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
Intrathecal ketorolac does not improve acute or chronic pain after hip arthroplasty: a randomized controlled trial.
Abstract: Hypersensitivity to mechanical stimuli following surgery has been reported in patients who subsequently develop chronic pain after surgery. In animals, peripheral injury increases prostaglandin production in the spinal cord, and spinal cyclooxygenase...
[Prevention of diabetic foot].
Abstract: Diabetic foot (DF) is the most common chronic complication, which depends mostly on the duration and successful treatment of diabetes mellitus. Based on epidemiological studies, it is estimated that 25% of persons with diabetes mellitus (PwDM) will develop...
Clinical Trial – Urinary Retention in Orthopedic Patients
The participants were hospitalized in Orthopedic and Traumatology Departments in Military
Institute of Medicine, Warsaw, Poland.
The inclusion criteria were (1) age to 40 year-old, (2) no history of urologic problems, and
(3) surgery under spinal anesthesia. All the patients where (1) opioids were administered
during the surgery, (2) general anesthesia was necessary, and (3) the urinary bladder
catheterization was perform during the surgery were excluded from the study.
The participants were randomly divided into the study and control groups. No oral
premedication was administered. All the patients were asked to empty their urinary bladders
before arrival to the operating theatre. When the standard monitoring (continuous
electrocardiogram, noninvasive blood pressure, pulse oximetry) was started, intravenous
premedication with midazolam was administered and lumbar spinal anesthesia with hyperbaric
0.5% solution of bupivacaine hydrochloride was performed.
In the study group, but not in the the control one, the 40 mg of drotaverine hydrochloride
was administered intramuscularly. The decresed intravascular volume was corrected with
cristalloids. During the surgery the adequate, not deeper than II grade according to Ramsay
scale, level of sedationt was obtained with midazolam and/or propofol. All the participants
received a questionaire in which we asked the questions about (1) the duration of anesthesia,
(2) the time of micturition, (3) the time when discomfort or pain appeared in the lower
abdomen, (4) the incidence of the urinary bladder catheterization and time to
catheterization. On the next day after the surgery the questionaires were collected. In
cases, when the patient’s dischaged from the hospital was planned during the weekend, he or
she was asked to pass on the questionaire to the nurses.