Opioids, Addiction, Autonomic Health with Dr. Ron Gharbo
Episode Guest
Dr. Raouf (Ron) Gharbo,
Board certified in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Neuromuscular Electrophysiology
Website(s): www.ansrehabilitation.com
Social Media:
Episode Resources and Links
In This Episode
Dr. Gharbo has been using HRV for many years to successfully help people recover from addiction and improve autonomic nervous system health and strength. In this episode, he shares some of his unique experience in the field using HRV.
Dr. Gharbo completed specialty residency training in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at The Ohio State University Medical Center. He maintains an active practice as Clinical Associate Faculty at Eastern Virginia Medical School and has 20 years’ experience with neurorehabilitation, interventional and integrative chronic pain management. Dr. Gharbo is currently a clinical investigator on the first Randomized Control Trial Design Study of HRV biofeedback training for the treatment of chronic pain in veterans and has
also authored a chapter neuromuscular electrophysiology text.
During his senior year in college Dr. Gharbo became Ohio State’s first walk-on All-American wrestler and entered the school’s hall of fame as the university’s top male Scholar-athlete. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Award by Physicians for Peace for leading medical missions to support an Iraqi amputee clinic.
Dr. Gharbo seeks to develop pragmatic evidence-based solutions for the Opioid Crisis and healthcare and athletic burnout using medical grade HRV wearable devices. Recently in June of 2017, A Novel Method for Reproducible Placebo Analgesia with Empowerment was selected top poster presentation at the International Conference on Opioids.
- Intro and Dr Ron Gharbo’s background
- The scale and impact of the opioid crisis
- What is an opioid?
- The hyper-vigilant/fearful state: this is the “fire” that amplifies pain
- Similarities with the smoking (nicotine) addiction model
- Measuring hyper-vigilance and depression with HRV
- Dr. Gharbo started measuring HRV back in 2007
- Focusing on parasympathetic activation and strengthening
- Case study: transitioning out of opioid prescriptions
- “Hopeful”, “aha!” and “welcome back” moments in recovery from hyper-vigilance
- The hidden prevalence Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD)
- Cravings, dependence and addictions come in many different flavors
- Where to learn more and to find Dr Gharbo
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Understand the science and mechanisms behind Heart Rate Variability and how to apply them towards your goals. Use discount code ELITEPODCAST for 10% off of the Foundations of HRV course.