Change Your Brain Every Day - The Power of Healing with Oxygen – Part 2 of an Interview with Shannon Kenitz

Episode Date: May 31, 2017

Doctors told Shannon Kenitz to try to make her child Grace comfortable in what would have been her final days, but Shannon wasn’t going to let a serious disease end her daughter’s life. Through Hyperbaric Oxygen treatments, not only did Grace survive, but she regained her sight, learned to walk, and got control over motor functions. Grace went from being written off as another tragic disease to attending prom and walking in her graduation.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. Tana and I are here with Shannon Kennance. Our hearts are weeping, but open. Amazing story. hearts are weeping but open amazing and we are going to talk about hyperbaric oxygen therapy

which is actually something i learned about from dr usler and dr usler is a nuclear medicine doctor in la and both he and i have been doing brain spec imaging for close to 30 years. And he's like, look at these scans before and after because SPECT measures blood flow and activity in the brain. And you'd see damaged scans. I mean, terribly damaged scans with low overall blood flow. And then they were better. And sometimes they'd be better after the first session of hyperbaric oxygen. And I'm like, healing with oxygen. Now, there are no side effects.

What a thought, right? And we always believe here at Amon Clinics, first do no harm. First do no harm. And so I started sending people and paul korea is one of the uh anaheim docs the hockey uh he had headaches every day for 12 years and had a concussions and after just a couple of hyperbaric sessions, the headaches went away. And then he started sleeping better. And I'm like, okay, I'm impressed. And then I did a study with Paul Harch on soldiers who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan

who had blast injuries. And we saw, even after the first session, increased blood flow to their brain, improvements in mood. the first session increased blood flow to their brain improvements and mood and so i've been an advocate for a long time but it literally saved your daughter's life yeah it did i mean we i mean she wouldn't be here today without the hyperbaric therapy and she still she loves her chamber every day after school she goes right in oh that's amazing yeah so i mean she she definitely knows it makes her feel better you know i live in Wisconsin. So during like the winter time, you know, I make sure that she goes in every day so that she doesn't catch colds and flus and things like that. And so,

yeah, it is definitely the thing that, you know, that saved her life so that I can then get her into other types of therapies and, you know, do nutrition with her and so forth and, and get her, you know, better on all the other areas. But hyperbarics is what saved her life. So I remember when I first, when I first met you, and you were telling me that you used hyperbaric oxygen for patients for brain issues. I was like, what? I had not heard of that, even though I was a neurosurgical ICU nurse, we used it for trauma, for, you know, for trauma to the skin, for skin diseases, for, you know, traumas to help them heal.

And I thought, well, that makes so much sense. That's like logical, but we had never used it for that reason. Right. And it's approved by Medicare for 14 wound healing indications. And if you have a traumatic brain injury, hello, that's a wound. Or you have a stroke. Sort of seemed logical. Absolutely. But yet the government and most insurance companies actually don't cover it for wounds to the brain, which is how crazy is that.

I mean, we'll give you six, seven, eight, ten medications. Which have side effects. And we won't start with the simple things first so you are the executive director of the international hyperbarics association because you're so passionate about this so is there any science you know people are like they're like oh there's no science behind that yeah they're actually there's a lot of science behind it and there's a lot more studies that have been happening, especially like in the areas of pediatrics. There's been autism studies done. There's been cerebral palsy studies done.

And there definitely is the science behind it. I think that the thing that I run into when I have like gone and worked with the FDA or I've gone and tried to get different indications covered and done that through the IHA is that because it's so simple. Like I think it's because simple, like, I think it's because, you know, we all need oxygen. I mean, you know, we can go without food for so long, we can go without, you know, drinking water for so long, a few minutes without air. So it's really one of those things that and because it seems to help so many things, that then automatically, the medical establishment jumps to conclusion that, you conclusion that the biggest thing they say is snake oil. Or placebo.

Or placebo effect. Except placebo doesn't boost blood flow to the brain. And so I think we're getting somewhere. I definitely think with the studies that are out there now, other countries are picking up. There's a study that was just done in Thailand. They just took 10 children that had autism, and they did 10 sessions at 1.3. And after those 10 sessions, they saw- So for people who don't know, 1.3 is atmospheres or the level of pressure. So one is sea level. And the lower you go under the water, the more pressure.

And so 1.3 is what, about 10 feet under the water, that kind of pressure. If you go to 1.5, it's like 16 feet under the water. And so breathing oxygen under pressure has been shown to be healing. Now, many people think, well, you have to have a hard chamber. And when you went to Florida and Dr. Neubauer's clinic, he had a hard chamber. Was he using 1.5 or even higher? Well, Grace, even in the hard chamber because of her seizures, we were at 1.1, but 100% oxygen. And we finally got up to 1.3 with her. And I've done a little bit

higher pressure later on in her life and it didn't do well for her so she's really a 1.3 kid um but what what the studies are really starting to show now is that you know before when they thought it was you know the 100 oxygen that was making the difference it's really just that little bit of pressure that we're needing the pressure it So it's not necessarily 100% oxygen. So the study that was out of Apollo Hospital and McGill University, they took 1.3, 1.5, 1.75. They did 1.3 room air, 23% increase. And they did the 100% with 1.5 and 1.75. And there showed no significant differences in know the 100 with 1.5 and 1.75 and there showed no significant

differences in all the improvements between them so and then the original mcgill and was their conclusion that it worked no better than placebo right and see because they use the 1.3 as a placebo so they drew so much controversy so what they ended up having to do was they went back and and then they changed the study because what happened is they said, well, wait a minute, you know, how can you have a placebo if, you know, it's a placebo effect, da, da, da. But really it was hyperbarics what they were getting, you know, by going under pressure. So then they changed that to an actual therapy group and then just had the other placebo group just do the traditional PT, OT, speech, different things

like that. And so that changed the whole outcome of that study. And that study is really what showed us that it was more about the pressure than it was about the 100% oxygen, which makes a big difference to patients because now it becomes more affordable. And it makes a big deal to me when I'm trying to change the way the laws are. Because when you go into any insurance company or governmental agency and they look at hyperbarics, they're going to look at those 14 indications and they're going to look to see what they've been paying out. And they pay thousands of dollars for one treatment. Well, when you look at Grace, and I've had over 5,000 treatments, of course, they're not going to pay for Grace's session. So what we're trying to show them is that

it doesn't have to be that expensive. But when you are in a system where they've been used to pain and they they don't want to ever admit they you know they don't want so you're trying to create a revolution and what's the first thing people do to revolutionaries they kill them i mean i've been trying to create a revolution in mental health and people have been trying to kill me you know i'm like hard i'm hard to kill and you know somebody asked me about that you know why is your work controversial it's because i'm trying to create a revolution how we diagnose people in psychiatry is wrong i mean without using imaging it's just stupid right to not get more information right and so if you say the emperor

you have no clothes the emperor doesn't get all lovey-dovey with you he tries to kill you and and that's what you're trying to do you're you are disruptive but no one's ever called you that probably but you're disruptive to a financially right lucrative business and you're like well wait a minute you know people can get home chambers it's so much less expensive i mean you can have a home chamber that you can use for the rest of your life for the same cost as about 10 sessions. And, you know, for these expensive chambers. So I want to, I just want, for people who didn't hear our first session,

I want to make sure that everyone gets this straight. Your story is really dramatic. Like they were going to take your daughter off life support. You were, they basically tried to stage a coup to, you know, override you and force you to let her go um she was that sick um blind and not gonna live and what i'm hearing you say is that hyperbaric oxygen literally changed her life it changed her her it changed her medically i mean like grace's case you know her doctors at Mayo Clinic have

started to like look at and writing her up. The lady that did her muscle biopsies out of Buffalo Children's Hospital, I was at a conference that I went to specifically to meet her. And she's like, what are you doing? Because we've never seen tissue change. Now remember, you know, Grace is one of those kids because she has a rare disease, they're always testing her, and all her testing is changing. Even when we went after 40 sessions, you know, the kind of mindset I am. So 40, that's my question. When did you see the big change? We saw changes pretty quick with Grace because she was so severe, but right around 40, 45 is when we really started to notice the eye stuff, And we were told she'd never see. I took her back to Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital, the same radiologist, and said,

can we do a repeat scan? Because I'm telling you, I need to know if I'm imagining it. Did she have the deficits in her occipital lobes? Do you remember on her SPECT scan? Yes. Because I remember Dr. Neubauer showed me a child who was three, had holes, which is just decreased blood flow in her temporal lobes, that then after the sessions didn't have the holes. Well, when we went back to Joe DiMaggio after the 45 sessions is when we probably had the scan done. In his report, he wrote dramatic improvement. And then he physically called me and told me, I stand corrected.

You need to continue to do what you're doing for your daughter. And so and then we've we ended up having scans later on with Dr. Usler. And, you know, so I mean, like with Grace, we have all that stuff to show. I mean, we can we can show her muscle biopsy. You know, she was only 14 percent functioning in her mitochondrial cytochrome C, so it would be like in chamber three and four of the mitochondrial. And when we had her last muscle biopsy,

I stopped doing muscle biopsies when she was, I think, nine years old. It was 85% functioning. Wow. And she went from blind to glasses to not wearing any glasses. And she can see a little tiny speck of paper paper and she'll just go right over to it. I mean, and hyperbarics is the only thing that I had done. And so I know that that's what changed my life. So healing with oxygen.

That's why we do it at Amen Clinics. Because we see so many scans that have overall low blood flow, either from Lyme or toxins or many of our autistic kids. And it's just one of the important tools in the toolbox. So it's indicated for what kind of indication? So let's talk about it. It would be indicated, you mean, for the ones that insurance would pay or just for what we're doing? So let's talk about it.

The stuff that insurance would pay for would be more things like the wounds diabetics right that's what i saw like certain spider bites like anybody's ever been necrotizing like the skin diseases the rotting flesh yeah carbon monoxide like you know dog bites you know so carbon monoxide which causes overall low blood flow to the brain but the problem with that is that unfortunately you get it like we always treated in the place of grace clinics firefighters can treat for free and so we would have them come in if they ever ended up having any issues and stuff but what happens with you know anybody that gets carbon monoxide poisoning you get them to a hospital they'll give them like one or two sessions

and then they stop but what they don't realize is that they've already had some brain damage and you need to continue with doing that because you're not going to clear out and they're going to have that fogginess. They're going to have, you know, some things that happen still later on, you know, especially if they had long-term exposure. So, you know, sometimes they'll say, well, we gave it to them right away. It really didn't make a difference. And I say, well, you should have done it longer, you know? And so those are the things that they would cover, you cover, Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance. The things that we're really focusing on are neurological conditions. We're focusing on like pediatric, this would be like pediatric stroke, near drownings,

autism, cerebral palsy, mitochondrial disorders, any type of GI issues, Lyme's disease, and then adults, the same thing, neurological, you know, deal out with soldiers, you know, coming back, blast injuries, concussions is huge right now in hyperbarics, lots of doctors, you know, doing research on concussions, which is like a huge thing. And especially because of, you know, our kids starting sports so young, and, you know, it's such a competitive field, parents wanting their kids to, you know, compete in college and then go pro and so forth.

So Ray Lewis, the famous Baltimore Raven linebacker, put a hyperbaric chamber in his home and Joe Namath, who was headed toward dementia, went and had a spec scan, and then had many, I don't know how many, hyperbaric sessions, and then had another spec scan, and he said it's just the best thing. And it was crazy. The New York Post goes, Joe Namath endorses controversial therapy.

I'm like, he gets better. Why isn't that the news? It's just so crazy what people focus on. But the reason I do it, I mean, I have all sorts of medications I can give people, and it makes them come back. If I give them medicine, they have to come back and get another script. But we always go, well, it's the natural way to heal. And oxygen under pressure is powerful.

It is. And, you know, when you're when you're faced with any type of health crisis, I think that our country really need. Well, I think our country needs to focus on prevention, you know, but I also think that you need to really look at the quality of life. And I think that, you know, obviously with Grace, hers was very dramatic. I mean, like it was, you know, I have, I have my daughter, you know, and she's graduating high school next month and, you know, and she went to prom and she has typical friends

and, you know, and she loves life. I mean, she's just larger than life. And I adore both my daughters. But the quality of life for her changed. And who is to say that you take a stroke patient and now they're able to finally zip up their jacket or they're able to feed themselves? That's huge for that one person. Maybe they are still using a cane, but you just gave them back dignity and you did it because you gave them hyperbarics which is a safe therapy and i think we need to start focusing more on that you don't have to be a perfect

individual in order to to be okay that you know there are people that of all walks of life that have all types of disabilities and that we need to start realizing that I actually don't like that word. I hate the word disabled. Yeah, me too. You know what I mean? It's just focus on what you can do, not on what you can't. Right, you know,

and I think that if we focus more on that, Because they are abled, just differently. Just differently, exactly right, that we would see more people accepting hyperbarics because it's not necessarily, I don't like it when people say cure. You know i i think that it supports it supports everything that we've done to your brain yeah and and i have a happy kid

and i and i've met thousands and it's been shown in some animal studies to increase stem cell production and the hippocampus so i have a new book i'm working on that's coming out in november called memory rescue so i've spent a lot of time with the hippocampus, these seahorse-shaped structures. I've been hearing a lot about seahorses. So I'm starting to collect seahorses and what grows them and what shrinks them. But the hippocampus is one of the few areas of the brain that every day produces about 700 new stem cells.

So 700 new sort of baby seahorses. And there are things you can do to suppress that number, you know, smoking pot, drinking alcohol, head-butting soccer balls, not sleeping. And there are things you can do to grow it. And so giving it the oxygen it needs along with the right nutrients and diet and so on can just be huge. So we do it here at Amine Clinics, but how can people learn more? How can they learn more about your new clinic in Chicago or Wisconsin? How can they learn more about you and your work?

Well, you can go to ShannonandGrace.com. It's a great resource. ShannonandGrace.com. It's a great resource. ShannonandGrace.com. And you can go there, and there's a lot of videos on hyperbarics. Even my older daughter, Lily, she talks to parents about how to really make sure that you don't forget about your typical kids as well. Of course. And so forth. And then it just has a lot of resources. If you're a parent looking for a

physician that, you know, is looking at, you know, your child as not the diagnosis that they were given, you can go to the Medical Academy of Pediatrics and Special Needs, which is medmaps.org. And you can go to your state and find a physician that's in your area that would be like-minded to you about, you know, doing things, which I hate the word alternative therapy, but doing great things. It's an alternative to the traditional sort of things. Or you can go to the IHA website as well, which is IHAUSA.org, and all those would link you back to the ShannonandGrace.com website. So if people go to ShannonandGrace.com, they can also find all the other resources.

Well, you're going to Shannon and grace.com. They can also find all the other resources. Well, you're going to stay with us when we come back, we are going to talk about the power of imaging and how do you know, unless you look, stay with us. Thank you for listening to the brain warriors way podcast. We have a special gift for you. It's an opportunity to win an evaluation at

the Amen Clinics. All you have to do is subscribe to this podcast, leave a review, and rate us on iTunes. To learn more about Amen Clinics and the work we do, go to amenclinics.com. You can also learn about our nutraceutical products at brainmdhealth.com. Thanks for listening.