Menu Close

As First responders, we are all exposed to an incredible amount of stressors.  Without an ability to prevent, manage, and treat those stresses, we can easily by rendered unable to provide care for patients and partners.  And beyond our careers and passion projects, we (and our families!) all deserve a high quality of life.  Accordingly, K9 MEDIC is incredibly excited to announce our partnership with Stella, a leader in advocating, innovating, and performing the SGB Stellate Ganglion Block therapy.  Not only is this a truly life-changing treatment, but Stella has been gracious enough to provide K9 MEDIC with a partner discount. 
See the form at the bottom of the page.

What is Stellate Ganglion Block Therapy?

SGB is a safe, quick, and simply procedure which mitigates damage to the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight or freeze) which has occurred from exposed to psychological trauma, whether from a single acute event or a prolonged period of chronic stressors.

You can learn more about the overall approach here in this 60 minutes clip:

Why does K9 MEDIC recommend the Stella organization specifically?

While there are multiple providers who provide SGB therapy, K9 MEDIC is particularly pleased to partner with Stella for the following reasons:

  • Commitment to quality:  Of course you want the best treatment. And Yes, multiple K9 MEDIC team members have had this procedure personally.  And now we want everyone to have access to the same life-changing experience we had.
  • National availability:  The K9 MEDIC community spans the country (sorry to our international community – perhaps soon?).
  • No formal diagnosis needed:  If you have a formal diagnosis for PTSD, Depression, or Anxiety, then yes this process may be beneficial for you.  However, even if you have no formal diagnosis, your relationship with Stella neither requires, nor results in, a formal diagnosis.  We appreciate that Stella recogizes the value of SGB for a very wide audience.  Similarly, you don’t need to be a Veteran, First Responder, or their immediate family member.  While those demographics are certainly exposed to significant stress and trauma, Stella recognizes that almost all of us have experienced physiological nervous symptom damage due to the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and sometimes acute once in lifetime stresses.  And, they are here to support ALL of us.
  • First line treatment:  Some other organizations require not only a diagnosis, but they also require sometimes up to six months of other failed documented therapies.  Happily Stella would rather the other therapies that you do have the greatest likelihood of working!  It is essential to understand that in most cases, you will still have healing work to do, whether that is formal therapy or self-lead discovering and healing. But, SGB helps to make those processes significantly more effective, and we believe in setting you up for success!

Will SGB affect my reaction times? ability to respond in tactical environments?

  • We get it!  For many of you, your reaction time and ability to respond to threats is what keeps you, your partner, and your community alive! Happily, SGB does not ‘dull’ your reaction time. Here is the thing… when you are in a constant state of hyper vigilance, the different between threat/no-threat is always very small.  But, when your nervous system is reset to a natural balance, the difference between threat/no-threat is actually much clearer and more obvious then when your nervous system is damaged. Studies in the military show that reaction times do not decrease.  And, the improved ability stay focused and rational in high stress events actually improves your strategic abilities.  So you get our life back AND at the same time you improve your tactical response. Here is great video that describes first hand (the discussion about tactical abilities starts around 3:30 if you want to jump to that part!

What’s in it for K9 MEDIC?

We could understand that anything we promote with this much enthusiasm must be beneficial to K9 MEDIC.

Yep… here is what we get:

  • Warm fuzzies:  We can’t always be working with Dogs, so sometimes we look for other ways to feel good
  • Goosebumps:  almost every time we share this with someone (OK that’s Jo, results may vary lol).
  • #MakingADifference:  Seriously that’s it, and that’s MORE than enough.  One more spouse that doesn’t get “that call”, one more person that doesn’t hate life, one more person that has a burden lifted from their shoulders and a full easy breath returned to their lungs, one more person can be full present with their family, their friends, their coworkers, and one more person that can actually smile at this amazing thing we call life.

And…

  • We can pass along a discount to you and your family.  It’s not a sales commission, we don’t get kick-back or any other benefits, other than the above.
 

Ready to learn more?

Information Request

All of the fields below except email are optional. Our default autoresponder will send you more details regardless of what you enter below. And then if you have any further questions, we will follow up on those separately.
Name