective.
di Girolamo explains that when he first started looking at hyperbarics, he was personally trying to understand if it was indeed safe and effective. He found that it was, and was blown away that everyone wasn’t using it. This opened the door to Dr. Laurie telling her story of COVID healing with HBOT, and what led her to Extivita.
Dr. Laurie explains that she has a history of lyme diesease, and worked really hard not to get COVID in fear that she would struggle with complete healing. She had been vaccinated and boostered, and when she did get COVID she became very ill. In addition to losing her sense of smell and taste, she had a relentless cough, really awful fatigue, and some shortness of breath that that just wasn’t improving. She ended up on medical leave because she could not work, and when she started to reach the end of the medical leave she still was not improving. Dr. Laurie talked to the naturopath who had been following her for many years, and her naturopath suggested NAD infusions. Dr. Laurie had never heard of NAD infusions before, so she started to read about them and who does them locally in the Raleigh, NC area. That’s when Dr. Laurie was introduced to the Extivita clinic.
Dr. Laurie came to Extivita to start NAD infusions, but was also encouraged to try Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy to heal from COVID. The clinic explained that they are seeing really great success using hyperbarics for COVID long-hauler patients. Dr. Laurie was hesitant due to her claustrophobia, but in the end she decided it was worth a try. She educated herself on HBOT, and found that there wasn’t a reason why she shouldn’t do it. She was desperate to heal from the COVID infection. So, she committed to 20 dives, 4 days a week and had phenomenal results; claiming significant improvement after only ten dives.
“I got to say, I was kind of blown away because I had been battling with no improvement for long enough to be concerned, and I came in and I think it was about maybe five or six dives in, and my taste and smell started returning. It was completely gone. And I started to see a change probably in maybe eight, nine or ten, that my cough started going away. I would say by 12 or 13 dives, I felt healed, I felt recovered and even better than I felt going in [the way I felt before getting COVID].”
Dr. Laurie exclaimed that she noticed a positive difference in her energy and sleep almost immediately. She was more restful, and she said she pays close attention to those things because her history with chronic illness.
“I just could tell a difference. And in my energy, mainly. My energy level and my sleep really shifted, which was a real gift.”
Dr. Laurie even shared her story in an Extivita testimonal, hopeful that others can also discover the powerful combination of oxygen and pressure to heal from COVID.
Stay tuned next week for Part 2 of Dr. Laurie’s podcast. We will talk with her about some other benefits of HBOT, and we’ll pick her brain on clinical trials involving hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
Guests
Dr. Laurie Anderson, Pharm.D.
Through her own journey navigating chronic illness, Dr. Laurie has explored and embraced many forms of alternative and non-traditional medicine to support her body for healing. She has gravitated towards practitioners and modalities that treat the whole patient, with the mantra that tending to mind, body and spirit is the true key to lasting health. Over the years, Dr. Laurie has discovered that this often leads to a ‘less is more’ approach.
When not working, Dr. Laurie is an avid gardener, ballroom dancer and traveler with her husband. Remaining curious and finding joy in every day are her super powers.
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Recent HBOT News
Clinical Trial – Intrathecal Neostigmine for Prevention of PDPH
Neuraxial blocks continue to be the cornerstone of anesthesia and postoperative analgesia for
normal vaginal delivery and elective caesarean section due to its approved safety and
efficiency for decades. Post-dural puncture headache (PDPH) is still one of the most common
complications of neuraxial anesthetic techniques. The headache could be severe and limit the
activities of the new mother to care for her baby, prolong hospital stay.
PDPH is defined as a headache that develops within five days of dural puncture and can’t be
attributed to any other types of headache and mostly is postural in character.
Neostigmine methylsulfate is a synthetic carbamic acid ester which reversibly inhibits the
enzyme Acetylcholine esterase (AChE) that makes more Acetylcholine molecules available at
cholinergic receptors. Neostigmine is used in anesthesia mainly as a reversal for
non-depolarizing neuromuscular agents.
Intrathecal (IT) neostigmine was tried as an adjuvant to local anesthetics in IT block for
elective cesarean sections to decrease local anesthetic consumption and to prolong
postoperative analgesia. Side effects of IT neostigmine are dose-dependent with doses more
than 25 µg especially nausea and vomiting and could be decreased by increasing the baricities
of the local anesthetic solutions and by early head up position after IT injection. However,
its effect on PDPH was not investigated before in literature.
Parturients will be randomly assigned into one of two groups: the intervention group will
receive 20 µg with IT Bupivacaine and the control group will receive an equivalent volume of
dextrose 5% with the IT Bupivacaine.
The objective of the current study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of IT neostigmine
as an adjuvant to bupivacaine in reducing the incidence and severity of post-dural puncture
headache in parturients scheduled for an elective cesarean section.
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This report is a product of the VA Evidence-based Synthesis Program. The purpose is to provide “timely and accurate syntheses of targeted healthcare topics. to improve the health and healthcare of Veterans”. The authors have made a comprehensive search and analysis of the literature and make recommendations to assist clinicians in dealing with veterans suffering from either traumatic brain injury (TBI) or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The report is timely and of great potential impact given the vigorous and lengthy debate among hyperbaric physicians and lay people determined to find an answer for the large numbers of veterans deeply affected with some combination of PTSD and post-concussion dysfunction.
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The study assesses the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the treatment of
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