Dr. Herskowitz: Hi, my name is Dr. Ahvie Herskowitz, and we’re sitting here with
some of my favorite people—two special guests. We’re at Anatara Medicine in San
Francisco. I have my good friend Karen Cooley here. We’ve known each other now
for almost 13 years, and she’s going to talk about her journey with SPS, Stiff-person
syndrome.

You know, she’s come a very long way with it, and we wanted to share that with the
public. I also want to introduce you to Dr. Shawn Tierney from Southern California,
and I’ll have him introduce himself more clearly. He has been a pivotal player in
getting Karen all the way through her story, which she’ll tell us in her own words. So, Dr. Tierney…

Dr. Tierney: Hey. Yeah, so I’m Dr. Shawn Tierney. I’m a Musculoskeletal Sonologist,
and my specialty is really teaching, guiding, and assisting in neuromusculoskeletal
diagnosis and procedures. One of the procedures we do a lot of is sympathetic
blocks, whether it’s a Stellate Block or a lumbar sympathetic block. Another thing we
do a lot is something we call, Nerve Hydrodissection.
I just mention these things because in this case, both have been useful. And it’s one
of those therapies in healthcare that’s not covered as broadly as we would like. This
is not alternative medicine; it’s just a more precise, advanced use of guided
procedures.

Dr. Herskowitz: So, Karen had a stellate ganglion block just about an hour and a
half ago, so she’s a little bit cautious about her face being a little droopy and her left
eye drooping a bit. But that all means the stellate block is working. So, we won’t
necessarily talk specifically about that. But I did want her to share her story with
SPS. This is a very serious illness. She’s been cared for by the specialized team at
UC San Francisco for a number of years. But I wanted you to tell the story about
what happened and how severely you were affected by that.

Karen: Wow. Okay. So, for a long time, nobody could diagnose me. I was going to a
lot of regular medical places to try to get diagnosed. They kept saying, “I don’t know
what you have.” I was having spasms, I was getting stiffer, and I couldn’t walk. It got
to where I ruptured both ilio-psoas muscles, so I had no ability to move my legs. I
was having terrible, horrific spasms—many nights, not every night, but many nights,
all night long—where my husband would have to turn me over every 5 minutes. It
was, it is one of those illnesses that makes you think someone should just push you
off a cliff.

But I am managed now in a way that is kind of amazing, actually. I was told by the
medical community that I would never walk again, so of course, I came back to
Ahvie, where I had gotten so many treatments for other things before. And he said, "I
think I have something to help you." He had me inject some BPC-157 peptides.

And in one month, I could start to walk with a walker again. And keep in mind, I
ruptured my hips six months apart, and for the six months after I ruptured one, I was
doing warm water therapy twice a week. But when they found the other one
ruptured, they said, "I’m sorry, this one’s still just as ruptured. And if scar tissue
doesn’t heal it, you’re just out of luck. You’re not going to be able to move your legs."
I mean, I don’t know about you, but I never thought it would be my dream to be able
to walk with a walker again. But anything to be able to not be a bedridden person.

So, when he gave me the first peptide—and we’ve done a number of other things
since, some amazing things—I can’t even describe to you the healing process that
has happened for me with that. And Dr. Tierney has been my godsend as I’ve gotten
a little bit better because the stellate ganglion block that he does quiets the nervous
system. And, you know, one of the things that this illness does is amp up the
nervous system. So, what happens is it starts pulling my ribs out, it starts pulling my
neck out, my spine…

Dr. Herskowitz: So, Karen, you have a rare illness.

Karen: It’s a horrible illness.

Dr. Herskowitz: The one famous person I think in the world who has this is Celine
Dion, who gave an amazing presentation at the Olympic Games.

Karen: Yes.

Dr. Herskowitz: She blew it out of the water, certainly. She looked great. At the
same time, you also had other events, like when you broke your ankle last year. But
when you first came in with SPS, you were in a wheelchair.

Karen: Yes.

Dr. Herskowitz: And then you graduated to a walker.

Karen: Yes.

Dr. Herskowitz: And today, you walked in on your own.

Karen: And I can dance. I can move, I can turn. I mean, balance is a huge issue with
this illness. And after breaking my foot and it not feeling right, thank God I got some
special treatment from Dr. Tierney. So, my foot has actually been regenerating. If
you could see me walk or dance today, you wouldn’t know that I was the same
person five or four years ago.

I don’t know, the time is blurred. Even my brain went down due to this illness. Ahvie
saw me in a wheelchair and said, “Ahvie, I can’t remember anything… I don’t know
what’s wrong with me”. You know, I had to stop working for three years. Now, I’ve
taken on the toughest client we have. And so, what I would say is, you know, for
anybody who has stiff-person syndrome, there isn’t another place that I’ve been able
to find that does the things these guys do.

Dr. Herskowitz: Well, I thank you for that. It’s really encouraging that there is
something that at least one person has done. And we have other types of clients with
other syndromes—genetic disorders—that we can bring back. But it’s a unifying
theory of the body being a system.

Dr. Herskowitz: So, we don’t just focus on one system. Here, there’s a neurological
reset. It requires the brain to reset. It requires the whole sympathetic and
parasympathetic nervous systems to reset. It requires the immune system to reset
back down to a calmer state, so to speak. And if you forget one of them, you may not
get the full benefit. 

Dr. Herskowitz: But this has been a long journey, and for us, watching you do the
jitterbug today. That was amazing…

Dr. Tierney: That was amazing. Very smooth motion.

Dr. Herskowitz: And I will add it to the end of this video just for you to see what’s
possible. One of the other things that’s extraordinarily special about Karen is her
willpower. She never believed that she wouldn’t get better, and she understood deep
in her heart that you’re not here to be in a wheelchair.

Dr. Herskowitz: You’re here to live life. And now you spend the winters in Portugal with your loving husband. Cognitively, the amount of work that she does is very high-level stuff. It’s basically collaborating with CEOs across Silicon Valley to coach them.
So, you have to be with it, and you were afraid to be with it when your so-called brain fog was a bit out of control, but that’s inflammation. But what’s going on in your ankles is truly regenerative…

Karen: Yes.

Dr. Herskowitz: …And what’s going on in your appearance? I won’t tell the
audience how old you are, but you look spectacular.

Karen: I’m 63, and that’s fine to say. Thank you. But yeah, sometimes I wish I were
23, but we haven’t quite gotten there yet. Anyway, I’m living life again—full out living
life again.

Dr. Herskowitz: Well, for me, it’s this collaboration with Dr. Tierney that’s so
meaningful because I’ve been waiting for a master practitioner to collaborate with,
and I’ve certainly found him in Dr. Tierney, who’s probably one of the most qualified
people on earth to do this type of work.

And it’s brilliant to be able to work together as we are all day today, and to converge
and give you what you actually need, in this case, this is what you really needed.

Karen: All of these things are what I need. They work on the holistic system in a way
that, yeah, has been completely life changing and changed the trajectory of my
whole life. So, I thank you both.

Dr. Herskowitz: And thank you for taking the time. Thank you, Dr. Tierney.

Dr. Tierney: Thank you.

Karen: Thank you.