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.
Subscribe Now, It’s Free!
Recent HBOT News
Interventions in the management of infection in the foot in diabetes: a systematic review.
Abstract: The expert panel on diabetic foot infection (DFI) of the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot conducted a systematic review seeking all published reports relating to any type of treatment for infection of the foot in persons with diabetes...
Brain perfusion imaging with voxel-based analysis in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis patients with a moderate to severe stage of disease: a boon for the workforce.
The present study was carried out to evaluate cerebral perfusion in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with a moderate to severe stage of disease. Some patients underwent hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) and brain perfusion between before and after that was compared. We retrospectively reviewed 25 secondary progressive (SP)-MS patients from the hospital database. Neurological disability evaluated by Expanded Disability Status Scale Score (EDSS). Brain perfusion was performed by (99 m) Tc-labeled bicisate (ECD) brain SPECT and the data were compared using statistical parametric mapping (SPM). In total, 16 patients underwent HBOT. Before HBOT and at the end of 20 sessions of oxygen treatment, 99mTc-ECD brain perfusion single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) was performed again then the results were evaluated and compared. Brain perfusion was performed by (99 m) Tc-labeled bicisate (ECD) brain SPECT and the data were compared using statistical parametric mapping (SPM). A total of 25 SP-MS patients, 14 females (56 %) and 11 males (44 %) with a mean age of 38.92 ± 11.28 years included in the study. The mean disease duration was 8.70 ± 5.30 years. Of the 25 patients, 2 (8 %) had a normal SPECT and 23 (92 %) had abnormal brain perfusion SPECT studies. The study showed a significant association between severity of perfusion impairment with disease duration and also with EDSS (P <0.05). There was a significant improvement in pre- and post-treatment perfusion scans (P <0.05)
[Efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the treatment of ischemic toe ulcer in a patient presenting systemic sclerosis].
The medical treatment of ischemic ulcers in patients with systemic sclerosis remains difficult. Despite the major help provided by vasodilator treatments, the risk of spontaneous or surgical amputation remains high. A 48-year-old female patient from Guadeloupe was treated in our department for diffuse systemic sclerosis present for 15 years complicated by lung, joint and digestive involvement, and associated with severe Raynaud’s phenomenon. The clinical course was marked by the occurrence of multiple ischemic ulcers, which were resistant to conventional medical treatment and resulted in two surgical amputations (to the 2nd and 3rd interphalangeal joints of the toes of the left foot). Treatment with an endothelin-receptor antagonist and a calcium inhibitor was then introduced for secondary prevention. Two years later, the patient consulted for a further ischemic ulcer of the left 4th toe. She refused the proposed treatment with iloprost. Because of the unfavorable outcome and the absence of therapeutic alternative to amputation, hyperbaric oxygen therapy was initiated. Thirty 90-minutes sessions of pure oxygen at 2.5 ATA were conducted over a 10-week period. Complete healing was obtained after 8 months. We report herein a clinical case illustrating the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for the treatment of ischemic ulcers of the toes in systemic sclerosis.