SPG Blocks or Sphenopalatine Ganglion Blocks have a 100 year history of treating a wide range of disorders, especially migraines and cluster headaches, as an adjunct in TMD/TMJ disorders and Myofascial Pain.
The SPG Block acts to reset the Autonomic Nervous System similar to resetting your computer by hitting Control/ Alt/ Delete.
The following video is a patient who just learned how to Self-Administer SPG Blocks for her Chronic Migraines and felt her Anxiety disappear.
She has lived with this Anxiety her entire life and has never experienced it being gone. An amazing moment.
This relief of anxietty is importantt not just for quality of life but also for improved physiologic health.
A 2012 article in J Neurol Sci. 2012 “Anxiety, depression and autonomic nervous system dysfunction in hypertension.”
This study examined the relationship between autonomic nervous system dysfunction, anxiety and depression in untreated hypertension.
The psychological evaluation showed higher rates of hypertension in patients with high anxiety scores. The conclusions were that
“Anxiety could play a more important role than depression in the development of hypertension.”
There have been several studies in the last two years showing that about 1/3 of essential hypertension could be eliminated by Sphenopalatine Ganglion Blocks (SPG Blocks).
This would indicate that both the Anxiety and the hypertension are actually a result of the autonomic nervous system. SPG Blocks may play in extremely important role in the diagnosis and treatment of both anxiety and hypertension.
The Sphenopalatine Ganglion is the largest parasympathetic ganglion of the cranium and the fibers of the upper cervical sympathetic chain travel thru the ganglion and then along the fibers of the trigeminal and facial nerves.
Self-Administration of SPG Blocks can turn of headaches, miigraines and cluster headaches as well as other trigeminal autonomic cephalgias (TAC). These blocks can also be used to treat anxiety, depression and PTSD.
Blocks of thee SPG were originally described by Greenfielf Sluder in 1909. Sluder later published a medical textbook “Nasal Neurology” In 1930 Hiram Byrd MD published a paper “Sphenopalatine Phenomena” in Annals of Internal Medicine (JAMA) looking at 10,000 SPG Blocks in 2000 patients with almost 100% success in treating a wide variety of medical conditions with virtually no negative side effects.
If the common underlying cause of anxiety, hypertension and/or depression can be easily addressed at home by patients with just lidocaine SPG Blocks it could a major improvement in health for millions. The ability to lower medical expenses could have a positive effect on our national health care.