A guest on Bee The Wellness, tune in to an intimate and real discussion with Dr. Cook on the topic of PTSD

 So even though anesthesiologists get a lot of ptsd, I think we actually have a whole bunch of tools in our backyard that are kind of helpful for it. I just started seeing a lot of people, uh, with that condition and so it became kind of a, a passion play for me, and it might be just about my favorite thing that I do.

You're listening to a Bio Reset medical podcast with Dr. Cook. If you have questions, we're gonna talk more about your symptoms and issues. You can always reach us at 650 888 7950, and we're live. Welcome to the podcast, Matt. Oh, thanks so much. I'm delighted to be here. Thanks a lot. Yeah, we're really excited to, uh, dive into so many topics with you because when we, you know, got your bio and sort of your portfolio if you will, there was just a ton of talking points on there that we were interested in, you know, going to with.

You. So we um, we wanna jump right in and kind of get started and maybe you can just give folks a little bit about your background, um, particularly when it comes to the treatment of P T S D and how you sort of got it mo moving in that direction cuz that's something we really wanna touch on and maybe we can kick off with that as the first sort of talking point.

Okay, cool. Yeah, it is actually pretty interesting. I'm, uh, an anesthesiologist by training, and I think probably a lot of anesthesiologists end up with, well, PTSD as kind of a side effect of the profession. Mm. But I was, uh, working in a hospital and doing trauma surgery, and then I, uh, beat, started, um, Doing, uh, working in surgery centers and I became kind of an expert at what's called regional anesthesia, where I would use an ultrasound and I would put, uh, local anesthetic or numbing your medicine around nerves and, uh, basically put either your arms or your legs or some part of the body to sleep.

And then do surgery. So, and when I did that, people wouldn't have any pain when they woke up cuz the, the area where the surgery was, was totally numb. Hmm. And then I, I, uh, ended up finding out that a lot of times, if, if I used. Other things like stem cells or other, uh, solutions that had growth factors or anti-inflammatory, uh, components.

A lot of times I could do the same technique, putting fluid around nerves and fixed nerve pain. And so then I, uh, I developed a practice that was kind of around that, but interestingly, I'd been studying integrative medicine for about 15 years. And so I put together a practice that was part of integrative medicine, part regenerative, but uh, but an area that had been near and dear to me through that whole experience was PTSD and trauma.

And, uh, it turns out that, There's a technique that comes from anesthesia, uh, called the Ella ganglion block, which is something that can be helpful for that. And turns out there's another thing that can be super helpful called ketamine, which comes from anesthesia. So even though anesthesiologists get a lot of ptsd, I think we actually have a whole bunch of tools in our backyard that are kind of helpful for it.

And because of that, I just started seeing a lot of people. Uh, with that condition. And so it became kind of a, a passion play for me. And it might be just about my favorite thing that I do, so. Yeah. Yeah. So good to see. Yeah. Could see. So, okay. I just wanna clarify. So you're saying that anesthesiologists have, uh, the experience a lot of ptsd d like within the trade?

Uh, well, I think so. And what? Mm-hmm. The, the interesting thing about that is, is in anesthesia, you walk up and meet somebody. And then you have to figure out their entire medical history in like four or five minutes usually. Mm-hmm. And then you take them back and then you put them all the way to sleep and you put a breathing tube in, and then you take over 100% control of their physiology.

So you have to make sure your, their blood pressure is okay. Their, their heart rate is okay. Their oxygen levels are okay. And then you have to let surgeons do crazy things. And sometimes people will lose a liter of blood a minute. Sometimes their heart can go into electrical abnormalities. And so the, the common term about anesthesia is that is hours of, uh, boredom punctuated by moments of terror.

Yeah, totally. Those, and so then those moments, terror is like how you. So, um, and so then it, it, it's a, it's a, it is an extremely high stress profession. Uh, but I, I, the story that I'm telling anyways these days is that it, it, it oriented me to a problem and it actually taught me all of these skills that are now the skills that I use to help people.

So I'm actually like totally grateful that I ended up. Getting to go into it. Mm-hmm. Because if I hadn't gone into anesthesia, I don't think I would have any skills to help people, so. Mm-hmm. Right. I'm kinda, I'm kind of delighted about it. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes works out that way. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's like, it really does take, you know, a full understanding of what it is that, that folks are going through.

And I, I think, you know, I think P ts D is a, it is probably this way in a lot of aspects of life, but P T S D is such an magnifying glass for. That, that sort of feeling that you have of like, if you've never had this, then you can't understand what it is that I'm feeling because this is a really weird thing, right?

Your, your body's going through once it's, once you've experienced some, some spike in trauma in one event or this kind of accumulative effect that, that we see kind of in the first responder and, and, um, and military realm. So it totally makes sense, right? That you, that you'd be like, Hey, here's a niche that I can fill.

And something that, that, um, You know, it just becomes super important once you've experienced what it's like to, to sort of see some of the negative aspects of this. So I think it's, I think it's pretty awesome that you're getting this opportunity and, and looking at it as exactly that, like an opportunity to, you know, really give something back in a area that you have kind of a unique experience of.

Right, and so then I'll, I'll kind of tell you about this is, is quite interesting. We, we have a part of our physiology that is paying attention, like just for the three of us here right now. And everybody that's listening, we're all sitting here and every second, every millisecond our brain is, is making a split second decision.

Is everything cool and is everything just totally fine, or is this a fight or flight situation? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now, normally, let's say this is a podcast, it's kind of a nice, perfect day, so it seems like everything maybe is totally fine. Okay. And so then if everything's totally fine and we're just sitting here having a great talk about life and the nature of reality, then what happens is, is we, the, the brain says, oh, okay, everything's cool, so we're gonna run, rest and relax.

And so when you're running the Rest and Relax program, then that says, oh, okay, everything's fine. So let's do, let's spend some of our. Uh, energy on digestion. Let's relax, let's feel good. All the blood vessels are relaxed because we're not really doing too much. Mm-hmm. And that is a super healthy state to be in.

And then if we're in resting, relax, then we're probably gonna be telling great stories and having a good time. So that means we need our whole brain to be on and working. And so then we turn our whole brain on and we turn our, our memory part of the brain on so that we, so we can remember those good stories and stuff like that right now.

Then if something sketchy happened, The building got on fire. Something crazy happened. Then our, our brain would go uhoh, there's fight or flight. And so then when you go into fight or flight, then all of a sudden we turn off memory because it's not so important cuz we're just gonna move on instinct. And then we vaa construct our blood vessels.

We turn off digestion because the idea is we need to get our blood pressure up and then we need to be able to get outta here. Right now, one way of thinking about P T S D is that it's that the body gets kind of stuck in a fight or flight situation. Mm-hmm. So then you can imagine if you went to war and every couple days there was a big, crazy thing that happened that put you in fight or flight.

At some point you might just say, I think I'll stay in fight or flight all the time. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Or victims of sexual assault or trauma, or let's say, you know, with everything going on now, racism. Mm-hmm. Um, and so then you have all of these triggers that could be a trigger that someone faces every single day for years and years and years and years.

Mm. And so then that can leave the nervous system stuck in a fight or flight state. And I like to think of, there's probably a lot of people that meet criteria for PTs D, but there's probably a whole bunch more people that are on the PTs D spectrum. They're probably way more in fight or flight than is would be optimal.

But they might not meet criteria to be totally in, in what's called ptsd. And so then our, our philosophy is to try to reset that and part of that is just by telling a great story. Some part of that is ketamine can kind of is this anesthesia drug that can reset the fight or flight nervous system. And then we do these injections.

But what I found is that, Uh, and there's a lot of interesting work in psychedelics kind of looking at this. But what I found is that a multimodal approach where I put together a whole bunch of, uh, different modalities that are working by different mechanisms to help reset that physiology to help. Drive us back into a rest and relaxed state.

And so then you imagine, then you begin to realize meditation, mindfulness, yoga, uh, everything that is good and that is generally culturally and socially known to be good, tends to drive us into that rest and relaxed state. And so now we're basically trying to hack our central nervous system physiology so that we can get into a state of wellness.

And then try to maintain that set of wellness. Wow. So you said there's a lot there and so I kind of wanna unpack a little bit of this because I think there's some incredibly, um, important aspects to this. So, and so I'm just gonna kind of see if I can package up what, what you're just saying. So there's this, this concept that a persistent state of, of stress, like of an amplitude high enough to kind of get into this fight or flight scenario.

It develops a pattern, right? So in, and then the next time that little thing triggers, we can kind of go right back into that, into that specific phase. And then if we're there long enough, then just as a matter of, you know, conservation of energy or something like that, right? Our body's like, okay, you've, you've lost your hall pass, right?

We're just gonna stay here in this, in this elevated state. Awesome. And, and so what I'm wondering is, you know, how is it that. Is it a matter of like re-patterning that, that state, so where you're using, you know, the tools that you were just discussing to, to kind of break the cycle and then re-pattern the response or how, how do you see that aspect of it?

Yeah. That's so awesome that you said that. That's exactly, I, a lot of times I'll tell people we're, it's almost like we're trying to defrag the hard drive. Mm-hmm. So we're trying to reset what those triggers are. And then we're trying to re-pattern that, like everything is okay. Mm-hmm. And, and now it's kind of tricky cause as, as I mentioned, a few of those triggers, um, it's tricky because often those triggers are not gonna go away.

Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And so then how do we repa and retell kind of a new story about. Who we are, how we are, and what our role in the universe and in our society and culture is. Mm-hmm. And so for each person it's a little bit different, but what I've found is, is that as it's kind of crazy, but as soon as I start talking like we have this possibility to re-pattern it, then people are like, oh, awesome.

And so then like when I first started doing this four or five years ago, people would come in and I would kind of tell them, tell 'em that you could re-pattern things and we're gonna retell the news story and blah, blah, blah. And people would look at me like I was a little crazy. Yeah. And now what happens is people generally come in and they'll say, oh, you know, I listened to all the podcasts.

Mm-hmm. And I totally understood. And then, you know, what he said about re-patterning, I really liked that. And I started to do it, and I'm already like 30% better and I know I'm gonna get better. And, and interestingly, as soon as people kind of come in, in that state, I generally feel like any one of five or six modalities would be pretty darn helpful.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, and, and if, have you ever heard of the 99 Monkeys? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. It's like, it's, it's so amazing. Like they take like a monkey and they need to, they're living in a lab and they teach 'em a task. Mm-hmm. And it takes like 10 hours to, he's from the task, right? Mm-hmm.

And then they put another monkey in there, and another one, there's 10 monkeys in there. But it still takes like 10 hours to eat for each new monkey to learn the task. Mm. Once you've got like a hundred monkeys in there, then all of a sudden a new monkey comes in and he learns the task like right away. Oh, wow.

Cause he just sees all the monkeys. Yeah. Yeah. And so then my philosophy on, and I'm telling you I was kind of bearing out in my practice, is that. I think people are beginning to realize, oh we can, we can, uh, you said it perfectly, we can re pattern and start to tell a new story and, and reset our physiology.

And what I believe is, is that people are going to become aware that that is fully possible. Mm-hmm. Right. And it was kinda like when I was in medical school, they told me, don't do PTSD cuz nobody gets better. Right, right. They would say that when we walked around the va it was crazy. And so, but I'm saying, oh yeah, everybody's gonna get better.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think there's a real paradigm shift around this and, you know, Adam comes from a background in the fire service. He, uh, left his job. Didn't officially retired, but left his job, uh, early because of our company and, you know, going full-time with us in a, a couple of years ago. And, you know, we've talked at length about his experience with P T S D and he, we've done ayahuasca and we've done some plant medicines and he's had tremendous results.

And so I'm really excited about this idea of ketamine because obviously Ayahuasca is a bigger pill to swallow, if you will. And, you know, Not everyone's necessarily ready to go there, or maybe it's not the appropriate treatment for them. There's lots of reasons why, you know, that's a great cog in the wheel, but maybe it's not the right cog for you.

So I really wanna dive into this Ketamine story because I think that this is something that obviously is legal in the us. Um, you are administering it. You have a protocol around it, so maybe you can just talk a little bit about what that looks like for people. What you know, the process of discovering if you're a good candidate for it, the kind, the actual treatment itself, and some of the results that you're seeing.

Oh, so that's great. That's a super interesting question. Um, ketamine is a, is a, is uh, now this goes into dose. So in high dose ketamine is an anesthesia drug that's a disa disassociative anesthetic that makes you not feel anything and makes people not have pain during anesthesia. So I used to give it a lot to kids and I used to use it all the time as part of anesthesia cuz people would have less pain after surgery.

Mm-hmm. Um, but it turns out you can give it in low dosage and when you give it in low dosage, it turns out it works real well. It's actually a mild psychedelic. Mm-hmm. And then it's mildly disassociative. Um, you can, there's a bunch of different ways that you can give it, so you can give it as a oral lozenge.

And so during Covid we had some people who were at home and we're still doing that, who are pretty traumatized and afraid to go outside. And so stuff like that. And so we will do, uh, a video call with them and they will take, uh, it as a lozenge that goes into the back of their. Their mouth and they kind of, they suck on it, almost like sucking on a lollipop.

Mm-hmm. And then it can take its effect. We do injections of it, like, uh, e like a little, IM injection in, in the clinic and, but the thing we have the most experience with is doing IV infusions. Mm. Uh, and, uh, and, and, and when we do it, we, uh, I almost always do an infusion of a vitamin called before. And I found that NAB makes ketamine work like 50% better, and it also makes it last a lot longer.

Usually ketamine will have a, a, a effect of turning the depression pathway off for a couple of weeks, and then it will, um, uh, people will do a series of six treatments. Mm-hmm. But sometimes I'll get months and months of benefit just from one treatment when I combine it with N A d. Oh wow. Interesting. And what's the mechanism for that?

What do you think is making that difference? I think that N A D, when you put it intravenously, or if you do a subcutaneous injection, and I teach a lot of people about, I teach a lot of doctors how to do this, but when you do N A D N A D helps to reset your mitochondria. And turn the physiologically help to turn the brain back on.

Mm-hmm. So a lot of times when people do it, their brain fog will go away and they'll feel better. And Nav helps to drive oxidate phosphorylation, which is basically, it helps your, your cells and your brain burn energy more efficiently. Mm-hmm. And it helps your mitochondria work a little bit better. And so then my theory is, is that if I can take all the cells in your brain and get them working a little bit, Better than average, right.

Before I do the ketamine, then the ketamine's gonna work better. And that's, so this is just the, a theory that I came up with. Mm-hmm. But it's definitely born out. Yeah. It's almost like making it your brain more bioavailable to it or something. Yeah. Yeah. That's a nice way to say it. Mm-hmm. And, and so, yeah.

And so then what, what is. We're kind of cultivating and curating a story that is centers around, you're gonna heal and you're gonna overcome whatever the trauma was. And in some way the journey of going through that is, is gonna, uh, You're gonna realize that you're more resilient. Your, your wisr, you may have more to give back.

And so there's, we, we try to find a little silver lining within the, everything that's happened. Mm-hmm. And so that is, that's like in big terms. And so we're. Each person, it's a little bit different. And so part of it is talking and, and so sometimes what we'll do with ketamine is we'll do very low dose.

And so mm-hmm. Uh, to, for, for doctors who are listening, I've had women who were in their seventies and eighties who didn't drink and were very sensitive. And I gave them five or 10 milligrams of ketamine and they told me it was the best experience of their life. But five or 10 milligrams of ketamine is a very low dose uhhuh.

But normally for someone who might weigh 70 kilos, um, or like 165 pounds, normally what we would do is we would give 30 milligrams, so like six times that much. Right. And so, uh, the normal dose is half a milligram per kilogram, and so mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We've, and, and the other thing that I've, I've been doing a lot of is I will, will sit and will talk to people and actually do like therapeutic conversations while they're on ketamine, which is kinda similar probably to what, a plant-based medicines.

Right. And it's, what I found is, Because ketamine is mildly disassociative. What I noticed is, is that it kind of separates people a little bit from the trauma and gets them to a point where they can talk about it and, and then in the process of talking through it, then all of a sudden we can begin to kind of defrag some of those triggers and often reset the triggers.

Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Create some space. Yeah, absolutely. So I, I wanna kind of drill down into what the actual, um, biological effects are. So is it working on the serotonin system or is it actually just that it's helping the body to get out of this sympathetic drive? Like what is the thing that is actually kind of re-patterning as you said?

So, so then ketamine ha, ketamine. It's may one reason why it may be so helpful is that it works broadly ac uh, across the central nervous system. Okay? So it turns off, the most famous thing that's known for is it turns off this pathway called an mda. So it's an MDA antagonist. Mm-hmm. Which may be associated with depression.

And so that's why, that may be why when you give people ketamine and you're beginning to turn the depression pathways off, there's some trials that have shown that ketamine is, uh, has some benefit for people with drug resistant depression, which is pretty difficult topic to deal with. Mm-hmm. But then it also can, is broadly stimulating, uh, across a number of neurotransmitters.

And so the. But then it's also disassociative and it facilitates unwinding emotional triggers. Mm-hmm. And then it's also mildly psychedelic. And a lot of times people will see, oh, I actually have some hope, or, mm-hmm I feel good for the first time. And then, or I, or I'm, you know, another one is, I feel safe for the first time.

Yeah. And, and so then we're, and so I, so which one of those is the one? You know, I don't know. Mm-hmm. But what I'm trying to do is use all of them to then help curate and tell a story that is a story, and the moral of the story is always, It's gonna be amazing. We're gonna overcome whatever the trauma was.

The trauma is gonna make us a somehow more empathic, kinder, gentler person. And then we're gonna ultimately get to be who we were meant to be on this planet and, and, and, uh, and, and then, and then evolve and grow from there. Yeah. So something, something that you said kind of in, in what you were just talking about is that I kind of wanna hover on and make sure that I, that I grasped that and that it was something about when you're saying that there's, you're, when you're re-patterning and kind of creating this new story, I think you said something about what you have to contribute and, and, uh, like meaning the person who's, you know, uh, undergoing the therapy, pointing out that they have something to contribute to this, to this world, is that, Did you, did you say that or did I make that up?

Uh, I think so. Yeah. I, I mean, I love that. That's, I think that's a super amazing concept. So and so, this is it, it just dives right squarely into my experience kind of with, with P T S D and then, and some amount of what I've read about other people's experiences and, and they, you know, one of the feelings, so like for, for me, it specifically, I mean given various, you know, acute, uh, just completely gnarly situations that I found myself in over the course of, you know, 22 years in the fire service, the sort of.

Long-term component of that, the piece that that really tails on at the end, which honestly is stuff that I'm kind of only starting to feel given the, the slowdown in just general life that we've had due to lockdowns and covid and all that, is the sense, the sense of loss of purpose now that I don't do that job anymore.

Right. And it's something that gets really deeply ingrained, is like this, here's this thing and I'm doing this thing and I'm. That's what I'm here for, you know? And that job is very, very good at providing that sort of sense. And something that just when you were, when you were talking about that, like I, I've read about this, I think they call it platoon syndrome or something like that with the guys who are coming back from overseas who.

Outside of this group of peers who have experienced similar things to them, they feel very alone and they feel like there's no one can relate to them. And there's no like ability to like, what am I doing here, you know, without these guys, what am I doing here? And so it's really interesting what you're saying about.

In that space somehow being able to provide them with an opportunity to see the value and the contribution that they are bringing, just as like a person, you know, I don't know where I was going with that, but it's what came to mind. I love, I love, so I'll go with you on this one. I love, love that you said that.

So, um, what I, so the. This is this idea. Ericson and Pi. Were these like European kind of philosophers? Physician characters. And, and so there was these idea of all of these stages of life that you go through. But then the final one is generativity, where you look, you, you give back to society and culture.

You make some kind of sense of what's happened to you and, and then contribute and give back. And in a way, the human condition is typically, One of difficulty and then we die, okay? Mm-hmm. And obviously there's love and good things that happen, but it's the human condition is, is frail and, and, and fraught with difficulty.

And so then the, the, the most important thing is to, is to make some, some, make something of what happened to you and contribute and give back and, and contribute. And so now what happens? Is, is I, and I remember when I went to medical school, you're like a hundred percent that you're gonna do it. Like you're gonna, you're gonna be a doctor, you're gonna go out, you're gonna change the world.

You're gonna do good things. And then next thing you know, you're working 80 hours a week and you can barely keep up. And then we be, you begin to start to have this existential fear that I may not be able to achieve and contribute and actually do anything. Profoundly meaningful with my life. Mm-hmm. And that's, I, I, I felt that moment, like, I felt like uhoh, I may be doing anesthesia and I may never actually contribute and do anything.

And yet you're profoundly helping people and guiding people through difficult things. Being an, our background is almost the same, cuz being an anesthesiologist is like being a first responder. Right. But then, um, what I have found is that every single person that I've ever met with PTSD and trauma is almost all the same.

It's all similar themes and concepts. And stories, right? And then at first when I would hear those stories, it was a little bit overwhelming because they were somewhat reminiscent of maybe my own story. But now when I hear those stories, I just get like empathetic in this incredible like kind of soft and like almost like I'll almost be kind of happy because I'll be like, oh, we're gonna totally help you.

Yeah. Like you're gonna overcome this. And so then to me that's the antidote to the platoon syndrome. Because it turns out whether if you could have added in a platoon, right? But you might actually be able to help a victim of sexual assault, which is like, almost like the opposite, but it's still similar to like, because it's, it was a, it was a, a, you both have p, ptsd, D from not feeling safe.

Mm. And so and so. Then what happens is, is in reality we're all the same and we're all looking for the same thing. And so then we just have to figure out how we can do something to contribute and actually you're totally doing exactly the right thing cuz you're talking to people and spreading good, good information.

So it's actually, yeah, you're doing perfect. Thanks. You're on track, right? On track. No, it's really amazing and I would just, you know, I. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts because something that has occurred to me is that I actually think most people do experience P T S D at some point in their life and that, you know, these therapies or therapies like plant medicine are, what have you, are almost applicable for, for most people.

Like we, most of us have stored trauma that if we were able to release, if we were able to, um, re-pattern as you say, you know, it. It's, we don't necessarily have to be suicidal before, you know, we can optimize some of these patterns. And so I'm curious like what you tell people, you know, what kind of person you tell, uh, you know, who's good for this sort of treatment, or who you would say, okay, hey, if you're experiencing any of this, this could be beneficial.

Yeah, that's a really good one. Mm-hmm. And so then I, I would say that I would like 100% agree with everything you just said. Mm-hmm. And, and so then in terms of processing through that, then you begin to say, well, there's all roads lead to healing. And so then you've got, obviously you mentioned the plant-based medicine, which I think is interesting.

I, ayahuasca is, you know, people get so nauseated and it's kind of a little bit uncontrolled and hard to manage. Mm-hmm. Ketamine, we can start really low. It's safe, it's legal. Mm-hmm. And so I think it is a nice place for people to start. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, we do the Stella Ganglia block. There's, but then remember my 99 Monkeys.

I, I'm telling you that I think that as, as consciousness around this grows and as people begin to realize, oh, I can kind of take control of that and I can reset that, uh, and I can begin to reset those triggers, what I think is, is that there's going to be an evolving. Story that people tell, which is, yeah, I have a little PTSD around this or that, but I'm beginning to heal it.

And then the second that starts it be, it is like a fractal that kind of start just continues to create more and more healing, uh mm-hmm. In, in a more robust way. Yeah. I love it. The 99 Monkeys thing is, is super fascinating and I think so to, to kind of give some legs to that from my perspective, like I, I think a huge piece of this is literally just.

People sharing very authentically what their experience with all of this stuff has been. And, and I know in the fire service it's still. It's still a little bit taboo, you know, and I was fortunate to work for a department that was very progressive in the, they called it critical incident stress management, but like the debriefing, debriefing processes and that there was a very clear protocol for kind of how to unwind people after these acute, uh, situations.

And, but it really starts with a group of peers who you have some respect for and can, you know, as opposed to sitting down with like a mental health professional, you're like, what? What do you know about this? You know what I mean? Which obviously they probably know a lot, but not from an experience perspective.

Right. So sitting down with that group peers and then just sharing the story and that opens up this idea. And then, you know, the facilitator who's been through this a number of times says, Hey, well this was my story and here's where I am now. And guess what? You know, there's nothing wrong with you. You're having a perfectly normal reaction to an abnormal situation, right?

And so it's just, it starts this kind of unfolding. Of the story that I'm broken or the story that this is how I'm going to be forever. And, and the, the, the fear that I think comes from that, which probably just kind of doubles down the overall problem, right? So, If we can get the message out right, if we can put more monkeys in the cage, so to speak, right?

We're just getting people in here and saying, Hey, look, here's what's going on. Here's what's available to you, like the speed at which this whole thing. PE people can fundamentally heal themselves and recognize maybe where their patterns of trauma are, and then feel comfortable and maybe even excited about, you know, the future.

That's. That's cool. I think that's a fantastic analogy for this, for this cool thing. Yeah. Thank you so much. It is crazy because you were probably like me, like there was, there was one thing that was known. Uh, pervasively everywhere I've ever worked my whole life, which is, is that, uh, you should do anything to avoid at all costs ever having to talk to the Physician Wellbeing Committee.

Yes, exactly. And, and, and so then what happens is, is there's a, there's a, there was a thing. It's like, how are you. And the answer was like, perfect. How are you? Fine. Yeah. Mm-hmm. The, the never, ever, ever admit anything because then because they were basically trying to hang you, you know, was kinda the mentality, but then that leads to isolation and then from isolation leads to no talking and sharing.

Mm-hmm. And so I hold and, and group therapies. Profoundly amazing. That's why aa, that's why all of these good organizations have been so helpful to people. And I've been, I've been, you know, very actively trying to build a bridge and, and talk about this. And I feel, I feel. Truly hopeful and it's, I'm so grateful to kind of get to talk to you guys, people like you.

And the first responder, uh, is, is so analogous to, to, to what I did in anesthesia. That's is kind of, it's, uh, it makes, I have a good feeling for you. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanna just walk into the fine print a little bit here so that folks out there that are listening can understand, um, you know, if they might, if they might be a good candidate for this.

Can this work at the same time as other therapies? So for instance, can you be on antidepressants? Can you be on any other medications? Do you have to be off of your meds for this? What's some of the details around who can actually start this therapy? Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, so definitely you can be you.

You can stay on your antidepressants and stuff like that. Um, so interestingly, sometimes it's really hard for people to come off antidepressants, and sometimes if you take n a d it can help people get off. And sometimes you can do an n na div. Sometimes you can do n a d subcutaneous injections, and then there's a whole bunch of supplements.

Quicksilver makes one called NAD that I really like. Um, and so there's a, um, and so it's very, very safe. Uh, ketamine is super, super safe when it's administered in a, in a, in a safe kind of, yeah. Way. Mm-hmm. And, um, and then the same is true for for many of the other therapies that we do as well. Mm. Awesome.

Awesome. I love that because yeah, I think that that's such a, a, a difficult one for folks to have to be off their meds before they can start any of these therapies. So it's amazing to hear that they can work together. Um, and there's so many other things that, gosh, that you have expertise in that we would love to walk into, but we're almost outta time today, so I don't wanna even, um, you know, Get too far straight off of this path, but maybe just quickly you can talk about some of the things that you work with people on in conjunction to the Ketamine.

Cuz I know that you look at the gut biome, there's sort of, like you said, you, you really look at the whole spectrum of healing. Oh yeah. I, I, we sure do. Um, we take care of a lot of people with, um, With chronic low level chronic infections and interesting. And one of them being mold, one of them being Lyme.

We take care of a lot of people with Lyme disease. Uh, and so then it's been very interesting with that caveat to think about what to do regarding the whole covid uh, situation. Mm-hmm. That's affecting. Uh, everyone right now, right? And we, what we do is we take a very multimodal approach, and so we do a lot of, of a functional medicine approach where we talk to people and, and, and, and address the body by organ system.

So we look at the nervous system, we look at the gastrointestinal system, we do testing and try to figure out if people have parasites or bacterial infections in, in the intestines, which can dysregulate the immune system. And so we have kind of a thoughtful approach to that. Mm-hmm. I, um, have a novel thing that, uh, I, I, I use with a lot of patients called peptide therapy.

And we teach a lot of doctors, uh, how to do peptide therapy, but there's one, uh, one peptide, and I'll tell you about this one. It's because it bears just hearing about, it's called Thymosin Alpha one. And I'm using that for a lot of people with chronic infections. Mm-hmm. And it's kinda useful to hear about it and read about it a little bit because I think it is going to have a very provocative role in the treatment of covid in, in, in this coming year.

And what a peptide is, is, is every gland in our body will secrete a little baby protein that does something. So, for example, your pancreas is sensing what your blood sugar is right now, and if your blood sugar goes too high, then what your pancreas will do is it'll secrete a peptide. The name of that peptide is insulin.

And then that will lower your blood sugar. So there's little baby proteins floating around in your body that, that were, are secreted for some purpose. And so it turns out that this, this, uh, your thymus gland will secrete a peptide called Thymosin Alpha one, and then that helps your killer cells fight infection and, and it helps regulate, uh, your immune system.

And so I'm actually, uh, treating a whole bunch of people remotely, uh, uh, who have covid. And, you know, one of the things we're using is, is th alpha one. And the reason that I knew about it is I've been using it for quite a while. With, uh, with patients who had chronic viral things like Epstein Barr and also, uh, with people with Lyme and parasites and stuff like that.

And I'd, I'd been having really good experiences with that. And, uh, so this is something that just like in insulin, you take it as a little subcutaneous injection. But I believe, and I'm just going on record. Uh, that we're, we need more trials around this. Mm-hmm. But I believe that being on thymus and Alpha one is going to be proven to be prophylactic.

Uh, uh, for preventing covid infection. I believe that that's a, i I think, I think a study if it, if it's completed in the next year, will prove that. Mm-hmm. And then I also believe that, uh, treating patients with Thymosin Alpha one is probably going to be in the top three covid treatments. Hmm. Interesting.

Um, and so then that, that's gonna be super interesting. So we. We do, we do that, um, as, as, as part of our approach to broadly to infectious disease. Hmm. That is fascinating. Yeah. Well, the peptides almost seem like a free lunch in so many ways, right? Because they're, like you said, they're these little fractions of proteins that are just flipping switches somewhere in the body, right?

I mean, to, it's my very, very rudimentary understanding, and, and so many of these are, They're modeling things that your body is creating anyway. Right? You're, you're manufacturing a key that fits a lock that's already in your body, right? Yeah, that's right. Something like that. That's a good one. I like that you said that.

I have this friend of mine who I've been treating with it, who, uh, had covid and he goes, I feel like I'm cheating. Cause I'm having, it's going so easy with this. Yeah. So is, is it your opinion though, that we should be trying to take preventative measures to avoid it or do you think, you know, getting it is the best thing for all of us to sort of develop this herd immunity, but having these therapeutic treatments that are, you know, stabilizing and assistive to, to getting you through it with ease.

Like what are your thoughts on which path is the best path to take? Um, so this is. The, the answer to questions like that are always, it depends. Mm-hmm. And it depends on what's going on with you, with your physiology, with all of the other medical things that are going on, and to try to take a thoughtful approach.

And then what you'd like is you'd like to be able to have. Some evidence that's in peer review, reviewed literature that you can look at that can help guide good decision making. Mm-hmm. And, and then within that, uh, taking into context how old you are, how immunocompromised you are, what risk factors do you have?

And so obviously there's, there's a lot. To unpack their, right. Right. And so then within that, I think that it, I think it's too early to say, uh, should people take it prophylactically? Mm-hmm. And also there's not that many people that really even know about it yet. Right. But what I can say is, is that, um, uh, I think.

That evidence is going to prove that it's helpful, and so mm-hmm. That I'm, that's a, that's a, uh, educated guess, but it's not a, a, a statement that people should go out and do that. Right. My, my experience in treating people is that it's very, Helpful. And so we are, we have people who we're talking to on telemedicine and then we're prescribing it.

And basically what we do is we call it into a compounding pharmacy. And so the cost is just the cost from the pharmacy, which is not too much. It's maybe $150 a month or something like that. And so, I'm, I'm in the, the, some of the things that I'm really encouraged about it are a low cost, um, to the patient and, uh, possible reward.

It's, it's going to be in the category of investigational, but. An article, uh, just came out a few weeks ago, uh, that, uh, uh, uh, looks like it shows some improvement. And so it's, it's, I think it's going to be a super interesting area to watch. Mm-hmm. And then the entire field of peptide sciences is going to be a.

Uh, is is going to be probably one of the most interesting and exciting areas in medicine in the, in the next five or 10 years to come. Yeah. Yeah. It's certainly the wave of the future, isn't it? It sure seems that way, you know, so, I quickly be, before we wrap up, I just want, since we're on this covid topic, can you dive into, I think it's ozone therapy and, and how that relates to covid as well.

Oh yeah. So ozone therapy is, Super interesting. It's a, it's a, it's a, uh, the term is oxidative therapy, so it's a mm-hmm. It's a, it's a therapy that comes from Europe, uh, and Russia, and unfortunately it's not even regulated by the fda. And, um, but there are a lot of doctors in North America who practice ozone therapy and, uh, there are machines called ozone generators that pass, uh, uh, uh, a hundred percent oxygen gas over an electrical discharge.

And the electricity combines with the oxygen and it creates some radical oxygen species. Uh, and one of them is oh three. And then O three degenerates back into O two. And, but it creates an electron that it can donate and that electron can cause oxidation. And if, and so there are some techniques where you can mix blood with this oxygen, ozone gas mixture.

And when you do that, blood can get oxidized a little bit. And so if there's any bacteria or any viruses in the blood, They can get oxidized and, and, and the, the theory is that they get rendered ineffective. And so the, the, the ozone can oxidize the spike on the, the virus or interesting or quote unquote, the landing gear that it uses to attach the cell.

And so there, the, there's the doctors that take care of Lyme disease and chronic viral infections have been using ozone therapy for years and years and years. And I think that ozone should be a very important component in treating Covid, unfortunately. Uh, it's been a little challenging because, uh, from a regulatory side, people don't want people out there advertising saying that they can, um, right.

Uh, they can, uh, treat covid and so, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, so. Right now, uh, we have an application in to do an I R B to try to, uh, start to enroll people in a scientific trial. Mm-hmm. And it's just been slow going, getting approval for, for that. And so because of that, I'm not, uh, I'm not actively treating, uh, COVID people, but I, I would be willing to, if I could get approval, uh, for, for that study.

I, I think that ozone therapy is, I think if I think that. Given everything under the sun. The two best things for covid would be ozone, ozone therapy, intravenous ozone therapy, and thymosin alpha one. Mm. Interesting. But, but it's, it's very, it's very off-label and I, I think probably somewhat controversial and so mm-hmm.

And there's not a lot of great places where you can go get it, unfortunately. Right. Yeah. It's such a tricky time for, mm-hmm. You know, off-label and controversial things and because it's like, I mean, we're just getting shut down, right? I mean, it's like things are being pulled off of social media and YouTube and news reports are getting shut.

Anything that doesn't sort of fit the standard narrative is having a hard time squeaking through. Yet this, if ever. There's a time that we just need this out of the box thinking of like, what are all the tools that we know that affect things that can work, you know? Right. So it's, I'm, I'm glad that you're sharing your, your perspective on it and that we have a free platform essentially to, to do that.

Right. Cause I do think it's very important for people to, you know, to feel like there is other stuff going on because it can start to feel hopeless when. You know, the only information you're getting is about, oh, this drug, but that won't work. Or this drug, but there's so many side effects. Or wait for a vaccine, you know?

Or vaccinations. Yeah. Yeah. People can get a little disheartened, so I'm really glad you know that you're, that you're sharing that. Yeah. And then what's, what drives me totally crazy is that normally if there's a problem, then. What happens is, is you go see your doctor and they process that and manage that, and so for every.

A hundred hours in you, you would have to go through a hundred hours in clinic in general, on average, before you'd ever end up in the hospital because they would do 50 different things in, in a clinical setting before you would ever go to a hospital. But because of kind of the fear of the infection, we've, we've come to a moment where everybody's paralyzed.

And so then everyone is at home sick. And so I've, I've been talking to people that are like, yeah, I've been at home feeling like I'm gonna die every day for the last week. Right? And, uh, waiting to go in. And interestingly, now what I'm beginning to hear stories of is people who were in that state and got better.

And then got a relapse, and I've had a bunch of those. And so then, and then you heard about, like on the USS Roosevelt, there was a bunch of guys that, right. Uh, were in, in a military quarantine and were cleared and then went back to the boat and got and relapsed. Right. And so what I will say is, is that I think that we need to think deeper about this because I think that.

We will be, we may see people have relapses in the months and years to come from, from Covid. There may be a much longer tail to this, and so A, it's serious. But then B, I think that there's some very provocative things out there and I think, I think the ozone therapy and the peptides are, are. One and two, maybe peptides one, ozone two.

And, and I, the reason I call peptides one is because, uh, it's, it's something that you can do remote and at home. Mm. And I, I think that, uh, you, you know, as a physician, one thing that you can do if you're out on the front lines is you could be taking peptides. And I, I tell you, my friend, uh, who said he feels like he's cheating him and his wife, they would tell me, they, they, they'd say, you know what, um, I can feel when it wears off, and then I need to do another shot.

And so then I'm having for people who are sick, I'm have, I'm guiding them through a, a cycle of injections throughout the day. And, um, and so, but I'm, I'm, I, I think that if, if we could treat healthcare frontline workers, we could start to do test some of these modalities. And if there is, my plea is if there is anyone that has the bandwidth.

To get a trial going. We're, we're close if anyone wants support in doing that. Mm-hmm. Uh, and especially what I feel like we need is a hospital setting because a hos a hospital could, could say yes and start doing this. And I think that you could really change, uh, the trajectory. Or, but then I think really what you need is you need clinics.

And what I would like to do personally is have a separate clinic that was covid only. And I would just go there myself. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then just see people. Cause uh, what I believe is, is that if we start to manage people as outpatients and do a better job, then I think we have a chance to really change the trajectory of this thing.

Cuz it's, it's looking like it's gonna be a little bit outta control in the summer. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that is one of the things, right? We keep like the, the sort of benchmark for opening and closing is like ICU beds, right? So if we were able to kind of decentralize some of that through clinics, you could kind of buffer some of the capacity for folks who are not, like you said earlier, waiting until they're just on their death bed before they, you know, decide to go seek care, right?

Yeah. Yeah. This has been such a, oh, sorry. Go. Please. Oh, but, but you know, I. I'm not trying to really plug myself, but like, these are, these are things you can do. We, if you, if people wanna do a telemedicine appointment, we're, we're helping people go through this. And the more people that we help, the more that we're learning and I've figured out.

A ton just in this last couple, last, last couple weeks even. Mm-hmm. And so just from talking to people around the country that are going through it, um, and we're, we're, I've been on the phone almost every day till 10. Um, just because there's been so much, um, so much, but mm-hmm. What I feel like is, is that something I still feel, and this is kinda like the PTSD thing, I feel like.

As a society, as a culture, we're gonna take health more seriously. And on the other side of this, it's gonna be, we're gonna be better as. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's, it's an opportunity for sure if we can realize it in that way. And, you know, I'm the consummate optimist, so I am, I'm hoping that as a species, we really can turn the corner on this and, and find, you know, some strategies for looking at these types of, um, you know, scenarios long term because, You know, viruses are gonna happen as long as we're around and as long as we're not around.

So it seems like we need to turn the corner on how we're approaching this as a, as a human species, for sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, this has been absolutely fascinating. We thank you so much for your time. Again, we could, there's like 50 other subjects, we'd love to dive in with you. So maybe we can have you back on the show at a later date.

But, um, please tell folks where they can find you or they can find out more about the clinics, uh, or sorry, the clinic and the therapies that we talked about today. Oh, great. Yeah, you can come to bio reset.com and uh, then you can find out about us and, and, uh, I have a podcast at Biore Reset podcast and, uh, it's just totally awesome to talk to you guys and, uh, I wish you totally the best.

And then come visit me on your way back down south. Yeah, I know. I'm like, all right. We, I, I need some therapy. I'm sure. I don't know which one, but I need something rd. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Again, thanks so much. Thank you so much for being here, Dr. Cook. Thank you guys. Have a great day. You can find this Bio Reset podcast and others on iTunes, Spotify, and all other top podcast directories, as well as on bio reset podcast.com.

Make sure to subscribe and thanks for listening.