Shut down overactive Fight or Flight with a Stellate Ganglion Block!

For people with PTSD, Stellate Ganglion Blocks may:

• Reset ‘Fight or Flight’ *
• Reduce Anxiety *
• Improve Sleep **
•  Calm Excess Irritability **
• Improve Concentration **
• Be a Therapy Catalyst * by making therapy easier to tolerate, leading to more effective gains.

Edelica, Wisconsin’s leading ketamine provider, is excited to add stellate ganglion blocks (SGB) to the list of innovative treatments at our Milwaukee clinic!

SGB is not a drug.   It is a medical procedure – an injection done with ultrasound guidance – that temporarily numbs the nerves that carry the fight or flight impulses.   

These impulses all funnel through a nerve bundle in the neck called the cervical sympathetic chain.   The Stellate Ganglion makes up part of this chain.    

It is a two-way street that connects the sympathetic nervous system in the body to the brain.   When your brain perceives a threat (a lion in your car), it shoots impulses to your heart to beat faster and harder, and your lungs to breathe deeper, and your muscles to tense up and get ready to act.    

All of this happens without thinking.   It’s a primitive, but effective mechanism that helps you respond to the threat as quickly as possible (and get out of the car!) 

Then, when the threat is over, the body relaxes, and the sympathetic output returns to normal.

EXCEPT FOR PEOPLE WITH PTSD.

In people with PTSD, and possibly some people with anxiety syndromes, the sympathetic response gets stuck in the ‘on’ position.

Now, when the brain perceives a threat, the response builds on itself in a feedback loop without an end in sight.    It’s like the two-way street becomes a roundabout, with no exit.