March 24, 2025 • 49 mins
What if healing from traumatic brain injury (TBI) didn’t rely solely on medication?
In this eye-opening episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, Bruce sits down with Dr. Joe Dituri—retired U.S. Navy officer, renowned researcher, and leader in the field of hyperbaric medicine—to explore the groundbreaking science behind Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) and its potential to revolutionize TBI treatment, especially for veterans and athletes.
Dr. Dituri shares his personal journey of surviving and recovering from a brain injury, and how HBOT helped him find hope and healing where traditional medicine fell short. Together, they unpack the largest HBOT study ever conducted, revealing promising results that challenge the status quo of pharmaceutical-based approaches. From the role of neuroplasticity to the economic impact of untreated TBIs, this conversation is a powerful call to action for better treatment access, increased research funding, and legislative advocacy.
🎧 Whether you're a veteran, caregiver, policymaker, or mental health advocate, this episode is packed with life-changing insights that can help shift how we view brain trauma—and how we treat it.
👉 Don’t forget to follow, share, like, and subscribe on your favorite platform to help more people discover the truth about brain injuries and recovery.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
Support The Mac Parkman Foundation by donating today!
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=CR24MY2GDUCZL
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
02:57 Dr. Joe Dituri's Journey and Expertise
05:48 Healing Through Hyperbaric Medicine
09:00 Challenges in Mental Health Treatment for Veterans
11:58 The Need for Research and Funding
14:46 The Economics of Treatment Options
17:56 The Future of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
20:52 Understanding the Mechanisms of Healing
24:06 The Role of Pharmaceuticals in Treatment
27:12 Conclusion and Call to Action
28:16 The Largest HBOT Study: Goals and Methodology
30:21 Funding and Support for HBOT Research
32:13 Defining Success in TBI Treatment
34:40 Challenges in Scaling HBOT Treatment
37:00 The Need for Alternative Therapies
39:21 Addressing Mental Health and Trauma
41:11 The Impact of TBI on Incarceration Rates
43:43 Future of HBOT and Legislative Support
45:13 Connecting with Dr. Dituri and Resources
https://www.mpfact.com/headsmart-app/
Follow Dr. Dituri on LinkedIn and on social media today!
LinkedIn: Joseph (DrDeepsea) Dituri, Ph.D.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-dituri-ph-d-5099789/
Instagram: drdeepsea
https://www.instagram.com/drdeepsea/?hl=en
X: @drdeepsea
Produced by Security Halt Media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken
Brains with Bruce Parkman,sponsored by the Mack Parkman
Foundation.
Our podcast is focused on theissue of repetitive brain trauma
in the forms of repetitiveblast exposure and repetitive
head impacts, and what theseimpacts are doing to our
population of athletes andchildren and our veterans and
(00:32):
warriors.
And we go out there and we findthe leading experts and people
that have dealt with thesechallenges and researchers,
doctors and authors and bringthem on the podcast so that you
can be informed.
Why doctors and authors?
And bring them on the podcastso that you can be informed.
Why?
Because this is the largestpreventable cause of mental
illness in our warrior and childpopulations and this is not
taught in medical institutionsand you have to be empowered
(00:55):
with the knowledge to take careof yourself and your children or
, as a veteran, to go seektreatment.
Today we've got an amazing guestman.
We love this guy.
We've been so fortunate to workwith him before Dr Joe Dettori
doing so much for our veterans.
Actually, commander Joe Dettoriexcuse me is a retired US Navy
officer, deep-sea diver andbiomedical engineer.
He has 20 years of activeservice where he specializes in
(01:18):
hyperbaric system saturationdiving and submarine rescue,
which makes him borderlinepsychotic if you live in a can
for all that time Serving inroles from Special Operations
Officer to Chief Engineer forUndersea Systems.
After his military career, heearned a PhD in Biomedical
Engineering, focusing on lifesupport systems and hyperbaric
medicine.
Dr Dottori is a professor atthe University of South Florida,
(01:41):
a very big partner with theMack Parkman Foundation, a
published author and aconsultant on undersea medicine,
and I do believe he holds aGuinness World Record.
Let's talk about that.
Passionate about exploration,he continues to push the
boundaries of human enduranceand has a lifelong dreaming of
becoming a civilian astronaut.
You're in the fine state ofFlorida over here, so hopefully
we'll get you in front of Elonto make that happen to you
(02:02):
1,000%.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
If you've got an insight to Elon please let me
know.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Oh God, After I get talked about kids and veterans,
you're going to be number two.
I've got to get this guy tomake a great astronaut.
Boss man, Get over there, man,Joe.
Welcome to the show man.
How you been, buddy, Thank you,I am well, we are so good, it's
criminal.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I can't even complain , you know.
So I'm doing great thanks, howare you guys?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Ah, dude, we got it rocking.
So we're going to have thesecond conference this September
.
So that's going to.
We got the town hall.
In a couple weeks you're goingto be on the panel there looking
forward to that.
That's going to be great.
We're going to be runningseminars.
So, nah, we're jamming, justgot back.
We'll talk a little bit aboutCongress.
We now have legislationcovering hyperbaric oxygen in
front of Congress right now andhere in the state.
So we're doing everything wecan as a small foundation, you
(02:51):
know, punching above our weightand, just, you know, like that
little chihuahua right, don'tstop tearing them big talks up,
you know, all weekend.
So I mean a lot of folks, youknow, tell us how you got into
hyperbaric, because I reallywant to dive into this study
that you're doing right now.
And why do you feel like youtalk about the cutting edge and
exploration of treatments?
(03:13):
Why do you feel, and why ishyperbaric oxygen, or any
modality that's not conventional, so critical to our veteran
population, so critical to ourveteran population?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
So the interesting part is I retired from the Navy
and I'm sitting at AdmiralMcRaven's house drinking a beer
and we're just he's like, whatare you going to be when you
grow up, aquanaut?
And I'm like I don't know.
He's like, hey, do me a favor,would you mind sitting on the
preservation of the Forsenfamily?
So I said, yeah, I'd do thatfor you as a favor.
I got a favor from Guido.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Balducci Sure.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I'll do that.
So I go in, I do this, I sit onthat thing for like six, seven
months and I go back to him andI says hey boss, this is they're
not doing it right, all they'redoing is talking.
We got to move the needle.
And he goes, he looks me deadin the eye and goes permission,
granted, aquanaut, fix it.
And I went shoot, now I have togo do it.
So I went back, I got a phd inbiomedical engineering and I
started fixing brains with theonly thing that I knew that
(04:15):
increased cerebral blood flow,which was hyperbaric medicine.
I'm like I've seen it work.
It works for other thing.
It works for problem wounds.
This is a problem wound that'snot healing in the head.
It's an open wound, a closedwound, it's a different wound,
whatever.
So I'm thinking maybe this isgoing to work.
So I'm running down the roadwith scissors, right, and the
good Lord says look, you got tomake a right, you got to do it
(04:37):
differently.
And I says no, no, no, I got it.
And he says I said make a right, I got it.
So he throws a 6,000 pound SUVat my 47 Chevy, t-bones me.
I get a, you know, a eightmillimeter hemorrhagic stroke in
the prefrontal cortex on theleft side.
Now I have a really badtraumatic brain injury and I'm
(04:58):
in the hospital for a week twodays in the ICU, five days in
the regular hospital.
They finally discharged me andI'm like I know how to fix
brains.
I'm going to go in thehyperbaric chamber, and it just
wasn't enough.
That alone wasn't enough.
So I had to figure out a way toheal myself, so that I could
get these studies, these things,these scientific reach in, find
(05:20):
the science behind it and thencombine it with other stuff and
get people healed.
I think the good Lord justwanted me to do that.
So I said yes, sir, I'm onboard.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Man, I'll tell you, when you don't listen to the
Lord, he's going to make youlisten.
I've got so many stories of,and it's just like you, arrogant
, mortal.
How do you dare you?
I said turn right.
I said turn right, and guesswhat?
You're turning right, not rightnow, but you will turn right,
(05:50):
right.
Ah, dude man.
Yeah and so and so you know howdid your healing go?
I mean, you went, obviously.
You're now, you're in theself-medicating, you know mode
it went absolutely horribly.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
For the first month I fell into a very deep
depression and then, when I gotdespondent, when I got to the
point of suicide, when I got tothe point when I was going to
take my own life, I said, okay,I got about a month and a half
before I'm going to take my ownlife, but I'm Catholic, so I
have to do everything.
Because when I'm standing atthe pearly gates, I got to get
there and tell them look, Itried everything.
(06:22):
So I did everything at once.
You know, red light therapy,beamer mat therapy, cognitive
behavioral therapy, structuralenergetic therapy, physical
therapy, neurofeedback therapy,ice baths, saunas and all of a
sudden, man, I came back.
And when I say back, mytraumatic brain injury was the
(06:43):
best thing that ever happened tome, because I can heal.
I healed myself and I have beenhealing others.
I took a professional footballplayer.
I put him side by side in thesame exact therapy I had with a
green beret who lost his entireplatoon in Afghanistan and
freaking.
These two guys after one monthgot dramatically better, so much
(07:06):
so that their wives came to meand says I, first of all, I want
to marry you.
Second of all, what did you dowith my husband and I'm like,
well, he's fixed.
And they're like I can'tbelieve you cured him.
He was, he was done, he wasgone.
So we're trying, we're doingeverything, so, but the lesson
is what do you do?
We have a closed head injury.
(07:26):
You can't pop the top open andlook.
If you're not going to pop thetop open and look, the imaging
sucks like the Knicks.
So we got to do somethingdifferent.
We got to do everything Redlight, beaver mat, everything
same time.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So when you did all that, did you do any
psychedelics at all?
Did you run down that road withthe NFL players or yourself?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
No, I did not do that with any of the NFL players.
On a personal level I haveworked with organizations that
have legally done psychedelicswith me and we legally
administered them in a propersetting and I believe that to be
transformative if it is done inthe proper setting Right.
(08:12):
I do not condone people goingout and doing it without medical
supervision and just going on atrip in the woods and a walk
alone.
It's just not the way to do it.
But if done in a proper medicalsetting I have seen great,
great effect of it.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
That's awesome and because you know, the reason I
asked that is, I won't get intoa little bit is that you know,
when you have a closed wound,right, you talk, you can't pop
the top right.
And with you know, one of theissues that we're struggling
with right now in our veteranpopulation is mental illness.
Well, when it comes down torepetitive blast exposure,
(08:48):
repetitive brain trauma or amassive car crash, right there
you have brain damage and then,obviously, like you struggled
with depression, suicidalideation, right, you know, you
go to a psychologist.
What are they going to do?
Right, they're going to fillyou up a bag full of medications
, they're going to give youtherapy, and none of that's
going to help you with yourproblem, which is a damaged
(09:10):
brain.
So, all these modalities thatyou're talking about biofeed,
you know, photobiomodulation,vagus, nerve simulation, hot
clod plug therapy, you know,stellate ganglion blocks,
everything, including psychedel,psychedelics none of them are
covered by insurance planstricare, va and and that's part
of the challenge but the, youknow, the issue is we're, we're,
(09:33):
how.
You know, the, the effectiveness, um, how come we're still not?
You know, we're still not whenit comes to hbot or any of these
things.
How, how come, how come, youknow, everybody's like, oh, it's
still not properly researched,you're still not there.
Yet when I compare men andwomen soldiers that have been to
a psychologist and mydaughter's a nurse practitioner,
(09:54):
she has a 25% chance of anydrug you know taking effect and
those drugs are going to killthem.
Yet people leave your program,people leave these psychedelic
programs, people leave all theseother programs.
We have an 80 to 90 percent,you know, population survey
saying this has improved me.
This has helped me more thananything.
(10:15):
Why is this not available?
Or where does HBOT researchhave to go for it to become
accepted now, so that theseveterans can get coverage?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah.
So that's a great question andwhat I'm going to do is I'm
going to answer your questionwith a question who does drug
company trials?
Drug companies, right, drugcompanies?
What is the drug company forhyperbaric medicine?
Oh, there is not Right.
So nobody can afford to pay forthe trials.
(10:45):
A drug company can go here's ared pill, here's a blue pill,
you take this, one's a placebo,one's the real pill, and they
can do it to thousands of peopleand get these up checks in the
way that they do research and belike, yeah, we got a positive.
Whatever, we do not have alarge enough N.
Every hyperbaric study that'sever been done was in the.
(11:08):
You know, a hundred was a crazyhigh number.
Most are in the twenties andthirties, which is not stand,
not passing the professionaltest of the drug company model
of research, right.
But what we have to do is stepback and go.
What do these people reallyneed?
We need to get them off thedrug company model and get them
thinking about treatingthemselves differently.
(11:31):
Look, you don't every time yourphysical shoulder that you hurt
in that same traumatic braininjury, car accident, it goes,
(11:52):
oh.
Through the vagus nerve, itgoes, oh, reminder, you have a
traumatic brain injury.
Oh yeah, you have it.
So if you don't heal it, you'regoing to keep reminding
yourself of it.
At the same time, you got to doall these things and hopefully
you can get them to be betterand pass and, you know, get
somebody better.
But remember, your TBI is notmy TBI, is not his TBI.
(12:12):
It's like everyone's differentRight.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And that's why you got to throw the kitchen sink at
it.
But my point the kitchen sinkand my point, joe is that, look
you know, when we still have notimpacted the suicide rate in
veterans, right, when we stillgot hundreds of thousands of
Americans struggling with metalillness that have not ever been
accessed for contact sportsexposure or they left the
military and they've beenexposed to TBI, mtbi, and all
(12:37):
that in yards, why do we have towait on all these stupid trials
?
Wait on all these stupid trials.
And we have all these studiesand every one of them that I've
read has indicated a you knowthat that they have provided a
positive impact on the brains ofveterans.
Right, we've got to get out.
What we're pushing for in ourlegislation right now is, like
you said it before, we've got tomove the needle.
(12:57):
All this talk about biomarkersand and and crap we have studied
, you know, concussions and TBIsto death all right, we know
they're a problem, all right.
So when are we going to dosomething about it?
Because right now we're not,and it's people like you that
are fighting the system to getthe funds necessary to conduct
these studies that could changethe paradigm that nobody's
(13:20):
focused on for all these,because everybody was doing this
.
I am so sick of researchersasking for money to restudy
stuff that's been studied overand, over and over again,
because nobody shares their data.
Everybody's fighting forresearch dollars.
They all drive big cars, right?
I'm just done with that.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Think about it.
Think about it.
I have no incentive because I'mnot getting paid for
capitalizing on other research.
Incentive because I'm notgetting paid for capitalizing on
other research.
All I got to do is say thatyour research wasn't good enough
because you had one person inyour study paid for it.
So that throws the whole studyout.
Or your statisticalsignificance was this close, but
(13:58):
not that close.
It's just like my job is thecapital one.
No guy Now listen.
Science wins over bullshit.
Every time right, and that'swhat we need.
We need a hard science approach.
That's why, at the Universityof South Florida, we are doing
that study with 420 veterans 420veterans.
That's because it's funded bythe state of Florida.
(14:19):
The Florida legislature came upthe dollars and said University
of South Florida, go fix thisproblem, tell me whether or not
it works.
And that's what we intend to doat the University of South
Florida.
So we are working it.
It's just a matter of time.
Like we got three and a halfmore years left on this study,
so we're not going to get theresults out today.
They won't be out tomorrow, butwe have to wait, right?
(14:42):
So, but the science wins over.
Bs is the thing that we'reworking with that's and, by the
way, your health insurancecovering it.
Health insurance has absolutelynothing to do with your health.
I'm sorry, I know I'm shockingyou, but health insurance
doesn't care.
They are a for-profit company.
(15:03):
They have a board of directors.
They will not lose money.
So, in the end, if hyperbaricscost $1 billion across the
spectrum of their cupboard andbroken arms cost $1 billion, one
of a couple of things is goingto happen Either we're going to
start treating hyperbarics andstop treating broken arms, or
(15:24):
we're going to start treatinghyperbarics and everybody's
policy is going to go up by $1billion, maybe $1 billion and $1
, so they actually make money onthe deal.
They make money.
It's a for-profit corporationwith a zero-sum game.
They don't care about yourhealth.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, and that's.
And you, you, yeah, it's,you're right.
You're right to the point, asalways.
I mean there's, there's just,no, no, it's, it's good.
I mean, people need to hearthis man and they already know
it.
They deal with it.
But when it comes to and that'sthe other thing is if, if we
could take a TBI person rightand say, anybody right.
You look at when we talk aboutrepetitive brain trauma on this
show, but but the gaps inrepetitive brain trauma from
(16:03):
education and awareness todiagnosis, treatments, insurance
coverage, bailing codes are thesame for most TBI patients.
When it comes to this, ifyou're a TBI patient, you've got
a physical injury and you'rebeing fed a bunch of drugs,
you're being sent to therapy forthe rest of your life, yet your
injury keeps sitting around andgetting worse.
Yet you know all these thingsthat could help you not only are
(16:25):
not available, but what wouldbe the cost of, say, 40 HBOT
treatments that can get you to awhole nother level of
compassion and together versusthe lifetime of drugs that these
pharmaceutical companies wantyou on?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, even even at the highest point of hyperbaric
treatment, the biggest dollarvalue that I've seen in a little
while, it'd be $10,000 to dothat treatment.
$10,000.
But nothing.
It's pale in comparison, it's adrop in the bucket, because I
have veterans that come to mehooked on 11 medications.
Oh, you didn't sleep well lastnight, let me give you a little
(17:01):
pep me out, yes, sir.
Oh, you got a little pain, letme help you out night.
Let me give you a little pep meout.
Oh, you got a little pain, letme help you out.
Oh, you got that midday low,let me help you out.
Oh, you can't sleep, no problem, let me drug you up.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Oh we got you, so yeah, well, I'll get you the
next morning.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Let me wake you back up.
I'm like so I kick them off,all 11 drugs, and it's me and a
whole bunch of providers, right?
MDs, phds.
We all sit around and we grouparound the patient.
Who the hell does that?
Nobody, right?
I come to the patient.
The patient doesn't come toeach individual doctor.
All of us sit around in a groupand we go okay, how does this
(17:34):
interact with that?
What are we going to do if wedo that?
If we do that, that'll openthis up and this.
So we're doing all these thingstogether and the doctors are
around the patient and they aretaken off of every drug that
they were ever on.
I still got guys that come backto me Green Berets, navy SEALs,
you know these military guysthat come to me, these police
(17:54):
officers that we've cured, thesefootball players and they go
dude, you saved my life and oh,by the way, I'm going to parade
my daughter in to see youbecause you saved her life too.
Because what happens to thefather when the father takes his
life?
The girl does what she's got.
Daddy issues the rest of herlife.
She's miserable because shethinks it's partially her fault.
(18:16):
These people are bringing theirkids in here.
It's the most wonderful thingI've ever had in my whole life
it's, yeah, I mean, and it's andit's so it.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I mean the universe on this whole medical thing is
upside down.
I mean it's crazy what we're,what we're coming across and,
and hbot, I mean, is you knowit's?
It can be so effective and, um,do you think there's going to
be an hbot standard?
Like you know, we look at, youknow we went to, so we went to
another company here in florida.
They're out in the villages.
They got an h HBOT machineright and they're like, ah, the
(18:49):
Tury's not doing it right.
I'm like, why do you say that?
Like well, we do it this way.
I'm like, well, I don't care.
Right, the thing is to me,oxygen is oxygen.
I don't care if you get in atent, if you get in a mask or if
you're in.
Is that going to be?
Part of the problem is agreeingto a precise protocol for this
a number of treatments, apercentage of O2 or water.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
This is the problem.
So what you're seeking, thewords that you're seeking in
drug language are minimumeffective dose Right, I'm
looking for the minimumeffective dose.
However, comma, old school sayswe start like this.
New school says we do like thisRight.
So we got to change the way wethink about research and
(19:30):
research done in general and gowith perfect is the enemy of
good enough.
There is no funding for thesedrug company level trials.
We're not going to get 50,000participants in hyperbaric
oxygen and you know 25 of thembeing in a placebo, 25,000 of
them being in a placebo.
It's never going to happen,right?
So we need to change the waythat we're doing this and focus
(19:53):
differently.
A little bit of oxygen is good.
A lot of oxygen might be worse.
It might be better.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I think you've got the whole problem of everybody's
brain being different.
Like you said, every injury onevery brain is not a broken arm.
Okay.
When you fracture everybody'sbone right here, you're pretty
much going to set most of themthe right way, the same way.
Right here.
You've got different angles,rotational force You've got, you
know, sharing you know all thatstuff, right, and so, yeah, I
(20:21):
mean it's, it's and that's whereit needs to be dialed in, based
on the patient.
But let's talk.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I mean this is when we talk about practicing
medicine, these doctors.
What a concept, practicemedicine?
Let me give you a very profoundstatement.
Listen, if you've seen onetraumatic brain injury, you have
seen one freaking traumaticbrain injury and that's it.
You try and lump these MFerstogether and all these people
(20:48):
are going well, it's the same asthat guy.
No, it is not.
It is absolutely not.
This guy got it from a blastinjury.
This guy got it from a caraccident.
This guy got it from repetitivehits to the head.
He was a boxer, he was afootball player.
It's totally different.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Are you seeing the effectiveness of HBOT?
Like you just described aboutsix or seven different ways to
get a brain injury, and sothat's.
The beautiful thing about HBOTis that it is oxygen.
It is in the blood, I guess.
So there is.
You actually don't have youknow some of the differences,
the variances and injuries thatyou?
(21:23):
I mean they're all injuries andthey all could be healed, so
it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, we see some healing in the hyperbaric oxygen
.
But let me just tell yousomething Hyperbaric oxygen
doesn't heal anything andeverybody goes.
You said a bad word.
No, hyperbaric oxygen helpsyour body heal itself.
That's all it does.
It has certain mechanism ofaction, like toxin inhibition.
That is a known mechanism ofaction, peer reviewed published
(21:49):
literature.
Same thing withhyperoxygenation increases
cerebral blood flow, reducesedema, reduces reduction of
inflammatory markers All thosethings are known.
Reduction of neuroinflammation,increase transcriptase you know
, reverse transcriptase.
So we have all these known MOAs.
We just have to apply them andthen, once we put somebody in
(22:13):
hyperbaric oxygen naturopathiccure it stimulates your body's
processes to go ahead and healitself.
That's it, that's all it does.
No drug, no hook, no connection, no comebacks right?
That that's the thing.
I'm not on a model where youhave to come back every fucking
six weeks and look at me ar bro.
Yeah, you know oh, I want you toreturn and pay me more money.
(22:36):
Oh, you're not done withtherapy yet who tells me whether
or not I'm done with therapy?
The freaking therapist that I'mpaying?
I can't, I'm like I'm just aphd.
I I can't.
I'm like I'm just a PhD.
I can't, I can't.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Well, I know in the business world that recurring
revenue models are the best Inour medical field.
That's what they're looking atis recurring revenue.
Everybody's going to a skiresort.
Here's your ski pass Pay forthe whole year, right?
Or you're going to pay 300bucks a day.
Everybody wants that recurrentrevenue and it's a shame, it's a
tragedy that that's where we'reat in terms of how we look at
(23:15):
the way the medical industryworks.
I mean, look at the savings$10,000 a treatment versus how
many pills do you take in alifetime?
What do they charge for thesepills?
150 bucks, some crazy amount ofmoney, right?
You're talking about reducingcosts to the nation, you know,
to the taxpayer, by, I mean, 2.8million TBIs a year, and that's
(23:37):
the only ones we know about,right, you know?
And I mean gosh you're talkingabout, you know, just to know.
I mean I'm gonna have tocalculate that one day, day,
just to kind of come up with anumber, because that's what
politicians listen to.
They're like oh my God, we'regoing to put money back in our
products.
Yeah, this stuff pays foritself.
And the machines how much doesan HBOT machine cost right now?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
$100,000, $125,000, something like that.
We have to do it right.
You have to do it correctly.
We just had an explosion at ahyperbaric facility that was
doing it incorrectly up inMichigan, so but so everybody's
now scared.
Everybody's like oh, thosecrazy hyperbolic machines.
Okay, first of all, it'shyperbarics but, no, and you
(24:17):
know, when you see this kind ofstuff, you go okay.
Well, every single incidentthat's happened in a hyperbaric
chamber since 1985 can beattributed down to the
technician being poorly trainedand letting things happen that
shouldn't have happened, andthat's it.
And I mean I happen to trainthese physicians, these
physicians and practitioners tooperate these chambers and I go
(24:38):
listen, here's the way to do it,the right way, and if you
forget, hey man, that's on you.
Sorry, we told you.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
No, I mean, it's well .
I mean, if you also look at thenumber of people that have
taken their lives becausethey've been on psychiatric care
that didn't work, when all theyhad well, not all, but they had
a brain injury that wasn'taddressed, I mean I'm sure that
the numbers are very, veryinversed when you look at those
populations there and you knowactions happen, but it's about
(25:06):
the efficacy of the treatment.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I mean, look at it like this I teach physiology and
if you break it down to thehuman physiology, right, I don't
know what's causing you, let'ssay, to not sleep.
I don't know what's causing youto not sleep, but I guarantee
you it is not a deficiency ofAmbien or Ambien CR or Lunesta
or Valium.
So you're going to give meValium or Lunesta or Ambien for
(25:33):
my sleeping problem, to make mesleep, but I'm not deficient in
that.
My body's not deficient.
I may be deficient in melatoninOkay, let's talk through that,
let's talk through magnesium,let's talk through some of these
real things that you'reactually deficient in but you
don't have a deficiency inlunesta.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I can guarantee you why you've given me that drug
right, my kid is in the 82ndairborne and he told me one day
that he finally slept like a dogand I was like what are you
taking?
He gave?
He gave me this, it's a, thispill.
I went and I called up mydaughter.
I go, honey, what's this place?
She goes dad, that's a Benzo.
(26:11):
I'm like what.
So I called him.
I said would you get that pill?
He said wow, you know, one ofthe other soldiers gave it to us
.
I want that TMC.
They're giving out off topichere.
But it's crazy, man, what we'redoing to our children and
anybody, because you go to anydoctor's office.
(26:31):
I go to a lot of ayahuascaretreats.
I talk to these veterans, right, and they've got bags of drugs,
joe, I mean like five-galloncans and they'll go back and
they'll say, look, I want to getoff them.
(26:54):
They say, well, no, maybe youneed a little bit more.
And every time they go backthey find another reason to give
them another pill.
It's a tragedy.
So, yeah, let's talk a littlebit about, you know, when HBOT
like so, so you have a TBI.
Okay, is there a?
You know a lot of the thingsthat you said that HBOT reduces.
You know inflammation, you knowtoxins.
All these things are obviouslyvery, very good for the brain
and are some of the keycomponents of the degradation of
the brain from long-termexposure to blast or injuries.
(27:16):
Now should somebody just run?
If they have a TBI, should theyrush to you and go find you?
Is there a time to wait betweenan injury and actually starting
an HBOT protocol?
Or, you know, it's just forthose that are uninformed.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
At the University of South Florida.
Our study requires that you beone year post-blast at the very
least.
So you know, we don't want youto be fresh off of a head injury
today, right, or tomorrow, orwithin the first 72 hours.
So we said, oh, what do we need?
Let's give it a year, we'llcall that a number, right, and
(27:54):
then it can be as much as youknow, 70 years ago I don't care,
because, well, that's 60, 65years ago, something like that
because you could be 70something years old and be in
the study.
So you have to have gotten yourtraumatic brain injury while
(28:14):
you were in the military and yougot to be older.
So, uh, that being said, if youhave a mild to moderate
traumatic brain injury, sign upon the QR code that we're going
to give to you guys.
Just click that QR code andpeople will just go and do you
know, we'll, uh, we'll inductyou into the study if you will
will Thanks.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
man, that's, that's amazing.
So tell us about this study.
I mean it's.
It's the largest HBOT study Ithink that's been ever been
performed in the history ofhyperbaric medicine.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Our N is 420, which means that there are 420
soldiers, sailors, marines,airmen, even Space Force guys
and Coast Guard.
I don't care, everybody right,take them all.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I'm an equal opportunity hater.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I'm a Navy guy, so I hate y'all, it doesn't matter.
We're going to take these peoplein and we are doing a double
blind, randomized,placebo-controlled clinical
trial.
This thing is like it's thegold standard.
We're taking blood, urine,saliva, feces.
We're doing diffuse tentraimaging.
We're doing QEEGs.
(29:14):
Are you doing TTI?
Yep, ah, wow, good, mri withDTI, absolutely right.
So we're doing everything andwe're having our stuff evaluated
by the experts in that thing.
Like our blood goes to Duke, tothe Duke lab, right.
Our imaging goes to the bestplace in the world, which
(29:36):
happens to be in Australia,right, for traumatic brain
injury.
So, and you see me, I'm not theonly person.
There are 38 researchers on thisproject MDs, phds,
neurosurgeons, you know, imagingspecialists, psychologists,
psychiatrists.
You know we got it all right.
There is nobody left, no stoneleft unturned.
(29:59):
And you know we're trying toget the best science we can out
of this.
So we can either look, put thenail in the coffin of
hyperbarics and say, ixnay, onthe oop, it's day, right, it
doesn't work, or say we'repretty damn sure it works.
So here's what we're getting,you know, and it's an adaptive
(30:19):
trial.
Like we have trial specialiststhat came in to help us with
this.
That's why, look, you want togo fast, go alone.
You want to go far?
Go with the group baby.
We went with the group.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
That's awesome, man.
How did you get the state tobuy in on?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
that me.
It was Dr Harry Van Lovren,who's my boss, and he said hey,
listen, can you give us money?
What can you do with this money?
If I gave it to you?
Here's the thing.
And he was like shoot, theygave us the money.
Now we got to.
Oh wow, now we got to really dosomething.
This man is a neurosurgeon.
He's the head of the departmentof neurosurgery.
(30:59):
He does not do anything poorly,right, he does it at a thousand
percent.
So it's like, okay, well, now Igot to hire the right people.
We got to pull the people onboard.
We got to.
So he grabs me and goes what dowe need?
And I'm like you need two ofthese, six of those, a couple of
(31:26):
those naked lady tees, this hat, right?
So we did it all.
We got all these people andthen, you know, psychologists
said hire this guy.
And then psychiatrists saidhire this girl.
And we put everybody in thesame room.
We said what do you think?
And then we brought veterans inand we said okay, you are our
veteran survey panel.
What would you like us to do?
How would you like us to do it?
And we're bringing in a medicalanthropology study so that we
can look at.
What are the reasons why youdidn't want to get into the
study?
What are the reasons why youdid want to be in the study?
(31:47):
Why is HBOT working?
Why is HBOT not working?
Who comes, who doesn't come?
It's an important demographic,right?
Because if you go take a pillor come 40 times over the next
two months which are most peoplegonna do I'm gonna take that
damn pill, right, because I'm inthe generation.
Fix it now, do it now, right,this second, give me the pill.
(32:09):
I'm good.
But meanwhile you don't knowthat non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory use consistentbuildup is harmful to your gut,
so don't do that.
You should be doing thenaturopathic healing, but it's
harder, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
That hard right over the easy wrong.
So what are you looking for inthe study?
I mean, you're looking for atotal cure or improvement
overall, or what are you hopingto get out?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
of the study.
This is the problem.
So it is very hard to figureout what a cure for traumatic
brain injury is, and the FDAdoes not have a metric for it.
So what we are doing is we aretaking all of the physical
measurements, all of theobjective quality evidence like
blood, urine, saliva, cortisolsamples you know, qeegs, the
(32:59):
DTIs and those things can showus things and then we're pairing
it with the psychologic tests.
But nobody has ever taken thepairing of these things and
pulled them together to one andgo look, psychological and
psychosocial tests got better,increased the.
(33:19):
We decreased HSCRP andinterleukin-6 and had all these
increases in correlation anddecreases in phase lag.
Ah, so that's maybe going to bethe definition of a cured
traumatic brain injury.
Maybe we're working on it.
We have no idea at this point,but we're researchers and we're
(33:40):
doing it the right way, becausescience wins, guys.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
No, and that's the way it's going to be done.
I mean, it's got to be done.
And I'll tell you, thosepictures are super like DTI
scans and QEGs.
That's like evidence, right,that look we've got.
And not to mention the labvalues right, the labs come back
, they're all improved.
And you combine that with youknow the psychological issues,
(34:04):
everybody can just say I'mfeeling better, whatever is a
possibility.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
But when you put those both together, you're
going to have a very powerfulexplanation because you're right
and I hear this all the timeyeah, it's going to be amazing,
Like right now there is no studythat puts together the
correlation of increasedcerebral blood flow through
diffuse tensor imaging, becauseyou can witness increased
(34:29):
angiogenesis, you can increasethe production of blood or the
promotion of blood to ischemicareas.
You can do that.
There is no correlation to thatand a cured traumatic brain
injury in any literature.
So you can't just say, yeah,increased cerebral blood flow
equals cured traumatic braininjury.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Can't.
Yeah, I mean, I think that youknow all the things that are out
there.
They need to go through thistype of study so that we can
make them available Now, if theybecome available, joe, how do
we scale this right?
I mean say, hey, you come upwith the study and it's like man
, hbot is the bomb.
You know, if you've been, youknow, you know this is this is.
You know, this is this is nowgoing to be a protocol.
(35:14):
Right, this is going to berecommended.
You know, whatever is going tobe part of a protocol, how do we
scale this and make thisavailable?
I mean, is there any limitingfactors in big machines?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Who the drug companies were.
In my opinion, the drugcompanies for hyperbaric
medicine are the hyperbaricchamber manufacturers.
They're the ones that reallystand to make a ton of money off
this, because even I had acenter and when I treated people
it cost me $183 to treat aperson one time and I would sell
(35:47):
the treatments for to militaryguys.
I'd sell it to them for 200bucks, right.
I mean, you know, look, $3,000a month rent.
You got to pay the tech, yougot to pay the oxygen.
You know $2,000 for oxygen, and, and, and then you got to buy
the chamber for 125,000 bucks000.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
You made 17 bucks a treatment so who's making the
money?
Speaker 2 (36:06):
the drug company?
Is the chamber people?
Those people need to startfunding research, is my opinion.
Those people need to startfunding the cure of our veterans
, is my opinion, because they'remaking money off of it.
But I don't know is answer.
It's not easy.
It costs a lot of money.
The barrier to effective entryon this is you have to pay a lot
(36:28):
of money.
We're looking at.
I spent like $300,000 settingup my center and then I
basically had to keep paying thebill every month for the rent
and the oxygen.
You know, my nut was crazy, soI had to fill those chambers
with paying people.
Somebody's got to pay,otherwise it's never going to
happen.
And I'm I'm pro military man.
(36:50):
I'm like I, if the military guycame in, I'm like, screw it,
we're going to treat you anyway.
I don't care if we're going topay.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
No, I'll pay, Doesn't matter.
Nah, it's, and that happenswith a lot of modalities out
there, and bless you for doingthat.
I mean, it's just somethingthat it's the least they can do.
No, and that's the whole thing.
Is these kids, man, I can callthem kids, I'm an old guy.
They signed a dotted line, man,they didn't commit any crimes.
They went and fought for theircountry.
(37:19):
Now they're hurting andnothing's available and that's
why I get so asked up about this.
It's like, look, you know, youknow we got, we have to do this
study.
But we've known, and you'veknown for a long time HBOT is
effective.
Hbot has a positive impact onthese soldiers, man, and when
they're sticking guns in theirmouths and blowing their brains
out, I don't care about FDA, Idon't care about, I care about
(37:40):
anything that can help thesekids and you're not going to die
from HBOT.
You're not going to die fromanything out there, unless you
lie and say I took my SSRIs andI went on an ayahuasca trip and
you know.
But all these modalities, thepsychedelics, the electric, the
electronic therapies that areout there, you know to include
HBOT, cold plunge, all thisstuff.
(38:01):
You're not going to die fromthem.
So why can't you try them?
And if you've been hurt in theservices country, why can't you
get covered?
And I just think that whatyou're doing right now is you're
absolutely pushing theboundaries of getting at least
one of these modalities to thatgold standard.
And then I want to see what thepushback is going to be after
(38:21):
that, because that's when it'sgoing to get stupid man, honest
to God and don't personalizethis.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
But the old white guy club is never going to let it
happen right.
The medical machine is nevergoing to let it happen right.
Perfect case in point I do icebaths.
I like ice baths, they make mefeel better.
There's a 13% increase in brownadipose tissue as well, and
there's cold shock proteins andyou get your breathing down and,
(38:49):
and, and, and, and.
There's so many ands that gowith it.
But one time some guy with aheart condition went in there
and he had a heart attack and hedidn't have somebody wait.
So ice baths can kill you.
And I'm like whoa, that is notwhat that means the little kid
(39:11):
got blown up in the chamber inMichigan.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Therefore hyperbaric oxygen could kill you and you
shouldn't be doing it.
That guy died in a parachuteaccident.
Oh my God, don't jump out ofplanes, no more.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I mean I'm tongue in cheeking this, but it's really
no more.
I mean I'm tongue in cheekingthis, but it's really.
It's so hurtful to me that wewill not just embrace therapies
that don't hurt, that might help.
That's what we need to be doing.
Don't hurt might help.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Don't hurt might help , right, dude, if we went back
and looked at almost any suicidein this country, that where
somebody's been on you know,drug care, black box, black box
warnings oh my God you couldturn that with.
I mean that those are.
I mean we lose the equivalentof 20 years of war every year in
(39:55):
veteran suicides Just veterans,you know crazy.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (39:59):
That doesn't we think that we're solving the problem.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
The football players?
It doesn't count.
Oh my God.
You know the core accidents,the MBAs.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
We just did a study that I just found this out.
Last week they did a study ofthe inmate populations here in
Florida.
83% of our inmates right nowhave a history of at least 4.3
TBIs and repetitive brain trauma, a lot of them from football.
43% of kids in juveniledetention right now from the age
(40:30):
of 16 to 18, same thing 4.3TBIs or RBI.
We can address recidivism,incarceration.
I mean these guys and womenthat suffered from domestic
abuse and violence.
None of them are being assessedfor the impact of their lives on
their brains and the mentalconditions that could have
caused them to commit thesecrimes.
(40:52):
And where the crimes aren'tabsolutely horrendous, can we at
least get them treatment toapprove their ability to
function as civilians and getback out?
And HBOT could absolutely youput an HBOT chamber in a jail
cell and have these people gothere, go to therapy.
Find God they can leave thosejail cells as better human
beings with a better chance ofand their brains are getting
(41:14):
better right, because we have noidea how many folks are sitting
in jail right now becausethey're mentally ill, because of
contact sports or we have.
I think the last count was like.
I think there's like 180,000incarcerated veterans in this
country.
None of them have ever beenevaluated for the impact of
service or training on theirbrains, bro and it's a pandemic.
(41:36):
It's a pandemic.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
It is crazy.
During the time when COVID cameup, we were trying to use
hyperbaric chambers to treatCOVID during COVID.
Oh, how'd that go?
It went poorly right.
Not standard of care, that'swhat the hospital told me and I
was like what standard of carefor a brand new thing?
I don't understand.
But, that being said, we werethinking of ways to get an
(42:00):
airplane which can hold a littlebit of pressure.
Right.
Get an airplane and have peoplewith masks on that were
breathing oxygen in the airplanelike hundreds of people at a
time.
That's what we need to startdoing Thinking about how to
scale to hundreds of people at atime, out of the box, out of
the box, thinking this is theand that's what needs to happen,
(42:21):
and it doesn't have to be atthis.
Crazy.
High pressures, high pressuresof oxygen Perfect is the enemy
of good enough.
We're just trying to get you tothe point where we can do a
little bit of healing and seehow it goes, get your body to
start to heal itself, and that'swhat all these guys claim.
Is that?
Wow, I started feeling betterabout two weeks into it and then
I started going back to the gym, which has its own positive
(42:45):
side effects.
And then I started drinkingmore water, which has its own
positive side effects.
Then I started talking topeople more, which has its own
positive side effects.
People don't get it.
It's not one thing, it'severything all at once.
Sorry.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Sorry, no, love it, man, love it.
That's what our folks need tohear, because it is everything
and you should be able to.
You know, we want to give thatveteran a Chinese food menu of
all these options and then mapout all those things.
Like you know, I was sufferingfrom premature ventricular
contractions till my sister, anurse, said you only drink Diet
Coke and beer.
(43:19):
Why don't you try drinking somewater?
Bam, no more PVC.
I'm like, yeah, I felt bettertoo, still drinking to this day.
But no, I mean to your point,joe.
This is the passion that'sgoing to drive this and
hopefully, with the newadministration, we get a little
bit more traction than we've had, or a lot more traction, and
we're up on the hill and twopieces of legislation up there,
(43:39):
both of including HBOT as amodality to be considered, to be
funded, to be covered and toget this out there because this
stuff saves money, it works andall we need is trials.
Unfortunately, what we need arethese gold standard trials that
you know how to put together,Unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
But University of South Florida is working on that
right.
Love those guys.
But University of South Floridais working on that right, love
those guys.
It's so interesting because RFKTrump and Ms Shanahan all have
a copy of my new book, the Artand Science of Hyperbaric
Medicine.
Nice Right, I sent it to them.
I'm like, yeah, I produced thisbook, I published this book.
I'm going to buy my own copyand send it to these people so
(44:21):
that they have the realinformation, the factual, you
know, uh, the stuff that's inthe literature and the research.
It's a little, probably high,but I figure if they have
questions about uh hyperbarics.
They can maybe consult the bookor call right, like, I'm into it
, I'll, I'll, I'll do anythingto help this project and to help
our veterans.
That's, that's my goal for therest of my life.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, we were into it too, man and I and I I think
there's some other people thatare trying to get H-Bot at the
special forces groups and theNavy SEAL teams and and dude any
guy, just go in there and pickit up, jump in there, man, and
hang out for a bit.
Right, Can't hurt, you know,it's just that 100% yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
As long as you don't take your lucky cigarette
lighter in with you, you'll beokay.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, just don't be that stupid, don't be that guy.
Just tell us how people findyou.
I want to close this out withyou talking about Joe Duterte.
Right, Where's Dr Joe Duterteat?
How do people find you?
How do they find your book?
Do you have a podcast?
What Guinness World Record?
Speaker 2 (45:24):
do you hold the longest amount of time spent in
a diving?
The longest dive in the world,basically, was 100 days of
living underwater at pressure,right, like there's been other
people that live in submarines.
But that's not at pressure,that's a totally different thing
.
I stayed underwater at pressure, did the longest dive in the
world.
So because it's at the samepressure at which we treat
(45:49):
traumatic brain injury here onthe surface.
I did that for that reason, sothat people could go oh, all of
his psychological, psychosocialscores got better.
Look, his HSCRP went down,interleukin-6 went down.
Oh, these are the mechanism ofaction of hyperbaric medicine.
So it's not just oh, I went togo chase a world record.
Who cares?
Right, and trust you when Itell you this is not about me.
(46:12):
You want to get in touch withDr Deepsea.
Just Google that guy and you'llfigure that guy out.
You know I'm kind of sort of allover the place, but if you're
interested in helping veterans,put your heart, your time and
your money behind a nonprofitlike the Mack Parkman Foundation
, like the other foundationsthat are out there doing good
for traumatic brain injury.
(46:33):
Don't worry about me.
I am blessed and I'm terrific.
Come look at what we're doing,but worry about those nonprofits
and the people that are takingcare of our veterans.
Think about thanking yourFlorida legislature for doing
this for the university of SouthFlorida, that kind of stuff.
Thank the people that areactually putting their money
where their mouth is.
Those are the people that needto be lauded for their decisions
(46:55):
and appreciated for their,their, their steadfast nature
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Amen, amen.
And how do they sign up for thestudy, joe, if they know
somebody who's struggling orsomebody that's had a TBI?
If you are a military?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
veteran with a mild to moderate traumatic brain
injury.
Click that, click that link,that QR code that I sent you
guys click, have them send thatand just scan it and it'll take
them right to the website andtick, tick, tick, tick, tick,
tick, tick and all they got todo is fill it in and somebody
will be in contact.
Now we're a little bit stuffedup, right, so it's going to be a
little bit we're behind, butthat's okay, we're getting,
(47:28):
we're getting through thesepeople, so we can't have too
many.
And even if we have too many,we'll go back to the legislature
and say, hey, we got more thanwe need more people, you got any
extra money?
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, We'll get some extra machines.
Cool beans, All right.
Well, Joe, thank you so muchfor your time today.
Amazing, bright podcast man.
You're an animal man.
We love having you on the show.
You take care of yourself, boss, man.
God bless you for what you'redoing for our veterans.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Can't wait to see you .
We'll see you soon.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, it's going to be great To all you out there.
Remember we have an open townhall on March 28th featuring Dr
Joe Duterte.
We're going to be talking aboutrepetitive blast exposure, its
impacts on veterans' brains, howto get treatment.
We're going to have Dr or MrMichael Hartford, who used to be
one of the lead directors forthe VA, to talk to you about how
to prep for a VA coverage andgo to them and claim these
(48:18):
injuries that you might not evenknow that you might have had.
And remember, we've got our bookout there.
It's for free, but turn it upright side up Broken Brains.
Get out there, get a copy ofthe book, send it to everybody.
You know you can download itoff our website for free.
We don't want to make any moneyoff it.
Go get it.
And our second internationalsummit, our repetitive brain
trial, will be held in Tampathis year in September 3rd and
(48:40):
4th.
Get those dates on the calendar.
But again, dr Joe Dettori, allof our fans out there, thank you
so much out there and we'lltalk to you next time on Broken
Branch.
Thank you.
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken
Brains with Bruce Parkman,sponsored by the Mack Parkman
Foundation.
Our podcast is focused on theissue of repetitive brain trauma
in the forms of repetitiveblast exposure and repetitive
head impacts, and what theseimpacts are doing to our
population of athletes andchildren and our veterans and
(00:32):
warriors.
And we go out there and we findthe leading experts and people
that have dealt with thesechallenges and researchers,
doctors and authors and bringthem on the podcast so that you
can be informed.
Why doctors and authors?
And bring them on the podcastso that you can be informed.
Why?
Because this is the largestpreventable cause of mental
illness in our warrior and childpopulations and this is not
taught in medical institutionsand you have to be empowered
(00:55):
with the knowledge to take careof yourself and your children or
, as a veteran, to go seektreatment.
Today we've got an amazing guestman.
We love this guy.
We've been so fortunate to workwith him before Dr Joe Dettori
doing so much for our veterans.
Actually, commander Joe Dettoriexcuse me is a retired US Navy
officer, deep-sea diver andbiomedical engineer.
He has 20 years of activeservice where he specializes in
(01:18):
hyperbaric system saturationdiving and submarine rescue,
which makes him borderlinepsychotic if you live in a can
for all that time Serving inroles from Special Operations
Officer to Chief Engineer forUndersea Systems.
After his military career, heearned a PhD in Biomedical
Engineering, focusing on lifesupport systems and hyperbaric
medicine.
Dr Dottori is a professor atthe University of South Florida,
(01:41):
a very big partner with theMack Parkman Foundation, a
published author and aconsultant on undersea medicine,
and I do believe he holds aGuinness World Record.
Let's talk about that.
Passionate about exploration,he continues to push the
boundaries of human enduranceand has a lifelong dreaming of
becoming a civilian astronaut.
You're in the fine state ofFlorida over here, so hopefully
we'll get you in front of Elonto make that happen to you
(02:02):
1,000%.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
If you've got an insight to Elon please let me
know.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Oh God, After I get talked about kids and veterans,
you're going to be number two.
I've got to get this guy tomake a great astronaut.
Boss man, Get over there, man,Joe.
Welcome to the show man.
How you been, buddy, Thank you,I am well, we are so good, it's
criminal.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I can't even complain , you know.
So I'm doing great thanks, howare you guys?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Ah, dude, we got it rocking.
So we're going to have thesecond conference this September
.
So that's going to.
We got the town hall.
In a couple weeks you're goingto be on the panel there looking
forward to that.
That's going to be great.
We're going to be runningseminars.
So, nah, we're jamming, justgot back.
We'll talk a little bit aboutCongress.
We now have legislationcovering hyperbaric oxygen in
front of Congress right now andhere in the state.
So we're doing everything wecan as a small foundation, you
(02:51):
know, punching above our weightand, just, you know, like that
little chihuahua right, don'tstop tearing them big talks up,
you know, all weekend.
So I mean a lot of folks, youknow, tell us how you got into
hyperbaric, because I reallywant to dive into this study
that you're doing right now.
And why do you feel like youtalk about the cutting edge and
exploration of treatments?
(03:13):
Why do you feel, and why ishyperbaric oxygen, or any
modality that's not conventional, so critical to our veteran
population, so critical to ourveteran population?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
So the interesting part is I retired from the Navy
and I'm sitting at AdmiralMcRaven's house drinking a beer
and we're just he's like, whatare you going to be when you
grow up, aquanaut?
And I'm like I don't know.
He's like, hey, do me a favor,would you mind sitting on the
preservation of the Forsenfamily?
So I said, yeah, I'd do thatfor you as a favor.
I got a favor from Guido.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Balducci Sure.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I'll do that.
So I go in, I do this, I sit onthat thing for like six, seven
months and I go back to him andI says hey boss, this is they're
not doing it right, all they'redoing is talking.
We got to move the needle.
And he goes, he looks me deadin the eye and goes permission,
granted, aquanaut, fix it.
And I went shoot, now I have togo do it.
So I went back, I got a phd inbiomedical engineering and I
started fixing brains with theonly thing that I knew that
(04:15):
increased cerebral blood flow,which was hyperbaric medicine.
I'm like I've seen it work.
It works for other thing.
It works for problem wounds.
This is a problem wound that'snot healing in the head.
It's an open wound, a closedwound, it's a different wound,
whatever.
So I'm thinking maybe this isgoing to work.
So I'm running down the roadwith scissors, right, and the
good Lord says look, you got tomake a right, you got to do it
(04:37):
differently.
And I says no, no, no, I got it.
And he says I said make a right, I got it.
So he throws a 6,000 pound SUVat my 47 Chevy, t-bones me.
I get a, you know, a eightmillimeter hemorrhagic stroke in
the prefrontal cortex on theleft side.
Now I have a really badtraumatic brain injury and I'm
(04:58):
in the hospital for a week twodays in the ICU, five days in
the regular hospital.
They finally discharged me andI'm like I know how to fix
brains.
I'm going to go in thehyperbaric chamber, and it just
wasn't enough.
That alone wasn't enough.
So I had to figure out a way toheal myself, so that I could
get these studies, these things,these scientific reach in, find
(05:20):
the science behind it and thencombine it with other stuff and
get people healed.
I think the good Lord justwanted me to do that.
So I said yes, sir, I'm onboard.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Man, I'll tell you, when you don't listen to the
Lord, he's going to make youlisten.
I've got so many stories of,and it's just like you, arrogant
, mortal.
How do you dare you?
I said turn right.
I said turn right, and guesswhat?
You're turning right, not rightnow, but you will turn right,
(05:50):
right.
Ah, dude man.
Yeah and so and so you know howdid your healing go?
I mean, you went, obviously.
You're now, you're in theself-medicating, you know mode
it went absolutely horribly.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
For the first month I fell into a very deep
depression and then, when I gotdespondent, when I got to the
point of suicide, when I got tothe point when I was going to
take my own life, I said, okay,I got about a month and a half
before I'm going to take my ownlife, but I'm Catholic, so I
have to do everything.
Because when I'm standing atthe pearly gates, I got to get
there and tell them look, Itried everything.
(06:22):
So I did everything at once.
You know, red light therapy,beamer mat therapy, cognitive
behavioral therapy, structuralenergetic therapy, physical
therapy, neurofeedback therapy,ice baths, saunas and all of a
sudden, man, I came back.
And when I say back, mytraumatic brain injury was the
(06:43):
best thing that ever happened tome, because I can heal.
I healed myself and I have beenhealing others.
I took a professional footballplayer.
I put him side by side in thesame exact therapy I had with a
green beret who lost his entireplatoon in Afghanistan and
freaking.
These two guys after one monthgot dramatically better, so much
(07:06):
so that their wives came to meand says I, first of all, I want
to marry you.
Second of all, what did you dowith my husband and I'm like,
well, he's fixed.
And they're like I can'tbelieve you cured him.
He was, he was done, he wasgone.
So we're trying, we're doingeverything, so, but the lesson
is what do you do?
We have a closed head injury.
(07:26):
You can't pop the top open andlook.
If you're not going to pop thetop open and look, the imaging
sucks like the Knicks.
So we got to do somethingdifferent.
We got to do everything Redlight, beaver mat, everything
same time.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So when you did all that, did you do any
psychedelics at all?
Did you run down that road withthe NFL players or yourself?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
No, I did not do that with any of the NFL players.
On a personal level I haveworked with organizations that
have legally done psychedelicswith me and we legally
administered them in a propersetting and I believe that to be
transformative if it is done inthe proper setting Right.
(08:12):
I do not condone people goingout and doing it without medical
supervision and just going on atrip in the woods and a walk
alone.
It's just not the way to do it.
But if done in a proper medicalsetting I have seen great,
great effect of it.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
That's awesome and because you know, the reason I
asked that is, I won't get intoa little bit is that you know,
when you have a closed wound,right, you talk, you can't pop
the top right.
And with you know, one of theissues that we're struggling
with right now in our veteranpopulation is mental illness.
Well, when it comes down torepetitive blast exposure,
(08:48):
repetitive brain trauma or amassive car crash, right there
you have brain damage and then,obviously, like you struggled
with depression, suicidalideation, right, you know, you
go to a psychologist.
What are they going to do?
Right, they're going to fillyou up a bag full of medications
, they're going to give youtherapy, and none of that's
going to help you with yourproblem, which is a damaged
(09:10):
brain.
So, all these modalities thatyou're talking about biofeed,
you know, photobiomodulation,vagus, nerve simulation, hot
clod plug therapy, you know,stellate ganglion blocks,
everything, including psychedel,psychedelics none of them are
covered by insurance planstricare, va and and that's part
of the challenge but the, youknow, the issue is we're, we're,
(09:33):
how.
You know, the, the effectiveness, um, how come we're still not?
You know, we're still not whenit comes to hbot or any of these
things.
How, how come, how come, youknow, everybody's like, oh, it's
still not properly researched,you're still not there.
Yet when I compare men andwomen soldiers that have been to
a psychologist and mydaughter's a nurse practitioner,
(09:54):
she has a 25% chance of anydrug you know taking effect and
those drugs are going to killthem.
Yet people leave your program,people leave these psychedelic
programs, people leave all theseother programs.
We have an 80 to 90 percent,you know, population survey
saying this has improved me.
This has helped me more thananything.
(10:15):
Why is this not available?
Or where does HBOT researchhave to go for it to become
accepted now, so that theseveterans can get coverage?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah.
So that's a great question andwhat I'm going to do is I'm
going to answer your questionwith a question who does drug
company trials?
Drug companies, right, drugcompanies?
What is the drug company forhyperbaric medicine?
Oh, there is not Right.
So nobody can afford to pay forthe trials.
(10:45):
A drug company can go here's ared pill, here's a blue pill,
you take this, one's a placebo,one's the real pill, and they
can do it to thousands of peopleand get these up checks in the
way that they do research and belike, yeah, we got a positive.
Whatever, we do not have alarge enough N.
Every hyperbaric study that'sever been done was in the.
(11:08):
You know, a hundred was a crazyhigh number.
Most are in the twenties andthirties, which is not stand,
not passing the professionaltest of the drug company model
of research, right.
But what we have to do is stepback and go.
What do these people reallyneed?
We need to get them off thedrug company model and get them
thinking about treatingthemselves differently.
(11:31):
Look, you don't every time yourphysical shoulder that you hurt
in that same traumatic braininjury, car accident, it goes,
(11:52):
oh.
Through the vagus nerve, itgoes, oh, reminder, you have a
traumatic brain injury.
Oh yeah, you have it.
So if you don't heal it, you'regoing to keep reminding
yourself of it.
At the same time, you got to doall these things and hopefully
you can get them to be betterand pass and, you know, get
somebody better.
But remember, your TBI is notmy TBI, is not his TBI.
(12:12):
It's like everyone's differentRight.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And that's why you got to throw the kitchen sink at
it.
But my point the kitchen sinkand my point, joe is that, look
you know, when we still have notimpacted the suicide rate in
veterans, right, when we stillgot hundreds of thousands of
Americans struggling with metalillness that have not ever been
accessed for contact sportsexposure or they left the
military and they've beenexposed to TBI, mtbi, and all
(12:37):
that in yards, why do we have towait on all these stupid trials
?
Wait on all these stupid trials.
And we have all these studiesand every one of them that I've
read has indicated a you knowthat that they have provided a
positive impact on the brains ofveterans.
Right, we've got to get out.
What we're pushing for in ourlegislation right now is, like
you said it before, we've got tomove the needle.
(12:57):
All this talk about biomarkersand and and crap we have studied
, you know, concussions and TBIsto death all right, we know
they're a problem, all right.
So when are we going to dosomething about it?
Because right now we're not,and it's people like you that
are fighting the system to getthe funds necessary to conduct
these studies that could changethe paradigm that nobody's
(13:20):
focused on for all these,because everybody was doing this
.
I am so sick of researchersasking for money to restudy
stuff that's been studied overand, over and over again,
because nobody shares their data.
Everybody's fighting forresearch dollars.
They all drive big cars, right?
I'm just done with that.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Think about it.
Think about it.
I have no incentive because I'mnot getting paid for
capitalizing on other research.
Incentive because I'm notgetting paid for capitalizing on
other research.
All I got to do is say thatyour research wasn't good enough
because you had one person inyour study paid for it.
So that throws the whole studyout.
Or your statisticalsignificance was this close, but
(13:58):
not that close.
It's just like my job is thecapital one.
No guy Now listen.
Science wins over bullshit.
Every time right, and that'swhat we need.
We need a hard science approach.
That's why, at the Universityof South Florida, we are doing
that study with 420 veterans 420veterans.
That's because it's funded bythe state of Florida.
(14:19):
The Florida legislature came upthe dollars and said University
of South Florida, go fix thisproblem, tell me whether or not
it works.
And that's what we intend to doat the University of South
Florida.
So we are working it.
It's just a matter of time.
Like we got three and a halfmore years left on this study,
so we're not going to get theresults out today.
They won't be out tomorrow, butwe have to wait, right?
(14:42):
So, but the science wins over.
Bs is the thing that we'reworking with that's and, by the
way, your health insurancecovering it.
Health insurance has absolutelynothing to do with your health.
I'm sorry, I know I'm shockingyou, but health insurance
doesn't care.
They are a for-profit company.
(15:03):
They have a board of directors.
They will not lose money.
So, in the end, if hyperbaricscost $1 billion across the
spectrum of their cupboard andbroken arms cost $1 billion, one
of a couple of things is goingto happen Either we're going to
start treating hyperbarics andstop treating broken arms, or
(15:24):
we're going to start treatinghyperbarics and everybody's
policy is going to go up by $1billion, maybe $1 billion and $1
, so they actually make money onthe deal.
They make money.
It's a for-profit corporationwith a zero-sum game.
They don't care about yourhealth.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, and that's.
And you, you, yeah, it's,you're right.
You're right to the point, asalways.
I mean there's, there's just,no, no, it's, it's good.
I mean, people need to hearthis man and they already know
it.
They deal with it.
But when it comes to and that'sthe other thing is if, if we
could take a TBI person rightand say, anybody right.
You look at when we talk aboutrepetitive brain trauma on this
show, but but the gaps inrepetitive brain trauma from
(16:03):
education and awareness todiagnosis, treatments, insurance
coverage, bailing codes are thesame for most TBI patients.
When it comes to this, ifyou're a TBI patient, you've got
a physical injury and you'rebeing fed a bunch of drugs,
you're being sent to therapy forthe rest of your life, yet your
injury keeps sitting around andgetting worse.
Yet you know all these thingsthat could help you not only are
(16:25):
not available, but what wouldbe the cost of, say, 40 HBOT
treatments that can get you to awhole nother level of
compassion and together versusthe lifetime of drugs that these
pharmaceutical companies wantyou on?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, even even at the highest point of hyperbaric
treatment, the biggest dollarvalue that I've seen in a little
while, it'd be $10,000 to dothat treatment.
$10,000.
But nothing.
It's pale in comparison, it's adrop in the bucket, because I
have veterans that come to mehooked on 11 medications.
Oh, you didn't sleep well lastnight, let me give you a little
(17:01):
pep me out, yes, sir.
Oh, you got a little pain, letme help you out night.
Let me give you a little pep meout.
Oh, you got a little pain, letme help you out.
Oh, you got that midday low,let me help you out.
Oh, you can't sleep, no problem, let me drug you up.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Oh we got you, so yeah, well, I'll get you the
next morning.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Let me wake you back up.
I'm like so I kick them off,all 11 drugs, and it's me and a
whole bunch of providers, right?
MDs, phds.
We all sit around and we grouparound the patient.
Who the hell does that?
Nobody, right?
I come to the patient.
The patient doesn't come toeach individual doctor.
All of us sit around in a groupand we go okay, how does this
(17:34):
interact with that?
What are we going to do if wedo that?
If we do that, that'll openthis up and this.
So we're doing all these thingstogether and the doctors are
around the patient and they aretaken off of every drug that
they were ever on.
I still got guys that come backto me Green Berets, navy SEALs,
you know these military guysthat come to me, these police
(17:54):
officers that we've cured, thesefootball players and they go
dude, you saved my life and oh,by the way, I'm going to parade
my daughter in to see youbecause you saved her life too.
Because what happens to thefather when the father takes his
life?
The girl does what she's got.
Daddy issues the rest of herlife.
She's miserable because shethinks it's partially her fault.
(18:16):
These people are bringing theirkids in here.
It's the most wonderful thingI've ever had in my whole life
it's, yeah, I mean, and it's andit's so it.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I mean the universe on this whole medical thing is
upside down.
I mean it's crazy what we're,what we're coming across and,
and hbot, I mean, is you knowit's?
It can be so effective and, um,do you think there's going to
be an hbot standard?
Like you know, we look at, youknow we went to, so we went to
another company here in florida.
They're out in the villages.
They got an h HBOT machineright and they're like, ah, the
(18:49):
Tury's not doing it right.
I'm like, why do you say that?
Like well, we do it this way.
I'm like, well, I don't care.
Right, the thing is to me,oxygen is oxygen.
I don't care if you get in atent, if you get in a mask or if
you're in.
Is that going to be?
Part of the problem is agreeingto a precise protocol for this
a number of treatments, apercentage of O2 or water.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
This is the problem.
So what you're seeking, thewords that you're seeking in
drug language are minimumeffective dose Right, I'm
looking for the minimumeffective dose.
However, comma, old school sayswe start like this.
New school says we do like thisRight.
So we got to change the way wethink about research and
(19:30):
research done in general and gowith perfect is the enemy of
good enough.
There is no funding for thesedrug company level trials.
We're not going to get 50,000participants in hyperbaric
oxygen and you know 25 of thembeing in a placebo, 25,000 of
them being in a placebo.
It's never going to happen,right?
So we need to change the waythat we're doing this and focus
(19:53):
differently.
A little bit of oxygen is good.
A lot of oxygen might be worse.
It might be better.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I think you've got the whole problem of everybody's
brain being different.
Like you said, every injury onevery brain is not a broken arm.
Okay.
When you fracture everybody'sbone right here, you're pretty
much going to set most of themthe right way, the same way.
Right here.
You've got different angles,rotational force You've got, you
know, sharing you know all thatstuff, right, and so, yeah, I
(20:21):
mean it's, it's and that's whereit needs to be dialed in, based
on the patient.
But let's talk.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I mean this is when we talk about practicing
medicine, these doctors.
What a concept, practicemedicine?
Let me give you a very profoundstatement.
Listen, if you've seen onetraumatic brain injury, you have
seen one freaking traumaticbrain injury and that's it.
You try and lump these MFerstogether and all these people
(20:48):
are going well, it's the same asthat guy.
No, it is not.
It is absolutely not.
This guy got it from a blastinjury.
This guy got it from a caraccident.
This guy got it from repetitivehits to the head.
He was a boxer, he was afootball player.
It's totally different.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Are you seeing the effectiveness of HBOT?
Like you just described aboutsix or seven different ways to
get a brain injury, and sothat's.
The beautiful thing about HBOTis that it is oxygen.
It is in the blood, I guess.
So there is.
You actually don't have youknow some of the differences,
the variances and injuries thatyou?
(21:23):
I mean they're all injuries andthey all could be healed, so
it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, we see some healing in the hyperbaric oxygen
.
But let me just tell yousomething Hyperbaric oxygen
doesn't heal anything andeverybody goes.
You said a bad word.
No, hyperbaric oxygen helpsyour body heal itself.
That's all it does.
It has certain mechanism ofaction, like toxin inhibition.
That is a known mechanism ofaction, peer reviewed published
(21:49):
literature.
Same thing withhyperoxygenation increases
cerebral blood flow, reducesedema, reduces reduction of
inflammatory markers All thosethings are known.
Reduction of neuroinflammation,increase transcriptase you know
, reverse transcriptase.
So we have all these known MOAs.
We just have to apply them andthen, once we put somebody in
(22:13):
hyperbaric oxygen naturopathiccure it stimulates your body's
processes to go ahead and healitself.
That's it, that's all it does.
No drug, no hook, no connection, no comebacks right?
That that's the thing.
I'm not on a model where youhave to come back every fucking
six weeks and look at me ar bro.
Yeah, you know oh, I want you toreturn and pay me more money.
(22:36):
Oh, you're not done withtherapy yet who tells me whether
or not I'm done with therapy?
The freaking therapist that I'mpaying?
I can't, I'm like I'm just aphd.
I I can't.
I'm like I'm just a PhD.
I can't, I can't.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Well, I know in the business world that recurring
revenue models are the best Inour medical field.
That's what they're looking atis recurring revenue.
Everybody's going to a skiresort.
Here's your ski pass Pay forthe whole year, right?
Or you're going to pay 300bucks a day.
Everybody wants that recurrentrevenue and it's a shame, it's a
tragedy that that's where we'reat in terms of how we look at
(23:15):
the way the medical industryworks.
I mean, look at the savings$10,000 a treatment versus how
many pills do you take in alifetime?
What do they charge for thesepills?
150 bucks, some crazy amount ofmoney, right?
You're talking about reducingcosts to the nation, you know,
to the taxpayer, by, I mean, 2.8million TBIs a year, and that's
(23:37):
the only ones we know about,right, you know?
And I mean gosh you're talkingabout, you know, just to know.
I mean I'm gonna have tocalculate that one day, day,
just to kind of come up with anumber, because that's what
politicians listen to.
They're like oh my God, we'regoing to put money back in our
products.
Yeah, this stuff pays foritself.
And the machines how much doesan HBOT machine cost right now?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
$100,000, $125,000, something like that.
We have to do it right.
You have to do it correctly.
We just had an explosion at ahyperbaric facility that was
doing it incorrectly up inMichigan, so but so everybody's
now scared.
Everybody's like oh, thosecrazy hyperbolic machines.
Okay, first of all, it'shyperbarics but, no, and you
(24:17):
know, when you see this kind ofstuff, you go okay.
Well, every single incidentthat's happened in a hyperbaric
chamber since 1985 can beattributed down to the
technician being poorly trainedand letting things happen that
shouldn't have happened, andthat's it.
And I mean I happen to trainthese physicians, these
physicians and practitioners tooperate these chambers and I go
(24:38):
listen, here's the way to do it,the right way, and if you
forget, hey man, that's on you.
Sorry, we told you.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
No, I mean, it's well .
I mean, if you also look at thenumber of people that have
taken their lives becausethey've been on psychiatric care
that didn't work, when all theyhad well, not all, but they had
a brain injury that wasn'taddressed, I mean I'm sure that
the numbers are very, veryinversed when you look at those
populations there and you knowactions happen, but it's about
(25:06):
the efficacy of the treatment.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I mean, look at it like this I teach physiology and
if you break it down to thehuman physiology, right, I don't
know what's causing you, let'ssay, to not sleep.
I don't know what's causing youto not sleep, but I guarantee
you it is not a deficiency ofAmbien or Ambien CR or Lunesta
or Valium.
So you're going to give meValium or Lunesta or Ambien for
(25:33):
my sleeping problem, to make mesleep, but I'm not deficient in
that.
My body's not deficient.
I may be deficient in melatoninOkay, let's talk through that,
let's talk through magnesium,let's talk through some of these
real things that you'reactually deficient in but you
don't have a deficiency inlunesta.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I can guarantee you why you've given me that drug
right, my kid is in the 82ndairborne and he told me one day
that he finally slept like a dogand I was like what are you
taking?
He gave?
He gave me this, it's a, thispill.
I went and I called up mydaughter.
I go, honey, what's this place?
She goes dad, that's a Benzo.
(26:11):
I'm like what.
So I called him.
I said would you get that pill?
He said wow, you know, one ofthe other soldiers gave it to us
.
I want that TMC.
They're giving out off topichere.
But it's crazy, man, what we'redoing to our children and
anybody, because you go to anydoctor's office.
(26:31):
I go to a lot of ayahuascaretreats.
I talk to these veterans, right, and they've got bags of drugs,
joe, I mean like five-galloncans and they'll go back and
they'll say, look, I want to getoff them.
(26:54):
They say, well, no, maybe youneed a little bit more.
And every time they go backthey find another reason to give
them another pill.
It's a tragedy.
So, yeah, let's talk a littlebit about, you know, when HBOT
like so, so you have a TBI.
Okay, is there a?
You know a lot of the thingsthat you said that HBOT reduces.
You know inflammation, you knowtoxins.
All these things are obviouslyvery, very good for the brain
and are some of the keycomponents of the degradation of
the brain from long-termexposure to blast or injuries.
(27:16):
Now should somebody just run?
If they have a TBI, should theyrush to you and go find you?
Is there a time to wait betweenan injury and actually starting
an HBOT protocol?
Or, you know, it's just forthose that are uninformed.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
At the University of South Florida.
Our study requires that you beone year post-blast at the very
least.
So you know, we don't want youto be fresh off of a head injury
today, right, or tomorrow, orwithin the first 72 hours.
So we said, oh, what do we need?
Let's give it a year, we'llcall that a number, right, and
(27:54):
then it can be as much as youknow, 70 years ago I don't care,
because, well, that's 60, 65years ago, something like that
because you could be 70something years old and be in
the study.
So you have to have gotten yourtraumatic brain injury while
(28:14):
you were in the military and yougot to be older.
So, uh, that being said, if youhave a mild to moderate
traumatic brain injury, sign upon the QR code that we're going
to give to you guys.
Just click that QR code andpeople will just go and do you
know, we'll, uh, we'll inductyou into the study if you will
will Thanks.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
man, that's, that's amazing.
So tell us about this study.
I mean it's.
It's the largest HBOT study Ithink that's been ever been
performed in the history ofhyperbaric medicine.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Our N is 420, which means that there are 420
soldiers, sailors, marines,airmen, even Space Force guys
and Coast Guard.
I don't care, everybody right,take them all.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I'm an equal opportunity hater.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I'm a Navy guy, so I hate y'all, it doesn't matter.
We're going to take these peoplein and we are doing a double
blind, randomized,placebo-controlled clinical
trial.
This thing is like it's thegold standard.
We're taking blood, urine,saliva, feces.
We're doing diffuse tentraimaging.
We're doing QEEGs.
(29:14):
Are you doing TTI?
Yep, ah, wow, good, mri withDTI, absolutely right.
So we're doing everything andwe're having our stuff evaluated
by the experts in that thing.
Like our blood goes to Duke, tothe Duke lab, right.
Our imaging goes to the bestplace in the world, which
(29:36):
happens to be in Australia,right, for traumatic brain
injury.
So, and you see me, I'm not theonly person.
There are 38 researchers on thisproject MDs, phds,
neurosurgeons, you know, imagingspecialists, psychologists,
psychiatrists.
You know we got it all right.
There is nobody left, no stoneleft unturned.
(29:59):
And you know we're trying toget the best science we can out
of this.
So we can either look, put thenail in the coffin of
hyperbarics and say, ixnay, onthe oop, it's day, right, it
doesn't work, or say we'repretty damn sure it works.
So here's what we're getting,you know, and it's an adaptive
(30:19):
trial.
Like we have trial specialiststhat came in to help us with
this.
That's why, look, you want togo fast, go alone.
You want to go far?
Go with the group baby.
We went with the group.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
That's awesome, man.
How did you get the state tobuy in on?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
that me.
It was Dr Harry Van Lovren,who's my boss, and he said hey,
listen, can you give us money?
What can you do with this money?
If I gave it to you?
Here's the thing.
And he was like shoot, theygave us the money.
Now we got to.
Oh wow, now we got to really dosomething.
This man is a neurosurgeon.
He's the head of the departmentof neurosurgery.
(30:59):
He does not do anything poorly,right, he does it at a thousand
percent.
So it's like, okay, well, now Igot to hire the right people.
We got to pull the people onboard.
We got to.
So he grabs me and goes what dowe need?
And I'm like you need two ofthese, six of those, a couple of
(31:26):
those naked lady tees, this hat, right?
So we did it all.
We got all these people andthen, you know, psychologists
said hire this guy.
And then psychiatrists saidhire this girl.
And we put everybody in thesame room.
We said what do you think?
And then we brought veterans inand we said okay, you are our
veteran survey panel.
What would you like us to do?
How would you like us to do it?
And we're bringing in a medicalanthropology study so that we
can look at.
What are the reasons why youdidn't want to get into the
study?
What are the reasons why youdid want to be in the study?
(31:47):
Why is HBOT working?
Why is HBOT not working?
Who comes, who doesn't come?
It's an important demographic,right?
Because if you go take a pillor come 40 times over the next
two months which are most peoplegonna do I'm gonna take that
damn pill, right, because I'm inthe generation.
Fix it now, do it now, right,this second, give me the pill.
(32:09):
I'm good.
But meanwhile you don't knowthat non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory use consistentbuildup is harmful to your gut,
so don't do that.
You should be doing thenaturopathic healing, but it's
harder, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
That hard right over the easy wrong.
So what are you looking for inthe study?
I mean, you're looking for atotal cure or improvement
overall, or what are you hopingto get out?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
of the study.
This is the problem.
So it is very hard to figureout what a cure for traumatic
brain injury is, and the FDAdoes not have a metric for it.
So what we are doing is we aretaking all of the physical
measurements, all of theobjective quality evidence like
blood, urine, saliva, cortisolsamples you know, qeegs, the
(32:59):
DTIs and those things can showus things and then we're pairing
it with the psychologic tests.
But nobody has ever taken thepairing of these things and
pulled them together to one andgo look, psychological and
psychosocial tests got better,increased the.
(33:19):
We decreased HSCRP andinterleukin-6 and had all these
increases in correlation anddecreases in phase lag.
Ah, so that's maybe going to bethe definition of a cured
traumatic brain injury.
Maybe we're working on it.
We have no idea at this point,but we're researchers and we're
(33:40):
doing it the right way, becausescience wins, guys.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
No, and that's the way it's going to be done.
I mean, it's got to be done.
And I'll tell you, thosepictures are super like DTI
scans and QEGs.
That's like evidence, right,that look we've got.
And not to mention the labvalues right, the labs come back
, they're all improved.
And you combine that with youknow the psychological issues,
(34:04):
everybody can just say I'mfeeling better, whatever is a
possibility.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
But when you put those both together, you're
going to have a very powerfulexplanation because you're right
and I hear this all the timeyeah, it's going to be amazing,
Like right now there is no studythat puts together the
correlation of increasedcerebral blood flow through
diffuse tensor imaging, becauseyou can witness increased
(34:29):
angiogenesis, you can increasethe production of blood or the
promotion of blood to ischemicareas.
You can do that.
There is no correlation to thatand a cured traumatic brain
injury in any literature.
So you can't just say, yeah,increased cerebral blood flow
equals cured traumatic braininjury.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Can't.
Yeah, I mean, I think that youknow all the things that are out
there.
They need to go through thistype of study so that we can
make them available Now, if theybecome available, joe, how do
we scale this right?
I mean say, hey, you come upwith the study and it's like man
, hbot is the bomb.
You know, if you've been, youknow, you know this is this is.
You know, this is this is nowgoing to be a protocol.
(35:14):
Right, this is going to berecommended.
You know, whatever is going tobe part of a protocol, how do we
scale this and make thisavailable?
I mean, is there any limitingfactors in big machines?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Who the drug companies were.
In my opinion, the drugcompanies for hyperbaric
medicine are the hyperbaricchamber manufacturers.
They're the ones that reallystand to make a ton of money off
this, because even I had acenter and when I treated people
it cost me $183 to treat aperson one time and I would sell
(35:47):
the treatments for to militaryguys.
I'd sell it to them for 200bucks, right.
I mean, you know, look, $3,000a month rent.
You got to pay the tech, yougot to pay the oxygen.
You know $2,000 for oxygen, and, and, and then you got to buy
the chamber for 125,000 bucks000.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
You made 17 bucks a treatment so who's making the
money?
Speaker 2 (36:06):
the drug company?
Is the chamber people?
Those people need to startfunding research, is my opinion.
Those people need to startfunding the cure of our veterans
, is my opinion, because they'remaking money off of it.
But I don't know is answer.
It's not easy.
It costs a lot of money.
The barrier to effective entryon this is you have to pay a lot
(36:28):
of money.
We're looking at.
I spent like $300,000 settingup my center and then I
basically had to keep paying thebill every month for the rent
and the oxygen.
You know, my nut was crazy, soI had to fill those chambers
with paying people.
Somebody's got to pay,otherwise it's never going to
happen.
And I'm I'm pro military man.
(36:50):
I'm like I, if the military guycame in, I'm like, screw it,
we're going to treat you anyway.
I don't care if we're going topay.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
No, I'll pay, Doesn't matter.
Nah, it's, and that happenswith a lot of modalities out
there, and bless you for doingthat.
I mean, it's just somethingthat it's the least they can do.
No, and that's the whole thing.
Is these kids, man, I can callthem kids, I'm an old guy.
They signed a dotted line, man,they didn't commit any crimes.
They went and fought for theircountry.
(37:19):
Now they're hurting andnothing's available and that's
why I get so asked up about this.
It's like, look, you know, youknow we got, we have to do this
study.
But we've known, and you'veknown for a long time HBOT is
effective.
Hbot has a positive impact onthese soldiers, man, and when
they're sticking guns in theirmouths and blowing their brains
out, I don't care about FDA, Idon't care about, I care about
(37:40):
anything that can help thesekids and you're not going to die
from HBOT.
You're not going to die fromanything out there, unless you
lie and say I took my SSRIs andI went on an ayahuasca trip and
you know.
But all these modalities, thepsychedelics, the electric, the
electronic therapies that areout there, you know to include
HBOT, cold plunge, all thisstuff.
(38:01):
You're not going to die fromthem.
So why can't you try them?
And if you've been hurt in theservices country, why can't you
get covered?
And I just think that whatyou're doing right now is you're
absolutely pushing theboundaries of getting at least
one of these modalities to thatgold standard.
And then I want to see what thepushback is going to be after
(38:21):
that, because that's when it'sgoing to get stupid man, honest
to God and don't personalizethis.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
But the old white guy club is never going to let it
happen right.
The medical machine is nevergoing to let it happen right.
Perfect case in point I do icebaths.
I like ice baths, they make mefeel better.
There's a 13% increase in brownadipose tissue as well, and
there's cold shock proteins andyou get your breathing down and,
(38:49):
and, and, and, and.
There's so many ands that gowith it.
But one time some guy with aheart condition went in there
and he had a heart attack and hedidn't have somebody wait.
So ice baths can kill you.
And I'm like whoa, that is notwhat that means the little kid
(39:11):
got blown up in the chamber inMichigan.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Therefore hyperbaric oxygen could kill you and you
shouldn't be doing it.
That guy died in a parachuteaccident.
Oh my God, don't jump out ofplanes, no more.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I mean I'm tongue in cheeking this, but it's really
no more.
I mean I'm tongue in cheekingthis, but it's really.
It's so hurtful to me that wewill not just embrace therapies
that don't hurt, that might help.
That's what we need to be doing.
Don't hurt might help.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Don't hurt might help , right, dude, if we went back
and looked at almost any suicidein this country, that where
somebody's been on you know,drug care, black box, black box
warnings oh my God you couldturn that with.
I mean that those are.
I mean we lose the equivalentof 20 years of war every year in
(39:55):
veteran suicides Just veterans,you know crazy.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (39:59):
That doesn't we think that we're solving the problem.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
The football players?
It doesn't count.
Oh my God.
You know the core accidents,the MBAs.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
We just did a study that I just found this out.
Last week they did a study ofthe inmate populations here in
Florida.
83% of our inmates right nowhave a history of at least 4.3
TBIs and repetitive brain trauma, a lot of them from football.
43% of kids in juveniledetention right now from the age
(40:30):
of 16 to 18, same thing 4.3TBIs or RBI.
We can address recidivism,incarceration.
I mean these guys and womenthat suffered from domestic
abuse and violence.
None of them are being assessedfor the impact of their lives on
their brains and the mentalconditions that could have
caused them to commit thesecrimes.
(40:52):
And where the crimes aren'tabsolutely horrendous, can we at
least get them treatment toapprove their ability to
function as civilians and getback out?
And HBOT could absolutely youput an HBOT chamber in a jail
cell and have these people gothere, go to therapy.
Find God they can leave thosejail cells as better human
beings with a better chance ofand their brains are getting
(41:14):
better right, because we have noidea how many folks are sitting
in jail right now becausethey're mentally ill, because of
contact sports or we have.
I think the last count was like.
I think there's like 180,000incarcerated veterans in this
country.
None of them have ever beenevaluated for the impact of
service or training on theirbrains, bro and it's a pandemic.
(41:36):
It's a pandemic.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
It is crazy.
During the time when COVID cameup, we were trying to use
hyperbaric chambers to treatCOVID during COVID.
Oh, how'd that go?
It went poorly right.
Not standard of care, that'swhat the hospital told me and I
was like what standard of carefor a brand new thing?
I don't understand.
But, that being said, we werethinking of ways to get an
(42:00):
airplane which can hold a littlebit of pressure.
Right.
Get an airplane and have peoplewith masks on that were
breathing oxygen in the airplanelike hundreds of people at a
time.
That's what we need to startdoing Thinking about how to
scale to hundreds of people at atime, out of the box, out of
the box, thinking this is theand that's what needs to happen,
(42:21):
and it doesn't have to be atthis.
Crazy.
High pressures, high pressuresof oxygen Perfect is the enemy
of good enough.
We're just trying to get you tothe point where we can do a
little bit of healing and seehow it goes, get your body to
start to heal itself, and that'swhat all these guys claim.
Is that?
Wow, I started feeling betterabout two weeks into it and then
I started going back to the gym, which has its own positive
(42:45):
side effects.
And then I started drinkingmore water, which has its own
positive side effects.
Then I started talking topeople more, which has its own
positive side effects.
People don't get it.
It's not one thing, it'severything all at once.
Sorry.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Sorry, no, love it, man, love it.
That's what our folks need tohear, because it is everything
and you should be able to.
You know, we want to give thatveteran a Chinese food menu of
all these options and then mapout all those things.
Like you know, I was sufferingfrom premature ventricular
contractions till my sister, anurse, said you only drink Diet
Coke and beer.
(43:19):
Why don't you try drinking somewater?
Bam, no more PVC.
I'm like, yeah, I felt bettertoo, still drinking to this day.
But no, I mean to your point,joe.
This is the passion that'sgoing to drive this and
hopefully, with the newadministration, we get a little
bit more traction than we've had, or a lot more traction, and
we're up on the hill and twopieces of legislation up there,
(43:39):
both of including HBOT as amodality to be considered, to be
funded, to be covered and toget this out there because this
stuff saves money, it works andall we need is trials.
Unfortunately, what we need arethese gold standard trials that
you know how to put together,Unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
But University of South Florida is working on that
right.
Love those guys.
But University of South Floridais working on that right, love
those guys.
It's so interesting because RFKTrump and Ms Shanahan all have
a copy of my new book, the Artand Science of Hyperbaric
Medicine.
Nice Right, I sent it to them.
I'm like, yeah, I produced thisbook, I published this book.
I'm going to buy my own copyand send it to these people so
(44:21):
that they have the realinformation, the factual, you
know, uh, the stuff that's inthe literature and the research.
It's a little, probably high,but I figure if they have
questions about uh hyperbarics.
They can maybe consult the bookor call right, like, I'm into it
, I'll, I'll, I'll do anythingto help this project and to help
our veterans.
That's, that's my goal for therest of my life.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, we were into it too, man and I and I I think
there's some other people thatare trying to get H-Bot at the
special forces groups and theNavy SEAL teams and and dude any
guy, just go in there and pickit up, jump in there, man, and
hang out for a bit.
Right, Can't hurt, you know,it's just that 100% yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
As long as you don't take your lucky cigarette
lighter in with you, you'll beokay.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, just don't be that stupid, don't be that guy.
Just tell us how people findyou.
I want to close this out withyou talking about Joe Duterte.
Right, Where's Dr Joe Duterteat?
How do people find you?
How do they find your book?
Do you have a podcast?
What Guinness World Record?
Speaker 2 (45:24):
do you hold the longest amount of time spent in
a diving?
The longest dive in the world,basically, was 100 days of
living underwater at pressure,right, like there's been other
people that live in submarines.
But that's not at pressure,that's a totally different thing
.
I stayed underwater at pressure, did the longest dive in the
world.
So because it's at the samepressure at which we treat
(45:49):
traumatic brain injury here onthe surface.
I did that for that reason, sothat people could go oh, all of
his psychological, psychosocialscores got better.
Look, his HSCRP went down,interleukin-6 went down.
Oh, these are the mechanism ofaction of hyperbaric medicine.
So it's not just oh, I went togo chase a world record.
Who cares?
Right, and trust you when Itell you this is not about me.
(46:12):
You want to get in touch withDr Deepsea.
Just Google that guy and you'llfigure that guy out.
You know I'm kind of sort of allover the place, but if you're
interested in helping veterans,put your heart, your time and
your money behind a nonprofitlike the Mack Parkman Foundation
, like the other foundationsthat are out there doing good
for traumatic brain injury.
(46:33):
Don't worry about me.
I am blessed and I'm terrific.
Come look at what we're doing,but worry about those nonprofits
and the people that are takingcare of our veterans.
Think about thanking yourFlorida legislature for doing
this for the university of SouthFlorida, that kind of stuff.
Thank the people that areactually putting their money
where their mouth is.
Those are the people that needto be lauded for their decisions
(46:55):
and appreciated for their,their, their steadfast nature
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Amen, amen.
And how do they sign up for thestudy, joe, if they know
somebody who's struggling orsomebody that's had a TBI?
If you are a military?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
veteran with a mild to moderate traumatic brain
injury.
Click that, click that link,that QR code that I sent you
guys click, have them send thatand just scan it and it'll take
them right to the website andtick, tick, tick, tick, tick,
tick, tick and all they got todo is fill it in and somebody
will be in contact.
Now we're a little bit stuffedup, right, so it's going to be a
little bit we're behind, butthat's okay, we're getting,
(47:28):
we're getting through thesepeople, so we can't have too
many.
And even if we have too many,we'll go back to the legislature
and say, hey, we got more thanwe need more people, you got any
extra money?
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, We'll get some extra machines.
Cool beans, All right.
Well, Joe, thank you so muchfor your time today.
Amazing, bright podcast man.
You're an animal man.
We love having you on the show.
You take care of yourself, boss, man.
God bless you for what you'redoing for our veterans.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Can't wait to see you .
We'll see you soon.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, it's going to be great To all you out there.
Remember we have an open townhall on March 28th featuring Dr
Joe Duterte.
We're going to be talking aboutrepetitive blast exposure, its
impacts on veterans' brains, howto get treatment.
We're going to have Dr or MrMichael Hartford, who used to be
one of the lead directors forthe VA, to talk to you about how
to prep for a VA coverage andgo to them and claim these
(48:18):
injuries that you might not evenknow that you might have had.
And remember, we've got our bookout there.
It's for free, but turn it upright side up Broken Brains.
Get out there, get a copy ofthe book, send it to everybody.
You know you can download itoff our website for free.
We don't want to make any moneyoff it.
Go get it.
And our second internationalsummit, our repetitive brain
trial, will be held in Tampathis year in September 3rd and
(48:40):
4th.
Get those dates on the calendar.
But again, dr Joe Dettori, allof our fans out there, thank you
so much out there and we'lltalk to you next time on Broken
Branch.
Thank you.
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