ValleyGirl

I expect what you've said previously may be right, that while it is logical to "switch off" the stress response for a time, and may be a great relief short term, it may also require some kind of therapy to help keep from old stress-generating thinking patterns etc resurfacing, what do you think?

Yes, I absolutely do still agree with this. You have to deal with your issues before this has any real chance of successfully working long term I think.

I just wanted to update again. I am 3 months post SGB and am feeling just as bad as I did before the SGB. I went through a depression following the SGB effects wearing off because I felt so great, kept almost going back into reality for 2 weeks and then my ptsd got triggered and it all went away. I thought for sure I was going to recover and its hard to go from that higher level of functioning back into the dark place.
Looking back, I said post injection that if I had the money I would keep getting them every few weeks but now that I have had the time to reflect, the procedure is way too intense for me to want to get it again. Would I pay $2000 every few weeks to feel as good as the SGB made me feel if it was in pill form or something, yes I sure would. But its just not worth the intensity of the procedure and the cost to keep going back. Its a real shame. I was so hopeful that this would be answer we all have been waiting for.

I admire your honesty....Alot of people would have sugar coated something like this to avoid upsetting others or because of imbarrassment...Whats needed on a forum like this are honest down to earth personal experiences with honest down to earth assessments of treatments and meds etc....Not the usual scare mongering bullshit that the internet provides...

Thanks miss!

No problem. I really want to be able to find something that really helps people. Dp proves to continue to be a very stubborn condition to treat.

Sorry to hear it wasnt permanent. Good news that you found relief though? There is hope!

You are right I feel. Sadly this illness is so complicated that it probably will take a mixture of something physical like this or medication alongside decent therapy.. I am making progress in therapy recently and it does help the DP and mood it seems. Also listening to your intuition more rather than following thoughts/beliefs about what you should be or what should be happening. Recovery isn't always a linear path.. have faith things will improve once again

I completely agree with you and that's what I tried to caution people about earlier on this thread, not to expect this injection to be an instant miracle cure. The OP is literally the only person with dp That I have ever seen recover instantly. Everyone else seems to need multiple injections and/or therapy because a lot of us have dp from long term mental health issues or trauma.
But yeah, I do agree that atleast I know this is something that can help me feel better. It just wish it wasn't so expensive. $2000 every other month is an expensive little feel good habit.

I wanted to come back and give an update again. I had the SGB about a month and a half ago and over the past few weeks, the positive effects have slowly started to go away. My vision still continues to switch to things looking more real but it is much less frequent now. I have noticed that my sense of self has really been reintegrating with who I "used to be" before dp, so that has been good. But my overall mental health has been steadily declining. Before the SGB I was having a lot of anxiety attacks and feeling like I am dying all of the time. My mind felt like thus dark difficult place to exist in and like it just wasn't sustainable to continue to live in that head space long term. After the SGB I was transported into a different mindset that was calm and higher functioning. That has slowly declined until I am almost completely back to what I was before.
This really disappoints and saddens me because the SGB is the only thing that has ever worked to make me feel better and bring me closer to reality in the 8 years I've had dp. I've tried every medicationa and therapy you can think of and nothing helped the way this did. That being said, I have read that people with ptsd, which I do have, sometimes need multiple sets of injections to see lasting results. If I had the money I absolutely would have already gone back to get more done. I may just be one of those people who need it done a few times.
I wanted to be honest about my progress because this hasn't been studied in dp so you guys need to know the good and the bad. Is it worth getting it done? Absolutely, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But has it cured my dp? No, it hasn't. For me, I think its going to take lots of therapy to resolve my trauma and multiple sgb's to help me along the way.

Thanks for your Feedback and all the best for your recovery process. For me it makes perfectly sense to resolve the childhood trauma to cure DP. It is hard to face the fact that no immediate cure is possible to get a relieve from the symptoms but DP has a cause. With me it is very similar to your story....

Thank you James ❤. You are right, DP does have a cause and if we are able to figure it out (some people aren't able to), it's a gift that we have the opportunity to be able to get therapy and sort it out because in the end it makes us healthier people. I have learned so much about self care and healthy relationships through my journey of having dp and going through various types of therapy. It's made me a stronger and more emotionally healthy person. I hope that you are able to find healing and full recovery as well.

Very sorry to hear about your story. I think it is unrealistic to recover one shot. As the guy pointed out in the video, he needed a couple of SGB over a longer period of time to get better.
Would it be possible to give an example of a symptom which has decreased through the injection?

The symptom that has decreased the most for me is the 2-d flat vision that causes everything to look fake. Within 10 minutes of the 2nd injection everything started looking sharper and more real. My vision now switches from flat to everything looking real and I experience everything almost feeling real. I haven't been able to fully reconnect yet though.

Thx for sharing.
Are you already out of depersonalization?
Or do you feel you have a long time to go?

No I'm not and I think that this is where people with dp make a huge mistake, expecting instant recovery with no effort of their part. If your dp was caused by something minor, sure that could be possible (and yes I knknow the op instantly recovered after 1 shot but so far he is the only person to have done that so he should be considered the exception, not the rule). But if your dp was caused by trauma or abuse, you are still going to have deeply psychological wounds that need to be addressed and healed in order for you to fully recover. The SGB helps put you into a state chemically where it makes it possible to recover because in trauma, we grow those extra sympathetic nerve endings and our cellular activity changes so that the cells are stuck activated, constantly sending out stress hormones and keepimg the fight or flight responce activated all of the time. The SGB changes all of that back to the pretrauma state chemically but it doesn't magically erase your subconscious memories of the trauma or the psychological wounds left behind. You still have to get therapy and work through whatever you went through in life in order to full heal. Does that make sense?
I got dp from 10 years of abuse. But I also actually started having Dr episodes as young as age 8. I know that I had am ulcer from worrying by the time I was 7 amd started having panic attacks at age 9. I had a bipolar dad who was not medicated and would rapidly shift between extremely happy and rage. He was so unstable that it felt like we constantly had to walk on eggshells to avoid setting him off. You never quite knew where he was going to be. And then both of my parents were physically abusive to an extent. I had bad relationships as a teen, was bullied in school, ended up pregnant at 16 which was extremely traumatic for me, got married to someone I only knew 3 months and ended up in an abusive marriage for 10 years. Right before I got dp I lost my Grandma who was the only safe adult in my life and then my parents split up and my dad went nuts, my mom abandoned me and I had no contact with my family for 5 years. So as you can see, I've had a lifetime of really shitty things and mental illness and have a lot to work through in order to heal fully. I didn't expect instant recovery from the SGB, I expected it to be an aide in helping me recover. It is already doing more to help me recover than I ever expected but I don't realistically expect to fully recover until I've been able to process my traumas. That's actually a big thing the SGB is helping with. I was completely numb and detached from my trauma before and couldn't remember much of it. Since the sgb more memories are coming back and I actually feel sadness and pain. It is so important to be able to feel that pain in order to process trauma and heal.

So yeah, I am better than I was but full recovery may take some time.

I thought you guys might be interested to see what your neck looks like post injection. I think this was 2 or 3 days post injection. I've labeled it so you can see where the ganglia are that they inject.

Wanted to give another progress update. I am now 2 weeks post SGB and in the past few days I have noticed that I am starting to have control over bringing myself more into reality. If I meditate on the things around me being real, they become more real looking and the veil of dp starts to lift. My vision is trying to go back to 3d and last night I came almost fully into reality. The longer the treatment has to work, the better the results are getting.

This is a really interesting read. A lady just posted an article in the dp community the other day that talks about all of the regions of the brain that contribute to dp symptoms and says that it is a right brain disorder. According to this, so is ptsd and that would explain why the SGB should work for dp.

https://www.hindawi....rt/2010/963948/
 

This is the best most definitve post Ive read on here for a long time if ever....Fair play Valley Girl.....We are all delighted for you....And thanks so much for the updates...Your experience and info is invaluable to the rest of us (Especially those with either CPTSD or PTSD) It may not work for us with the illegal drug induced DP but I can see amazing potetntial for those whos DP came about as a result of abuse etc.....In fact I can see where this would be very very useful for girls who have been either physically emotionally or sexually abused...

Well done miss!!!!!!!!!

Thank you. Well we hope that the SGB can help anyone with dp, not matter the cause, because dp feeds off of the same sources as ptsd which basically comes down to the sympathetic nervous system being constantly activated. Once that is reset and all of those extra sympathetic nerve fibers die off, the body goes back into a normal sympathetic state and the signals that feed dp should be gone, resulting in recovery. It should work. The problem is that people are either only getting c6 injections, readers are expecting an instant cure like the op had, and not enough people are updating progress so members on here think it doesn't work and is a waste of time and money. It will take a few months. I also feel that therapy in combination with the SGB is the best route to go as people who dissociate do so due to psychological wounds from the past and those will still be present unless properly dealt with.

Yeah I think its kind of messed up that people don't report back on something that has the potential to be so revolutionary for DP/DR sufferers.

Even if the results were negative, and its not as exciting to post about or pleasant, at least do others the courtesy before they shell out thousands to possibly have the same experience.

Are you just completely ignoring the fact that I keep coming back here every few days and updating my progress?

Just to make things really clear, I have seen an extremely low success rate with people who only had the injection at c6. It works for pain relief but just doesn't seem to work for helping with ptsd symptoms or dp symptoms. If you are going to get it done, you need to get c6 and c3 done within 2 hours of each other. This is the protocol Dr.Lipov has established and from my own personal experience, this is what works. I had the first SGB at c6 and felt nothing. I had the 2nd at c3 and felt the effects within 2 minutes. I am about 9 days post SGB and I feel amazing. I am calm, happy, relaxed. Everything looks more real and my mind is clearer and more awake. I am definitely functioning at a higher level of awareness than I was before. I feel more awake. My Dr always made me feel like I was 75% asleep all the time. I also have noticed that the severity of my mental state/how dp effects me is getting a lot better. Before the SGB I never knew how bad I was going to be mentally from day to day. I usually woke up extremely full of panic and disorientation and the level of my dp symptoms varied wildly from day to day. All of that has gone away since getting the SGB. I feel good every day. I haven't had a bad day mentally yet.

As far as getting the SGB with Dr. Lipov, you have to fill out some paperwork before he will agree to treat you because he only takes people with PTSD. So, if you want to be treated by him, write that you have ptsd. He never asked to see proof from my doctor or counselor or anything. Once he reviews your answers they call you to let you know if he can treat you or not.

If you are going to use your insurance, it won't pay for an SGB for ptsd. They only pay for pain. I would speak with whatever doctor they refer you to to see if they only inject c6 and if they do, either ask them to inject c3 as well or don't waste your money because c6 alone just doesn't work.

Hope this clears things up.

I wanted to give you guys a little update on how I am feeling 5 days after the SGB at c6 and c3.
For the past few days my vision, which has been flat 2d and fake looking for 8 years has been changing to everything looking real. It comes and goes but it is so cool. I am also having periods where the world feels more real to me. Emotionally I have found that I am actually experiencing strong emotions instead of feeling numb. For instance I have never really been able to feel anything thinking about my grandma who I lost years ago and today I drove past where she used to work and thought about how much I miss her and started crying. Last night my husband said something that normally would have triggered my ptsd and sent me into a totally shut down mindset but I just instantly cried instead. That is a very big deal. These shots really are working.