Tragically, 18 U.S. military veterans commit suicide each day, according to the most recent statistics available from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Mental health experts blame Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a leading cause.  

The good news is that many veterans are finding much-needed relief from the invisible wounds of war thanks to a treatment called Stellate Ganglion Block, or SGB.

For more than a decade, Sean Mulvaney, M.D., an Annapolis-based Sports Medicine physician and SGB specialist, has been performing the unique nerve block on thousands of combat veterans to help minimize their anxiety, anger, and nightmares stemming from war.

"I've had Vietnam veterans that I've treated with over 50 years of terrible symptoms, here with his wife just crying, saying, 'I'm back finally.' And the wife is crying," Dr. Mulvaney told CBN News.

After serving 31 years as both a Navy SEAL and an Army physician, Dr. Mulvaney understands a soldier's emotional battle better than most.

"They're good people that love their country," he said. "We owe them."

How It Works

The Stellate Ganglion Block involves injecting a local anesthetic into the Stellate Ganglion nerve bundles on either side of the neck. They are connected to the brain and are largely responsible for the body's reaction to perceived danger. The anesthesia blocks those signals for about six to twelve hours, which helps reset the sympathetic nervous system.

Dr. Mulvaney said the side effects are rare and minimal, and the benefits can be life-changing.

"They're able to sleep better at night," he said. "They're able to repair relationships around them. They're able to be around other people without it being so stressful."

The SGB procedure takes about 15 minutes. Dr. Mulvaney uses Doppler ultrasound to guide him to the precise target. After a short rest, patients are free to leave the office. Unlike some other SGB practitioners, Dr. Mulvaney routinely injects both sides of the neck, as he believes that produces better results than injecting just one side.  Therefore, his patients come back the next day for the other side.

He said about one-third of his patients only require one treatment, while others come back, often years later, for another or more.

Dr. Mulvaney reports that 85 percent of his patients have experienced significant improvement.

"We've done 17 studies in the last 15 years, publishing in the peer-reviewed literature," he said.

Despite this documentation, the Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't generally cover the cost, saying it "may have short-term benefit," and that "the longer term effects...are unknown," adding it has "not been fully researched in veterans with PTSD."

"The V.A. has a hard job, and I'm not presuming to tell them how to use all their resources," Dr. Mulvaney said. "But I certainly would like to see this available to service members and veterans."

Testimonials

Dr. Mulvaney gave the block to Tim Chandler, a 30-year veteran, who had become suicidal.

"When I had PTSD," Chandler told CBN News, "if I was in a circular room that had 50 doors, I might only had five doors available to me, couldn't go open the others. I had this treatment, and within 24 hours, it felt like 30 doors had just popped open."

Chandler feels so convinced this treatment can bless others that he helps them get it through his veteran suicide awareness non-profit, Silent Watch.

"So if there's a veteran that can't afford this treatment, if they contact us, we cover the cost of the treatment for them," Chandler said. "Sixteen-hundred dollars is a lot, but not if it gives you your life back. It's pennies, and we're glad to do it."

Chandler encourages military members, who are often hesitant to admit they need help, much less ask for it, to do so if they're struggling with PTSD and are considering SGB.

"I always make a guarantee," he said. "'I'll buy you a dinner at any restaurant if you don't feel some positive out of it.'  And I've never bought a dinner yet."

Chandler said SGB helps people struggling with PTSD cope with life.

"If you were on a scale of zero to a hundred with PTSD, you're up around the 70, 80, 90 range," he said. "Once you have this treatment, it'll bring you down to the 20, 25, 30 range, and you can live a whole lot better."

Former combat veteran Renee Witherspoon told CBN News she feels Dr. Mulvaney's SGB treatments are an answer to prayer.

"God is gracious enough to give us, from the time of Adam, He meets us in our brokenness and our pain," she said. "And so He provides medicine and ways to heal us."

Fighting ISIS in the Middle East left her with unshakable fear and anxiety.

"You develop a heightened sense of awareness," she said. "So everything is potentially a threat."

She turned to Dr. Mulvaney and found relief from the SGB he gave her.

"I am not reactive to the extent I used to be," she said. "If somebody's afraid of needles, that'd probably be your only hiccup, if you will. But it's not painful. You feel a little pressure, just like you would if you got a flu shot."

Other Benefits

In addition to minimizing the terrible, potentially fatal symptoms of PTSD, Stellate Ganglion Block has also been shown to help people who are suffering from Traumatic Brain Injuries. Some patients experience relief from TBI symptoms such as chronic headaches and loss of balance.

"When we do a Stellate Ganglion Block, we're resetting the cerebral blood flow, the blood flow to the brain," Dr. Mulvaney explained. "And in traumatic brain injury, there can be these areas of persistent hypoxia, or low oxygen, and we're able to restore that."

The block can also help relieve what amputees, like Marine veteran Andrew Kinard, call phantom limb pain. Kinard told CBN News he lost both of his legs in Iraq to an IED explosion in 2006. He described the sensation of being stabbed repeatedly in some part of his foot over and over about every 15 seconds for a day or two at a time.

"The SGB was really the answer to a search that had taken years to find," he said. "After getting the SGB, I felt like my old self for the first time in a long time. That's what gives me so much joy, is feeling like the man that I know that I am. And I am so delighted that this procedure exists."

So while talk therapy and medication are often the prevailing treatments for PTSD, many veterans who didn't find success with those did experience relief with SGB.

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