JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — As researchers across the world work to find a way to beat COVID-19, a Jacksonville doctor created a device that’s helping patients right now.
Dr. Peter Staats is the Chief Medical Officer of National Spine and Pain Center. He’s also the Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of ElectroCore, who created this device.
“Many years ago, I learned my son had peanut allergies and I started thinking about how do we apply a pain therapy to neuromodulation to block anaphylaxis and airway activity. We actually developed a device that can do just that,” Dr. Staats said.
It’s called the Gamma Core Sapphire CV device. It’s designed to stop pain signals from reaching the brain, originally approved to treat headaches and migraines. During the pandemic, they found success with coronavirus patients.
“The virus itself is bad,” Dr. Staats said. “But part of the reason why the virus is bad is because it activates the immune response in a really robust way. Overly robust to the point the body starts attacking itself.”
He said this device is used to calm the immune system with coronavirus patients.
When a virus spreads throughout the body, the immune system reacts to fight it off. With COVID-19, some patients’ immune systems went into overdrive and started attacking itself. The Gamma Core Sapphire tells the body to tamper down to normal levels.
A patient holds the device to either side of the neck for two minutes. It transfers energy to the vagus nerve inside the neck, essentially the control and command center of the body. Thus, sending the signal to the immune system. When this occurs, some patients with severe respiratory issues felt an immediate release.
“The early data looks pretty promising that this is helping patients recovery quickly, have improved airflow, breathe easier,” Dr. Staats said. “But we’re doing some randomized controlled trials both here in the U.S. and Spain.”
This is one of the few devices the FDA authorized to treat coronavirus patients at this time, like Remdesivir.
It is prescription-use only, access through a physician. Find more here: https://www.gammacore.com/about/.