HBOT Conversations:
Laurie Anderson (Part 2)
Healing COVID with HBOT
Dr. Laurie is a Doctor of Pharmacy, and a graduate of the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) School of Pharmacy and the Pharmacy Practice Residency Program at the University of California – San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Laurie spent many years in clinical practice, first as a neurosurgery clinical pharmacist at UCSF Medical Center and then as a general medicine and critical care clinical pharmacist at Duke Medical Center. For the past 14 years Dr. Laurie has been working in industry, and is currently a safety scientist in early phase drug development, designing safety strategies for First Time in Human clinical trials.
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 continue Dr. Laurie Anderson’s HBOT News Network interview, diving in deeper to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy to heal COVID, and we bring up her struggles with Lyme Disease. Her interview is being released as a three part series, with Part 1 being released last week.
This podcast starts with our host, Ed di Girolamo, explaining to the audience that he and Dr. Laurie had a brief conversation before the interview, and they discussed autoimmune diseases, or the mechanisms of autoimmune diseases, that would include inflammation or hypoxia. He askes Dr. Laurie if this was discussed in her schooling when she got her doctorate in pharmacology. She explained that it was certainly talked about, but she really started to understand the trajectory of an underlying inflammatory process when she got sick. To help her heal, she applied her own medical knowledge to her healing process, and explains —
“But that wasn’t a cornerstone of what we learned, and it really became a cornerstone of my own healing, that getting control of inflammation was the way that my immune system was going to ramp back up and that my body was going to heal, unequivocally. It was all about addressing that inflammation.”
di Girolamo explains that years ago he attended a medical conference in Albuquerque that was specific to hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and he was on the edge of his seat for all three days. It was then that he started to truly understand how to read the science of HBOT. He brings up Lyme disease, which Dr. Laurie has personally struggled with, and recalls that there was a group of people there who have done HBOT and we’re so passionate in pushing it to help with Lyme disease because hyperbarics helped them, and they believe in it. di Girolamo states that through speaking to the medical profession about HBOT and Lyme, he has learned that Lyme disease is a virus and by doing a certain protocol of HBOT you’re essentially feeding the virus so much oxygen that it basically can not survive anymore and you “drown it”.
As the conversation progresses about Lyme disease, Dr. Laurie lists some symptoms and how HBOT helped her with tremendously with sleeping. After her first treatment she slept for 12 hours, which was unheard of for her. And she recalls that it was a very deep and refreshing sleep. She struggled for years and years with sleep from Lyme disease. Back then, HBOT was on the table as an alternative method of healing but she was only introduced to the mono-chambers and due to her extreme claustrophobia, it was not a healing avenue she wanted to explore at that time. She is thankful for the large multi-place chambers at Extivita that allowed Dr. Laurie to take a leap of faith and finally try HBOT.
Dr. Laurie’s career involves her reviewing the safety of clinical trials daily, so she explains that in order for a trial or study to be safe and effective, dosage is critical. di Girolamo explained that it’s the same for HBOT…. the right dosage of oxygen + pressure is critical to having healing success. He mentioned the podcasts with Dr. Stevens & Dr. Harch, as they both spoke in depth about dosage for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, especially for the indications that are considered to be “off label” for treatment with HBOT. Every person is unique and what works for one might not work the same for the next, so dosage can be tricky. But, in the end di Girolamo explains —
“I think at least in my conclusion, my humble opinion, is that any hyperbaric oxygen is better than no hyperbaric oxygen.”
Dr. Laurie referred to HBOT as a gift, because all that oxygen does so much for your brain. Which is exactly where it’s been proven to help veterans heal from PTSD, depression, anxiety, and even TBIs. She stresses that the mind-body connection is so strong, but it’s not talked about like it should be. In her opinion, she thinks that all that oxygen is strengthening the mind-body connection to the point where the brain is receiving that surge of oxygen and basically then signal the body that it’s ok…. let’s heal.
Stay tuned next week for Part 3 of Dr. Laurie’s podcast.
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
Increasing Veteran’s Access to Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments
The new MISSION Act, passed by Congress last year, could pave the way for Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) to be covered by the VA. In general, the act is making better healthcare more easily accessible to veterans. There are a couple of specific clauses, such as the...
Treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury With Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is defined as the use of oxygen at higher than atmospheric pressure for the treatment of underlying disease processes and the diseases they produce. Modern HBOT in which 100% O2 is breathed in a pressurized chamber dates back to the 1930s, when it was first used for treatment of decompression illness in divers. There are currently 13 FDA-approved uses for HBOT, including decompression illness, gas gangrene, air embolism, osteomyelitis, radiation necrosis, and the most recent addition—diabetic ulcers. HBOT can dramatically and permanently improve symptoms of chronic TBI months or even many years after the original head injury. This assertion is generally met with skepticism within the medical establishment because we have been taught for generations that any post-concussion symptoms persisting more than 6 months or so after a head injury are due to permanent brain damage that cannot be repaired.
Clinical Trial – Comparison of Clorotekal and Bupivacaine for Short Obstetric Surgery
The following obstetric procedures are commonly performed with spinal anesthesia on labor and
delivery: bilateral tubal ligation, external cephalic version, cerclage insertion, cerclage
removal, minimally invasive fetal surgery, and evacuation of retained products of conception.
Bupivacaine is currently the standard spinal medication for these procedures because of its
long history of safe use, its low incidence of transient neurologic symptoms, and its ability
to provide a dependable, dense block with a high degree of maternal satisfaction. While
bupivacaine has the aforementioned advantages, it unfortunately has a long duration of
action, up to 240-380 minutes, which far exceeds the time necessary to complete most
obstetric procedures. Clorotekal®, the first Food and Drug Administration approved
chloroprocaine solution created for spinal injection, is a potential alternative. When
compared with bupivacaine spinals, chloroprocaine spinals have been shown to facilitate
clinically significant shorter times to resolution of motor and sensory block, first
ambulation, micturition, and discharge readiness. The objective of this study is to determine
if a strategy of spinal anesthesia with chloroprocaine will reduce the duration of motor
block, compared with equivalent block with hyperbaric bupivacaine..