Vital Spark

Key Points From This Episode:

• Tiffany shares the founding story of her organization, Heroes of the Prescription Epidemic (HOPE)
• The two-part mission behind everything being done by HOPE.
• Diversity of the HOPE board of directors and the value of this board to the organization.
• Why Tiffany named her organization HOPE.
• Problems with the traditional treatment methods of OUD.
• Quantifying the opioid epidemic in the United States.
• Types of organizations that HOPE is looking to partner with in order to achieve their mission.
• The ripple effect of positivity that occurs when a person with OUD is assisted towards sobriety.
• Three approaches that HOPE is using to achieve its goals.
• Benefits of using bioelectric medicine to treat OUD.
• Different routes to opioid addiction.
• How you can get involved with HOPE.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Tiffany Wharton on LinkedIn

Heroes of the Prescription Epidemic (HOPE)

Daniel Wagner on LinkedIn

Spark Biomedical, Inc.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Tiffany shares the founding story of her organization, Heroes of the Prescription Epidemic (HOPE)
• The two-part mission behind everything being done by HOPE.
• Diversity of the HOPE board of directors and the value of this board to the organization.
• Why Tiffany named her organization HOPE.
• Problems with the traditional treatment methods of OUD.
• Quantifying the opioid epidemic in the United States.
• Types of organizations that HOPE is looking to partner with in order to achieve their mission.
• The ripple effect of positivity that occurs when a person with OUD is assisted towards sobriety.
• Three approaches that HOPE is using to achieve its goals.
• Benefits of using bioelectric medicine to treat OUD.
• Different routes to opioid addiction.
• How you can get involved with HOPE.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Tiffany Wharton on LinkedIn

Heroes of the Prescription Epidemic (HOPE)

Daniel Wagner on LinkedIn

Spark Biomedical, Inc.

On “Vital Spark,” host Daniel Wagner, the Chief Commercial Officer at Spark Medical, chats with Dr. Joel Hansen, the Chief Medical Officer at Altium Health, about the new, innovative IV treatment options and how IV treatment can significantly impact recovery for patients dealing with addiction. 

Wagner and Hansen talked about

• Different types of detoxification methods
• The history and current state of IV treatment as a solution for ambulatory detox
• How NAD+ IV benefits patients who undergo treatment with it 

Dr. Joel Hansen is Chief Medical Officer at Altium Health, where he’s worked since 2019 and specializes in ambulatory detox. He previously worked in other treatment and recovery centers as a psychiatrist and medical director and is a graduate of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. 

“NAD is one of those substances that helps clean up the nervous system, calm down the inflammatory response, so they showed some definite healing of neurons using NAD infusions for people with Alzheimer’s … When this NAD is added to a detox protocol then what they’re finding is that the healing process happens much more quickly and it tends to be longer acting,” said Hansen.

Detoxing the body after opioid use can take a series of steps to eliminate toxins efficiently and effectively. Detoxification can be a lengthy experience. It is just as much a mental process as a physical one. In addition to general mental health counseling, many centers catering to people suffering from opioid use disorder (OUD) offer a myriad of services to help the patients reach full recovery — including detoxification therapies. One of those detox solutions is known as Intravenous (IV) treatment.

IV treatment (or therapy) can assist the body’s natural detoxification process by boosting its capabilities. There are many types of IV solutions available, and some offer more comprehensive benefits than others, so it’s recommended to consult with your care provider to know what’s right for you.

On “Vital Spark,” host Daniel Wagner, the Chief Commercial Officer at Spark Medical, chats with Dr. Joel Hansen, the Chief Medical Officer at Altium Health, about the new, innovative IV treatment options and how IV treatment can significantly impact recovery for patients dealing with opioid use disorder.

Wagner and Hansen talked about

• Different types of detoxification methods

• The history and current state of IV treatment as a solution for ambulatory detox

• How NAD+ IV benefits patients who undergo treatment with it

“NAD is one of those substances that helps clean up the nervous system and calm down the inflammatory response. When this NAD is added to a detox protocol then what they’re finding is that the healing process happens much more quickly, and it tends to be longer acting,” said Hansen.

On this episode of Vital Spark, our new host, Dan Wagner, Chief Commercial Officer of Spark Biomedical, spoke with two representatives from the Medical University of South Carolina.

• Dorothea Jenkins, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Medical University of South Carolina Division of Neonatology, and 
• Bashar Badran, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences Medical University of South Carolina,

They are actively involved in treating this disorder and spoke about their combined efforts utilizing translational therapies with neurostimulation on babies with NOWS. 

Jenkins and Badran discuss: 

• The effects of certain opioids on the neurology of the brains of babies 
• New non-evasive brain stimulation treatments to combat NOWS 
• Learnings from utilizing auricular neurostimulation on babies with NOWS 

“We are on track towards the better understanding of reasonable, high-ranking hypothesis that may be the reason why we get such beneficial effects of auricular neurostimulation,” Badran said.” 

Dorothea Jenkins, M.D. is a professor of Pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina Division of Neonatology who does research and translational therapies for babies with brain injuries.

Bashard Badran, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina. He is a neuroscientist who works on brain stimulation research and device development. 

Powell suggested that a critical aspect of helping individuals and their families is to provide up-to-date education, resources, and accurate information — which is why the company is launching its podcast Vital Spark. Powell stated, “Addiction normally is coming from a place of trauma, normally coming from a place of someone trying to heal but not have the resources, so they’re coping.” Spark is offering a treatment option and now adding resources to ensure patients and their families are armed with the best information possible.

Spark Biomedical offers a solution to supplement traditional drug-based opioid withdrawal therapies through its wearable neurostimulation device, the Sparrow™ Therapy System. This drug-free treatment option uses transcutaneous auricular neurostimulation (tAN®) and is applied to the skin on and around the ear to stimulate the trigeminal and Vagus nerves that surface just below the skin in these areas. Worn by patients thorough the five-to-ten-day withdrawal period, this FDA-cleared treatment option has been clinically proven to significantly reduce acute withdrawal symptoms within 30 to 60 minutes of active use. 

The company also has its sights set on understanding how its Sparrow Therapy wearable neurostimulation solution can impact PTSD and improve cognition, among other profound effects. More specifically, Spark recently kicked off a Phase II clinical trial to study the effect wearable neurostimulation can have on long-term addiction. Powell stated, “The overall goal has always been to be a recovery tool for long-term addiction.” He added, “After you get through withdrawal and what we’re starting clinical trials on, is can we manage your cravings, your depression, your anxiety, the triggers for relapse and actually fix the curve and start to bend the curve of addiction in America?”

Powell’s advice for supporters of addicted individuals? Don’t try to fix them. Have compassion for them and their journey. And, if they need support for opioid withdrawal, have them ask their care provider about the Sparrow Therapy System.” For more information on this topic, follow Spark Biomedical’s LinkedIn account and visit sparkbiomedical.com. 

“When you consider reward in relation to eating and having sex, the reasons why you eat is to keep your body alive. In terms of sex and procreation, this is extremely important for our species to stay alive. So, the system of reward in the brain is a survival function, and it is primarily driven by one specific neurochemical called dopamine,” Dr. Khodaparast explained. 

Dopamine

In a healthy brain, as you start introducing substances of abuse like opioids, they bind directly to the opioid receptor in the brain. The consequence of that binding is that the receptor releases dopamine, the same kind of reward you get for procreating or eating. 

Opioid Hijacking

As you start taking external or exogenous opioids, you begin replacing the need for natural, internally produced dopamine. Essentially, you create your own dopamine surges using external opioids—a process called opioid hijacking.  

Opioid Tolerance

The longer opioids are taken, the more dependent the brain becomes on them. Although there is euphoria in the beginning stages, your brain will stop producing as much dopamine as you continue to take opioids for more extended periods. This is what’s called tolerance. At some point, there aren’t enough drugs or substances of abuse that you can take to get pleasure anymore. At that point, you’re taking these substances primarily to function. 

Traditional opioid addiction treatment methods primarily focus on substitution treatments like buprenorphine, Suboxone, and methadone. Non-opioid options generally focus on comfort medications to help endure the withdrawal symptoms. Beyond the drug-related remedies, the only drug-free option has been abstinence and cold turkey.  

Wearable Neurostimulation

Spark’s FDA-cleared wearable device called the Sparrow Therapy System offers providers and patients a drug-free withdrawal treatment option where none existed before. Treatment is provided via Transcutaneous Auricular Neurostimulation (tAN®). It plays a fantastic role in being able to help patients get to an opioid antagonist medication or transition patients off other opioid-based detox treatment medication. 

Here’s how it works.

The Sparrow Therapy System stimulates nerves that surface on and around your ear, activating both a branch of the trigeminal and the Vagus nerves. When you activate these nerves, Spark’s theory, currently in clinical trial testing, is that it releases endogenous (natural) opioids, aka endorphins, and fills the vacant opioid receptors. So, in a patient coming off heroin, who will experience withdrawal within six to 12 hours after their last dose, Sparrow neurostimulation intervenes to fill those receptors and reduce the amount of withdrawal within the first 30 to 60 minutes of treatment. It helps patients mitigate or reduce withdrawal and allows patients to more comfortably move on to the critical work of long-term addiction treatment.  

For more information on this topic, follow Spark Biomedical’s LinkedIn account and visit sparkbiomedical.com. Or subscribe and tune in to “Vital Spark,” a Spark Biomedical podcast.

For Randy Grimes, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers Center and Pro Athletes in Recovery Founder, football was always a way of life. Grimes was a star high school player with the opportunity to play anywhere in the Big-12. Landing Baylor, meeting and marrying his cheerleader wife, and eventually being drafted to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was all his life’s dream. But, the tables quickly turned when the game became a job, and the pains and pressures of the job turned into an ongoing drug addiction.

How It Began

“I was that guy willing to do whatever I had to, to stay out on the field. And that was taking handfuls of pain pills every day and handfuls of sleeping pills every night to sleep through that throbbing pain.” Grimes said, “I looked at it more like a necessary evil more than what it really was, which was a full-blown addiction.”

Even years after his NFL career ended, Grimes was still abusing opiates. “When I was not Randy Grimes the football player anymore, then those opiates kind of took over that feeling, too,” he said. “That loss of identity really stung for a long time.”

The Turning Point

Randy finally came to a turning point in his addiction when he realized the magnitude of his issue had compounded and left him essentially penniless. He eventually sought help at a rehab center. “Nobody helped me that day, crawl in that door, and I’m glad they didn’t because crawling in the door that night was my greatest accomplishment,” Grimes recounted.

It was a long journey that was far from easy. “It took a lot of counseling; it took a lot of encouraging. It took somebody pushing me every day. It took somebody to be accountable to every day.” Like all other challenges he had faced in life, through a long journey, Grimes persevered to win.

Opioid Use Disorder Prevention

How can addictions like Grimes’s be prevented? He proposed a few ideas.

“I think we should emphasize the fact that big boys do cry and that it’s okay to not be okay. And if we get that message out to everybody, then it makes it easier for them to raise their hand, it makes it easier for them to fight through the stigma that’s associated with addiction or mental health issues.”

Society is getting better at this, but the issue is not yet completely solved.

Grimes also suggested implementing assessments at a younger age to identify potential problems. Teachers, counselors, and coaches also need to educate better because addiction impacts every person in every community. Grimes said, “We can do better informing people of the resources and the hope that’s out there.”

Looking for warning signs of addiction or mental health issues in others is also vital. Warning signs can include isolation, anger, relationship or financial problems, and loss of interest.

Grimes said of his journey, “It’s taught me to meet people where they’re at. Not only in their lives, but in their addiction as well.”

Need Help?

If you are struggling with opioid use disorder or mental health issues, call the SAMHSA National Helpline. It’s a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and substance use disorders.

Call: 1-800-662-4357

More Information

For more from Vital Spark, visit www.sparkbiomedical.com or subscribe to the podcast. You can also visit offcenter.com to access Grimes’s book Off Center or go to proathletesinrecovery.org or randygrimespeaks.com, or whitesandstreatment.com to contact Grimes.

The CDC recently released an updated version of their 2016 opioid prescription guidelines for physicians. The new guidelines continue to use language stating opioids should not be first line of defense in chronic pain therapy. One of the major changes in the updated language was placing more emphasis on the physician’s clinical judgement for opioid prescription. Dr. Michael Sprintz, Founder and CEO at Sprintz Center and a national subject matter on chronic pain, joined Host Daniel Litwin to dive into the updates.

In a COVID-19-focused world, the opioid crisis was forced to the back burner when it came to opioid-related media attention and national policy focus. Sadly, the not only did the opioid crisis not go away over the past few years, but the issue escalated. Dr. Sprintz notes, “Now we are seeing the consequences of those things play out, and it’s unfortunate.” Now, it’s time to refocus on opioid use disorder and how we treat the cause not just the symptoms.

Dr. Sprintz comments, “It makes sense that we’d want to avoid using opioids if at all possible, when treating pain in general.” He added that it’s important “to try a multimodal approach to decrease that risk of exposing someone who may have a predisposition of developing addictive disease.”

However, there is a time and place for opioid use, which is what the guideline updates establish. “Guidelines are guidelines. Guidelines are not laws,” Dr. Sprintz stated. “Clinicians should use their own judgement when making decisions.” They must evaluate the benefits versus the risks and decide what is best for the patient based on the individual and their condition.

But this decision making is at the crux of the crisis. Pain doctors are not always comfortable managing addictive disorders and addiction doctors are not always comfortable dealing with chronic pain, which muddies the water. “One of the things that I would have liked to have seen from a policy level is starting to have core competency requirements in understanding the basics of pain medicine and the basics of addiction,” said Dr. Sprintz. “It’s not fair to just expect everyone to know something that they were never trained.”

So how can physicians grapple with this? Dr. Sprintz believes managing opioid availability is part of solution, but it’s also about educating providers and making access to mental health and substance abuse treatment more widely available to patients via solutions like telehealth.

Visit www.sparkbiomedical.com for previous episodes.

The data behind Spark Biomedical’s Sparrow Therapy System™ speaks volumes, but personal patient experiences speak even louder. Host Daniel Litwin and guest Dr. Carlos Tirado, MD, MPH review sound bites from Eliza, one of the Sparrow Therapy System clinical trial users, as she detailed her personal experience.

In describing her experience with the Sparrow Therapy System, Eliza notes, “You don’t have to worry about waking up in the morning and waiting for our taper and getting sick and all this other stuff,” she stated. “It’s already helping you physically and mentally was one of the things I noticed. I didn’t feel foggy from the other paper meds, I just felt clear.”

Dr. Tirado explains, “Because this it is a non-invasive, non-medical or non-pharmacologic approach, you’re not having to deal with the known adverse effects of medications that are used to treat withdrawal, or you can reduce the amount of medications used to treat withdrawal.” By reducing or eliminating taper medications, individuals can begin to participate in the hard work of therapy sooner — at a time they would normally be focused heavily on withdrawal symptoms.

Eliza stated, “By day two, I wasn’t even really thinking about my withdrawals and so I think that’s probably what surprised me the most.”

Removing fear of withdrawal from the recovery equation is critical. Dr. Tirado noted, “That true self is someone who is relieved of those symptoms, who can actually start making the next right decision,” he added.

Currently, the Sparrow Therapy System is already being used by opioid use disorder treatment providers across the northeast and southern U.S. to treat opioid withdrawal. Spark Biomedical recently obtained a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant for the Sparrow Ascent, the next generation Sparrow Therapy system, to be used in the RESTORE clinical trial focused on using Transcutaneous Auricular Neurostimulation to improve relapse prevention in opioid use disorder.

To learn more about the Sparrow Therapy System visit sparkbiomedical.com.