Mass Shooting Survivor Returns — Is her PTSD Cured?

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Shelly survived a mass shooting that killed five at her workplace in the Cascade Mall – but she was left with crippling PTSD. The Doctors sent her to PTSD Specialist Dr. Eugene Lipov for a pioneering therapy. Now Shelly is back with an update on her condition.

Dr. Lipov performs a systemic amygdala blockade – an injection in the right side of Shelly’s neck at the C6 vertebra to block signals of stress and trauma in her brain. It’s a brief procedure that’s usually effective, but Shelly says she feels no lessening in her symptoms afterward.

Watch: Mass Shooting Survivor Lives with PTSD

Shelly undergoes the procedure again, this time with an injection at the C3 vertebra. While lying in the recovery room she says, “I feel so much more calm. I definitely think it worked.I feel different now when I think about the incident.” She adds, “It’s not like you’re a different person. You’re back to normal.”

Shelly says that she cried all the way to Chicago for treatment, but on the way home she felt completely unstressed. Dr. Lipov says, “That double injection or sequential block — we’ve been doing that more and more. Because what it seems to do is, when you do a C6 injection on the right side, it seems to reboot only part of the amygdala, the brain part responsible for PTSD. When we do one at C3, it seems to kick in the second part of it.”

Watch: Surprises for Mass Shooting Survivor

Now that she’s feeling better, one of Shelly’s priorities is to take her three children on vacation – they’ve never been on a trip together. ER Physician Dr. Travis Stork announces that she’s getting some help with that vacation, courtesy of hotel search website Trivago! They’re providing $5,000 for a dream vacation for Shelly and her family!