Promising new treatment for PTSD

Yidit Negrin tried everything possible to overcome the trauma that has been haunting her since she attended the Nova Music Festival on October 7th. When Hamas massacred hundreds of civilianss. “We saw terrorists and they started firing at us,” she said. She ran for her life.

Afterwards, she said, “I woke up every night around 3 o’clock, screaming, sweating and shaking. I think it was a day or two later. I felt myself falling down crying.” Ta.

We met this summer when she was two-thirds of the way through her 60 hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) course. This is a treatment that has been used for many years to combat pressure sickness and non-healing wounds in divers. However, the Sagor Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research in Beer Yaakov, Israel, is now also treating an entirely different condition: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Negrin described her experience with PTSD: “You go crazy. You call people and yell, ‘Another terrorist attack!’ and you realize you can’t control your brain.”

Negrin joins some 650 other survivors of October 7 suffering from PTSD who are currently receiving free treatment alongside veterans at the Sagor Center, the world’s largest hyperbaric center, in an effort to regain control. I’m trying to

Dr. Shai Efrati runs the clinic, which treats up to 350 patients a day and is at the forefront of this kind of medicine. “What we’re doing is actually tricking the body,” Efrati says. “Hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, is the most powerful trigger that triggers a cascade of all repair mechanisms.”

Efrati said the pressurized chamber induces repair mechanisms in the body and brain, making it feel like scuba diving to a depth of 30 feet. Patients breathe in pure oxygen, and under these high-pressure conditions, the body can absorb up to 16 times more oxygen than normal levels. Then remove the mask every 5 minutes.

“The return to normal from a very high state is being interpreted on the same level as hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, which causes the body to activate stem cells, and for the first time in humans,” Efrati said. The generation of new neurons, the generation of new blood vessels in the brain, and this is amazing.”

The treatment is described as “unapproved” and “unproven.” “When we talk about hyperbaric oxygen therapy, that’s what it should be,” Efrati said.

“Are you saying there’s a lot of fraud out there?” Doan asked.

“Indeed. This is not only bad, it’s even dangerous.”

Dr. Efrati is constantly experimenting with new ways to use this treatment. At his clinic near Tel Aviv, we learn how he provides hyperbaric drugs to athletes with brain injuries (“If we can shorten the recovery period, we can train more”). I was able to see how they help patients regain movement. Growth of new neurons and blood vessels in the brain.

“We’re not modifying his running,” Efrati said of one player’s performance. “We’re repairing the brain.”

They have published several studies examining PTSD in veterans. A study published today found that 68% of patients showed significant improvement. Another reported that PTSD remission lasted at least two years, which was longer than with other established treatments. “We want to evaluate everything objectively,” Efrati said.

It is decisive enough for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to ask Efrati’s team to stop testing and begin treatment. Doctors say they can always ask for more data, but “the evidence is right in front of us.”

Shachar Mizrahi was one of the Israeli Defense Forces veterans referred for the first clinical trial in 2018. He was a soldier during the 2014 Israeli attack on Gaza and was riding in an armored vehicle when he was ambushed. In the short term, he was thinking about survival. Suffering came later. “I can’t sleep at night,” he said. “The moment I put on a military uniform, I want to die. I can smell blood. I can smell war.”

He tried drugs, therapy and sleeping pills. he considered suicide. “There was nothing that really helped me get my life back,” he said. “And then I heard that this might help, and that maybe this was my last chance before ending my life.”

Dr. Keren Doenyas Barak, who heads the PTSD program at the Sagol Center, tracked Mr. Mizrahi’s 60 sessions and showed him brain scans from June 2018 and March 2019 to help him effectively regulate his emotions and processes. Emphasized activation of areas used to. information. Subsequent brain scan images became brighter. This never happened before the treatment.

“Many people tend to view PTSD as a psychological phenomenon rather than a biological phenomenon,” Doenyas-Barak says. “So we treat PTSD very similarly to other brain diseases.”

For Mizrahi, this treatment changed everything. “This is the first time I’ve felt again. When I start to sleep at night, I’m less afraid. It makes me feel alive again. …I was a dying man, but after this… A living human being.”

“If this drug is being offered in Israel with such good results, why on earth aren’t we offering it in the United States,” said Greg Murphy, a North Carolina Republican congressman and physician.

That’s the question Murphy, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, is raising in the halls of Congress. One in 10 of his voters is a military veteran. “I love our Veterans Corps,” he said. “But you can’t reach a certain demographic of veterans when you have 22 people committing suicide every day. And if we were to do something about treatments that had conclusive results, If there is, I think it’s medical malpractice not to provide it.” And that’s what we pass on to our veterans. ”

In 2023, he introduced the Veterans’ National Trauma and Injury Treatment Act. “We basically want the VA to do a pilot study within that range to see if hyperbaric oxygen shows whether it’s effective or not,” he said. said.

And what is he hearing from the Veterans Administration? “They just don’t want to do anything. They’re just throwing their hands up,” he said. “The reason we’ve heard is, ‘The results have been mixed.’ OK, look at the results over the last 15 years. Look at the studies in Israel. Parkinson’s disease, migraines, even… It is also absolutely effective for MS and neurological diseases.”

Sunday Morning requested an interview with the Department of Veterans Affairs, but they declined to comment.

In Salt Lake City, Utah, we met Dr. Lynn Weaver, who runs Hyperbaric Medicine at Intermountain Health. They treat about 20 patients a day, which represents a huge number of 350 patients being treated in Israel every day. Hyperbaric chambers are rarely used for PTSD patients because they are expensive, but Weaver says they have had positive results. “I’ve treated a number of patients, and they all got amazingly better,” Weaver said.

But insurers say there is not enough evidence that it is effective for PTSD. And in the U.S., out-of-pocket costs have soared to more than $50,000.

“What we need is something like a drug trial,” Weaver said. “But these efforts will take years to accomplish. It all depends on the effort and the funding.”

“But if doctors like you feel so strongly that this works, why isn’t there enough push from doctors like you to say, ‘Prove this?’ Is that so?” he asked.

“Well, believe me, we tried,” Weaver replied. “I have submitted proposals to external funding agencies, but so far they have not been accepted.”

Doan asked Dr. Efrati, “You’re on the front lines of medicine here. Is there any danger there?”

“As a scientist, I always say we need more research, we need more data,” he responded. “But as a doctor, when I sit in front of you and look you in the eye, you have a problem right now. This is our job as doctors.”

Yidit Negrin said the treatment gave her hope that she could overcome her nightmare at the Nova Music Festival. She hopes this treatment will allow her to move forward with her life.

But she wears a Nova necklace as a reminder while undergoing treatment. “I can’t take her off my neck,” she said.

Her progress motivates Dr. Efrati to continue thinking about the future and innovating to help patients process the past.

“Some people will listen to this and say it’s too good to be true,” Doan said.

“Yeah, I know,” Negrin said. “But it’s true.”

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Story produced by Sari Aviv. Editor: Ed Givenish.

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