Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome, everyone.
[00:00:04] Welcome back to Anti Aging unraveled with me, Dr. Lori Gerber.
[00:00:08] And we're talking about all things regenerative, restorative, and refreshingly real.
[00:00:14] Why? Because we have a regeneration event coming up at Refresh. I'm very excited to launch this event with our PA Lauren, and it is actually coming up on the 10 10th in the evening from 5:30 to 8:30. Join us. I'm very excited. We're going to do a demo of ozone, hopefully, and we're going to do some other regenerative procedures so we can really get a good idea of how to basically bring life back into your cells, which is what the topic of this podcast is called. It's called breathe life back into your cells the ozone therapy revolution. So we're going to dive right into a therapy that has been helping my patients heal on a cellular level, and that is ozone therapy. It has been a game changer for me, and I know that for many of you, it's something that will help with healing and recovery and actually increase energy and cellular energy and even longevity.
[00:01:08] So let's just dive right in. So when people hear about ozone, they think about the ozone layer. But in medicine, ozone is a supercharged form of oxygen. It's actually O3 instead of O2, and it's used to improve circulation, energy, and immune balance.
[00:01:26] And while it's been gaining traction here in the United States, it's been a mainstay in Germany and Europe for more than 100 years.
[00:01:33] So today, we're breaking it all down. What is ozone therapy, how it works, where it came from, and why? It's one of the safest and most versatile tools in integrative medicine.
[00:01:44] So let's start off with a little history, because, like I said, ozone therapy is not new. It was actually developed in Germany in the early 1900s, when physicians discovered that ozone gas could sterilize wounds and disinfect surgical instruments long before antibiotics even existed. So during World War II or World War I. Sorry. German doctors used ozone in field hospitals. They noticed that something remarkable happened. It didn't just kill bacteria. Bacteria, but it actually accelerated wound healing.
[00:02:17] So, fast forward a few decades, ozone therapy became recognized as a medical specialty in Europe.
[00:02:23] So German physicians began performing what's called autohemotherapy, which we'll get into a little later, a process where blood is drawn, it's mixed with the ozone, then reintroduced into the whole body to boost oxygen and utilization and detoxification.
[00:02:40] So actually, the German Medical Society for ozone therapy oversees hundreds of clinics in Germany and other parts of the world where ozone is routinely used for chronic infections, poor circulation, immune imbalance, and even skin regeneration. We use an aesthetics because it helps to heal and recover tissues and make them actually a lot more supple.
[00:03:03] While it might sound cutting edge here, it's been a trusted standard, but over abroad and in Germany for decades. So not new to the world, just new probably to my listeners and to the area and to the US There are a lot of practices using United States. I just don't know of very many around my area that are currently doing so.
[00:03:23] But ozone, let's talk about really what it does and how it works.
[00:03:28] It's oxygen with an extra oxygen molecule. So it's O3 instead of O2 like I said. And that extra oxygen molecule makes it highly active. So it stimulates your body's natural healing responses in a very controlled and beneficial way.
[00:03:44] So it actually interacts with your red blood cells and your plasma to improve oxygen delivery and utilization. So making sure you have a whole bunch of oxygen around, reducing inflammation and oxidative stress from environmental damage and internal damage for that matter. So supporting the immune system and activating your mitochondrial energy production. We're all talking about mitochondria online and they are the cellular powerhouses, right? You guys heard me talk about peptides and mitochondrial health.
[00:04:15] Ozone is a really great synergy there.
[00:04:18] So there's very. A few different ways that we can actually give you ozone, depending on what we're treating. So we're going to talk about the most common and most powerful options, which are major and minor autohemotherapy. Auto meaning basically we're delivering it into your body, hemotherapy into your blood.
[00:04:39] So major, as it insinuates, uses a little bit more blood and minor uses a little less blood. So you'll often hear about me talk about these as big M.
[00:04:50] Ah, and little M. Ah, little M is minor, big M is major.
[00:04:56] They have very different purposes, however. And they do. I shouldn't say different purposes. They have different focuses. They actually will do the very similar thing and actually decrease the inflammation, improve the immune system. But in major, we draw about 100 to 200 milliliters of blood.
[00:05:15] We put it into a sterile closed system, and we actually so think about an IV bag. And then we put the medical grade ozone that we make the gas into that blood and it reacts and actually turns bright red. Pretty interesting. And it turns nice red oxygenated blood. And then we actually have molecules in there called ozonides that are very powerful oxygen molecules. And Some ozone and then we re infuse that oxygen rich blood into the veins. So actually we don't even do anything other than take the bag and rehang it.
[00:05:48] Well, here's the magic now guys, that it's super oxygenated. Your cells start using oxygen more efficiently across every organ system.
[00:05:57] Patients like myself notice more energy, clearer thinking, faster recovery from illness or fatigue, and less inflammation. It's a total body upgrade. It's systemic, it works everywhere.
[00:06:11] Then there's the minor autohemotherapy and that is taking a smaller version of blood. So a few mls, maybe 5 or 10 cc or milliliters of blood, we put the ozone into that blood and then we actually inject it intramuscularly into the small part of the glute usually.
[00:06:30] And what we're trying to do is actually give a very gentle immune modulating effect, which means think about taking the immune system and calming it down, making it more stable. It's kind of like a natural vaccine response to help your immune system recalibrate.
[00:06:47] So if someone's getting allergies for example, or an autoimmune flare, we can give this minor to help them with their immune system and just say, you know what, here, calm down, you don't need as much immune overdrive. Let's stop it. Let's stop getting allergic to all of our seasonal allergies. Let's stop being allergic to all those pets. It'll help with viral load for chronic infection and obviously general detox illness. Like I talked about earlier, energy levels and longevity. It's a great way, especially if you don't have great veins. We can do it on, on that, that way where we just draw a little bit of blood and then we just re injected in sub Q or im.
[00:07:27] So they're both safe, effective, and used successfully for decades in Europe now and are increasing, like I said in integrative practices in the United States.
[00:07:36] So let's talk about one of my favorite applications.
[00:07:39] Not to be last but not least, for sure. It's called Prolon therapy.
[00:07:44] Prolozone is for, think about it, for joints or muscle pains, joint injuries, shoulders, knees, even back, and like sub Q and for discs. It combines vitamins, minerals and medical ozone.
[00:08:00] And we actually put it into a little syringe and we directly inject it into the joint, into the muscle, into tendons, into ligaments.
[00:08:08] Ozone immediately improves circulation, actually will increase blood flow and bring blood flow to the area, reduce the inflammation of that joint or that problem area and trigger collagen regeneration and revascularization.
[00:08:23] So think about it as giving it like your tissue, a cellular defibrillator. We're reawakening those cells and we're helping its ability to repair.
[00:08:32] So actually, there's studies from Germany, Italy and Spain that show up to a 75% of chronic pain patients become pain free after a series of prolozone treatments. In my practice, I've seen it help everything from chronic knee arthritis pain, rotator cuff injuries and tmj, even after failed years of conventional care and therapies. So it's actually a great procedure. We do it once every.
[00:09:03] We say once every two to three weeks, up to every four to six weeks, depending on how it's working and what we're putting into that syringe. I like to start once every two to three weeks personally for the joints and maybe even closer together for the minor and major autohemotherapies.
[00:09:22] But when you restore oxygen to the tissue and a little bit of ozone, which is antibacterial, antiviral, you're restoring life to that area.
[00:09:33] We're giving a whole systemic body, whole healing effect.
[00:09:37] So it's not just about pain relief, it's about whole body optimization.
[00:09:42] And again, we're going to kind of support your immune system, boost the mitochondria, improve circulation and neutralize pathogens. This is key.
[00:09:52] We know that many bugs that are in our system are creating chronic disease, autoimmune disease, inflammation, even some joint pains. We think a lot of arthritis might be related and obviously just feeling lousy overall.
[00:10:09] From bacteria to virus and even mold, ozone is wonderful for this.
[00:10:14] So that's why one of the reasons used worldwide to support conditions like autoimmune disease, chronic infection, chronic fatigue, we could say long haul, Covid, poor circulation and even metabolic dysfunction. Someone with severe insulin resistance and metabolism issues. We know that ozone has been really good for that.
[00:10:33] European longevity clinics are even pairing it with the hot buzzwords. Here we go. Nad, everyone's talking about it. Glutathione, everyone's talking about it.
[00:10:42] IVs, and of course, peptides. Peptides are huge with stem cells and ozone. We're using them as a synergy, specifically BPC157 with TB500 and some of our growth hormone stimulators and some of our mitochondrial repair peptides like MOT C to help to create a synergistic healing effect and of course, with detox pathways as well. So at Dr. Laurie Integrative Medicine, we do a lot of these combo therapies beautifully with the advanced modality of the ozone with your peptides and Nadine, glutathione and some treating the bugs, which we're going to talk about, it's been a game changer.
[00:11:27] So obviously if I'll talk about a little about treating chronic infection.
[00:11:32] But ozone done once a week in the beginning and then once every two weeks, then once every three weeks will help to bring things down like Lyme disease, chronic Epstein Barr, mold toxicity and mold exposures, long haul Covid and some. A lot of the bugs that we're testing for in some of this testing that we're going to talk about that are just sitting in the body parasites as well.
[00:11:55] But ozone works. A lot of those supplements that I'm using for that conventional, I should say conventional integrative health therapies. Why? Because ozone breaks biofilms. It's the sticky little bubble that bugs put around themselves so they can't get found by the immune system.
[00:12:13] It enhances immune cell performance and makes them more vigilant and actually perform better.
[00:12:19] And it increases oxygen available availability to those tissues. So now we have good oxygen delivery, we have the immune system working on a higher level and we're breaking down the bio sticky films that the pathogens will hide under, reducing the inflammatory burden and inflammation. Getting rid of a lot of the bad inflammatory cells and bringing in the good inflammatory healing cytokines is key.
[00:12:45] All right, so it works as part of what I like to call a bigger bug ecosystem, if you will, or integrative ecosystem, because we really need to know what we're treating. So ozone is great for longevity. You don't need to test for longevity if it's just for energy and kind of metabolism help, you probably don't even need to test for that. But if you're pretty sure, or if I'm pretty sure when I talk to you that there's a bug or a pathogen or maybe heavy metals or exposures.
[00:13:13] I always say test, don't guess.
[00:13:15] Very important to check the stool for pathogens and microbes. Map it out so that we know we're looking for molds, mycotoxins, heavy metals for environmental exposures, pesticides, looking for viral reactivation such as Epstein Barr CMV, HHV6 or even other microbes such as a Mycoplasma pneumonia, super common after Covid and Lyme and its co infection. So really getting those tests and getting them from labs that are not traditional labs is key because in all honesty, these tests, one, aren't done in traditional labs and two, are not very accurate on traditional laboratory testing. So we have specialty labs that run these panels for you, get really good answers, and then we start working to clear you out. We can even test you for how well your body is able to oxidate or get rid of the things that are bothering your, your mitochondria specifically, and your body to help you detox. What support mechanisms do I need to give you, genetically speaking, that you're maybe you're not good at all? Right, so let's talk about some of those tools that I like to incorporate in with ozone for some of the bugs. I'm going to give you some buzzwords of good supplements that I use or ingredients I should say, that are in a lot of the supplements that we use.
[00:14:35] Monolaurin, cat's claw, berberine, artemisinin, Japanese knotwood, silver and some other herbs all help to balance that microbial load. Think about them like herbal antivirals, antibiotics.
[00:14:50] We like to put those on board and do the ozone together to get maximum benefit.
[00:14:56] Why? Because the ozone is gonna help you clear it out and kill it off. And these herbs are also gonna help you in between your sessions. So. So the goal would be the sessions get longer apart or further apart, and you're taking the herbals and helping, letting us help you to slowly detox while you're in between sessions.
[00:15:13] Another one, let's talk about detox. NAC and glutathione. Let's help those cells prevent the oxidative stress. Let's reverse some of the damage, let's get some of the stuff out of your cells and into the bloodstream and excreted.
[00:15:29] Decreasing inflammation while you're detoxifying is super important.
[00:15:33] One, because we want to help get it out of the system so it doesn't make you feel sick. But two, we need to have a gut, good gut and immune system combined to stop and prevent new things from coming back. So food sensitivities, new pathogens, things like that. So I'm really big on treating the gut and the immune system and putting you on high dose turmeric to help suppress a lot of that inflammatory response.
[00:16:00] Also keeping your cortisol and stress response imbalance with adaptogens like rhodiola and ashwagandha. And then last but not least, putting foundational products on board like a vitamin D, quercetin, your fish oils, because we want to fortify your immune system and obviously all of your nutrients.
[00:16:20] So sometimes I'll even do a really good smoothie diet to help people's guts just relax and rest and digest and not allow all the Assault of foods on our system for a good two weeks. So using ozone in combination with these other modalities, as you guys know, I like to talk about. I don't like to say anything's in isolation. They're all in pyramids. And really the gut, immune, brain, which we know is one of my favorite topics.
[00:16:46] And ozone can help all of that. It's actually used tremendously for gut protocols and decreasing inflammation rectally and then taking down the inflammation in the gut, your immune system starts to get better. And doing it through the bloodstream, we can make a similar, similar effect occur.
[00:17:04] And then the brain on fire calms down as well. So all that brain inflammation that also happens with the immune system being all revved up starts to get better. Mental clarity comes from not just the oxygenation of the tissues, but decreasing the inflammation of the brain and the gut all working together.
[00:17:24] So ozone gives the body the oxygen signaling it needs to help the other therapies be really effective as well. So that we can start to prolong the time in between the ozone therapies and start to actually eradicate some of these things.
[00:17:38] So you have real sustainable resiliency in the body. And we're obviously helping to create that to be more long term with the supplements that we give you.
[00:17:48] So one of the questions that I get most commonly is if ozone is so effective, why isn't FDA approved? So I want to just give a little, a little commentary on the truth about ozone therapy. So ozone is. Its safety and efficacy are well established internationally.
[00:18:07] But in the United States, it's obviously still considered off label and as an integrative treatment. Which means it hasn't gone through the expensive FDA approval process for specific medical claim. It's not that it's unsafe, it's one that it's a gas that gets kind of a bad rap. Ozone in general, especially for obviously in inhaled. We don't like, we won't, we won't want to inhale ozone gas and high levels. But ozone therapy has an extremely low adverse event rate when administered correctly by trained physicians.
[00:18:44] Medical Ozone is generated from pure oxygen and used immediately with very specific converters and buffer systems. No preservatives, no chemical. And maybe the key to why it's not FDA approved, There's no pharmaceuticals or drugs in here.
[00:19:02] So in order to get something FDA approved, generally speaking, it needs to be a substance that the FDA can get involved in, which has to be usually a drug or a prescriptive agent. And it's not a food, which would be another reason they can get involved. It's non toxic, non addictive, supports natural body physiology.
[00:19:23] It's just not gone through what I would consider, you know, the expensive FDA approval process for a medical claim.
[00:19:31] If you guys Google this, millions and millions of treatments in Europe and North America, to be honest, the safety record remains really, really outstanding. It is one of the most trusted therapies in functional medicine worldwide. If you look worldwide, I encourage you to Google it. Overseas practices, it's almost like physical therapy. It's so common overseas. They have whole clinics just dedicated to healing and repair, basically instead of a pain management clinic, which is quite interesting, right? We're all struggling with the pain medicine crisis in our country. And ozone is an amazing adjunct to that in a lot of different ways. For fibromyalgia, which we think is bug mediated, for chronic pain syndromes and obviously chronic bug inflammatory autoimmune disease and joint pains.
[00:20:19] So what's it like to actually receive ozone therapy? For me, I find it very relaxing. And in all honesty, when I'm done, I'm super energized.
[00:20:29] The short sessions, the minor, yeah, maybe about 20 minutes or so at most. The major, you're running about 60 to 70 minutes. Because it just depends on how long it takes your body to drip basically the blood back in and to drip it, to drip it out, for that matter.
[00:20:45] Clarity, better sleep, a gentle detox effect initially as it starts to recalibrate. And we will work with you if we think it's a bug. Obviously, we're always trying to work with you to try to detoxify and kill off those infections while we're treating you with the ozone therapy so that you don't feel sick as you're killing off some of these bugs. It is something that we really look at to make sure that you're constantly feeling better, not worse. There is something called a Herxheimer reaction that can happen initially when we kill off chronic infections. But like I said, we work very hard to give you the tools necessary to not feel worse before you get better.
[00:21:27] Lots of glutathione, plenty of hydration, nutrient support to optimize your detox and recovery. We really want to make sure that, you know, you're getting the fluids to flush everything out of the system. That's really, really important. We say water, vitamin C, glutathione, all to help your cells recover.
[00:21:50] Sometimes leaving, like I said, give you things to help bind up any bugs and actually excrete them out of your stool. While you're also working with these ozone protocols.
[00:22:00] So ozone therapy is a beautiful bridge between healing and longevity. And it restores oxygen, balances inflammation, trains your cells to functionally, to, sorry, to function optimally again.
[00:22:12] So when combining peptides, bioidentical hormones, precision lifestyle plan, obviously exercise ozone becomes a cornerstone for healthy aging. Oh, and of course, eating healthy.
[00:22:27] But it doesn't just work for healing up and recovery.
[00:22:31] It also extends your lifespan and health span. So when we talk about aging your way, which is one of our most common expressions at Dr. Lurie, ozone fits perfectly. We do ozone at Dr. Lurie, sorry, refresh wellness. So if it's in Newtown, Pennsylvania, if you're local to us, if you can drive a little bit of a distance, I promise you it's worth it.
[00:22:55] It's one of those things where once you do it, I promise you won't look backwards because you really do feel the difference.
[00:23:03] So from its origins in early 20th century Germany to its place in modern regenerative medicine, ozone therapy continues to prove that oxygen really is life's great greatest medicine. Right?
[00:23:16] Not just oxygen, but the O3 that the oxygen provides with the ozone is key and crucial to the anti inflammatory and autoimmune benefit and prolongation of longevity. So if you've been struggling with these things, guys, it might be time to give yourselves, no pun intended, a breath of fresh air, literally.
[00:23:39] So give us a call at Refresh. Send us an email. Like I said, it's refresh wellness.net you can send us a little message. We'll get you a free consultation, but our goal is to help you put all the pieces together in an integrative practice. Do the testing, treat the infection or the bug, and get the ozone on board. Because aging really isn't about adding years, it's about adding life to your years.
[00:24:05] So continue to age your way with us, guys. Thank you.
