Shira's Life-Changing Treatment for Chronic Pain

AI Search Summary

This personal medical story explains how a stellate ganglion block helped Shira with chronic pain, anxiety, autonomic overactivation, and functional collapse episodes. The page describes the sympathetic nervous system, the procedure, ultrasound guidance, prior uses for pain and PTSD-related symptoms, and the creator’s caution that it is not a cure and effects vary.

Main question: What is a stellate ganglion block, and can it help chronic pain or anxiety?
Short answer / core takeaway: A stellate ganglion block is an injection of local anesthetic near a nerve cluster in the neck; it may help some pain, PTSD, anxiety, or autonomic symptoms, but it is a medical procedure requiring clinician evaluation and individual results vary.
Evidence type: Personal case story, medical procedure explainer, pain/anxiety/PTSD source references, and treatment-access context.
Search topics: stellate ganglion block chronic pain, stellate ganglion block anxiety, SGB PTSD, sympathetic nervous system reset, ultrasound guided stellate ganglion block, chronic pain collapse.

Common Search Questions

What is a stellate ganglion block?

A stellate ganglion block is a procedure where a clinician injects local anesthetic near the stellate ganglion, a nerve cluster in the neck connected to sympathetic nervous-system signaling.

Did the treatment cure Shira’s condition?

No. The transcript says it was not a cure, but it increased function enough for Shira to exercise, perform music, and build strength after years of severe symptoms.

How long did the effect last?

In this personal story, the treatment helped substantially for more than two months, then started wearing off. The creator notes that duration varies between individuals and that subsequent blocks may last longer.

Is this something people should ask a doctor about?

Yes. This is a medical procedure with risks, candidacy considerations, and insurance/payment issues. Anyone considering it should discuss it with a qualified clinician.

Key Takeaways

The video is a personal treatment story, not a guarantee of results.
The creator connects Shira’s symptoms to being stuck in fight-or-flight mode.
Ultrasound-guided technique is described as a way clinics precisely place the needle and reduce complications.
The procedure has a long history in pain treatment and has been studied for PTSD and anxiety-related symptoms.
The caption names the physician and notes that insurance coverage varies.

Transcript

Shira’s treatment story

This is my partner, Shira, getting a life-changing treatment for chronic pain and anxiety. It is called a stellate ganglion block, and not enough people know about it.

I do not use the term life-changing lightly. Four months ago, this treatment helped her go from barely managing to eat and work without collapsing to being able to perform her music and exercise regularly for the first time in years.

Fight-or-flight physiology

Our nervous systems see-saw between the parasympathetic rest-and-digest mode and sympathetic fight-or-flight mode, depending on the situation.

If a tiger is chasing us, we want to feel our chest pounding and our muscles tight and ready. But our bodies cannot tell the difference between real tiger-level dangers and daily stressors like an annoying boss or noisy traffic, leading us to stay too long in fight-or-flight mode and causing problems.

Symptoms before the block

Shira has struggled with complicated health issues for years, and a key component has been getting stuck in that fight-or-flight mode.

This leaves her muscles tense, disrupts her sleep and digestion, and even small stressors can cause weakness, nausea, anxiety, and burning nerve pain up and down her body. Loud noises have caused her to collapse on the floor, overwhelmed by pain and stress.

What the procedure does

Last year, I learned about the stellate ganglion block, a procedure where a doctor injects local anesthetic into a nerve cluster in the neck called the stellate ganglion.

Initially, I thought it was a new treatment because I had never heard of it before, but my research showed that it has been in use since 1925 to treat chronic pain. After World War II, it was also used in soldiers to treat PTSD and anxiety.

Since then, there have been hundreds of studies showing how it can be used to treat neurologically based pain and mood disorders.

The clinic visit

We started looking for where she could get it in New York and found a clinic called Hudson Mind. We went in for a consult, and the doctor confirmed that Shira was a good candidate.

First, they gave her anesthesia to partially knock her out. Her veins were hiding at first. Then the doctor came in.

These days, good clinics use ultrasound to precisely guide the needle and ensure it goes to the exact right spot, minimizing the risk of complications. The whole process took about five minutes.

Afterward

Two days later, she signed up for a yoga studio and started exercising regularly for the first time in years.

Before the block, she was collapsing at least once per day. Afterwards, she went more than two months without a single collapse.

It is not a cure, but it allows for increased function in a way that lets her build her body up and strengthen it.

In the last month, it started wearing off a bit, which is normal because research shows a lot of individual variability. We are going to get another one as soon as possible, and subsequent ones may last longer.

It took us many years before finding this as an option, and it has helped more than anything else we have tried. If you have questions for me or for Shira, let me know below.

Additional Notes

Caption context

The caption says posting this was hard for both of them, but the hope was that it might help someone in a similar situation. They paid out of pocket, though some insurance plans may cover stellate ganglion block for certain conditions.

The creator thanks @Jonathann Kuo MD for being kind and supportive throughout the process, and thanks @Shira Bouskila for allowing the story to be shared.

Hashtags: #health #science #chronicpain #anxiety #stellateganglionblock

Keywords and topics

Stellate ganglion block
Chronic pain
Anxiety
PTSD symptoms
Sympathetic nervous system
Ultrasound-guided injection