Transcript

Dr. Ayla Wolf : 00:00
Well, when I first met you at Prana Maya Island Resort, you sat down across from me at the table for dinner. And I I think when somebody else asked you about, you know, what you did and you started talking about Ibogaine and the work that you're doing, I could immediately tell y you were so well spoken. You had clearly done a lot of research to very deeply understand all facets of the medicine, of the process. And so I was so excited to meet you and have you share this information because it is really powerful, especially for people who have had brain injuries, concussions, PTSD, trauma, all of that. I think that this can offer people a way through that's really intense and powerful and beautiful. And so I'm I was so happy to meet somebody who really is boots on the ground, walking people through the process, helping them before, during, and after. So thank you for sharing your perspective and and your insights into this topic, which, like we said, you know, is kind of misunderstood or miscategorized for different reasons. And so thanks for clarifying all of that for people to have a better understanding of what this medicine is, what it can do, what it looks like, all of those things.

Welcome to Life After Impact, the concussion recovery podcast. I'm Dr. Ayla Wolf, and I'll be hosting today's episode where we help you navigate the often confusing, frustrating, and overwhelming journey of concussion and brain injury recovery. This podcast is your go-to resource for actionable information, whether you're dealing with a recent concussion, struggling with post-concussion syndrome, or just feeling stuck in your healing process. In each episode, we dive deep into the symptoms, testing, treatments, and neurological insights that can help you move forward with clarity and confidence. We bring you leading experts in the world of brain health, functional neurology, and rehabilitation to share their wisdom and strategies. So if you're feeling lost, hopeless, or like no one understands what you're going through, know that you are not alone. This podcast can be your guide and partner in recovery, helping you build a better life after impact.

Lorna Sturchio, welcome to Life After Impact, the Concussion Recovery Podcast. Thank you for having me. Yes, I'm very excited to talk to you. You are a transformational trauma recovery coach who works with veterans and elite athletes and people who are seeking help for trauma, PTSD, brain injury recovery. I'm so excited for you to share the work that you do using ibogaine as a therapy to help these people. Ibogaine is a very specific medication. How would you categorize it?

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Lorna Sturchio: 02:58
I mean, when we use psychedelic, it kind of has a negative  connotation. But you know, it's an entheogenic medicine, it is a plant medicine, and it is prescribed. So I mean, let's say it's a prescription.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 03:10
It's kind of both, yeah. Well, and I think too, as soon as you, you know, say, oh, we're going to talk about psychedelic uh therapies, then people think that we're talking about a huge umbrella of potential things. But what we're really going to talk about today is very specifically the work that you do with ibogaine. And so let's start off. You're a former Navy combat veteran. You've had um quite a history yourself that's led you down your own healing journey. Do you want to start by telling us a little bit about who you are, what you've been through, and how that all led you to seek out ibogaine as a therapy for yourself? 

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Lorna Sturchio: 03:46
Yeah, I'd be happy to. You know, if first, let's say if you would have told me this is the trajectory of my life path, I probably would have looked at you sideways and been like, no, you're out of your mind. But the path of how I got here, um, it wasn't easy. I served in the military for six years. I deployed twice. I was part of a um maritime expeditionary squadron for riverine units. And on my second deployment, um I ended up getting in an accident and I broke my back. I got a little TBI, and my life was never the same after that. Um, I came home, I was medabacted home, and the first thing they did was put me on a copious amount of painkillers. And, you know, with PTSD and painkillers, that's just a dangerous combination. And I wish I could say it was just the war that kind of messed me up, but it was also like the culture of the military, being a woman serving. Um, I'm also, you know, I suffer from MST. For people that don't know that, that's military sexual trauma. You know, I was assaulted many times by my supervisors that, you know, this is not something you expect to go into. You know, we believe that we're the best in the world. And come to find out, it's very toxic culture, and there's a brotherhood that protects each other. And if you go against the grain, you can be really ostracized and have a target on your back. So I tried not to make a lot of waves and buried it down as much as I could. And then after that incident, I guess you can say that was a straw that broke the camel's back. And, you know, that was a very slippery slope afterwards. I started, like I mentioned before, using painkillers for any discomfort, whether it'd been physical or mental or emotional. I would just, you know, pop it like it was a piece of candy. And then after probably a few months of being on those, they decided to take me off them cold turkey. And everything started coming to a head. I'm not proud of the choices that I made after that, but you know, when you're not in the right head space, you will make mistakes. Um, if you would have told me a year prior to me deploying that I would have gone to illicit drug use, I probably again would have been like, no way, you're out of your mind. The thought of that even terrified me.

But when you are thinking of ending your life every day, dealing with nightmares, um, you know, irritability, pushing people away on top of you the symptoms with TBI, your memory is not so well, you know, knowing that something's wrong with you and everyone's telling you different. It was like drowning. It was literally drowning. So I reached for anything that would make me feel somewhat normal. And then that led me to getting kicked out of the military. Rightfully so. I did make, you know, I know the rules, I know what I did. There's no regrets around that. So after that, it was about 15 years of dealing with, you know, conventional medicine through the VA. At one point, I was prescribed so many medications that I had to walk around with two gallon-sized bags of medications. You know, I was on SSRIs, dopamine, um, Adderall to keep me focused, clonazopam to keep me down, and then medications for the side effects of those. So it's taking a lot. It wasn't till, and I was also doing therapy too. It wasn't just like popping pills, but I was taking therapy, you know, like every acronym. I even did DMS, ketamine treatments, nothing was working, nothing was sticking. And it wasn't until 2018, New Year's Eve, I decided I had enough and I tried to end my life. Fortunately, um, that didn't work. You know, by the grace of God or the universe, there were some other plans. And I woke up and I really made me think, like, why am I still here? You know, I just tried to end it all. There was no purpose for me here. And that's when I started thinking outside the box. I read about a bunch of veterans going abroad doing psychedelics, and I'm like, well, what do I have to lose? If I'm gonna try to die, why don't I just try to die, you know, trying to live?

So, you know, the definition of insanity, you know, we're doing the same thing over and over again and not getting results. Well, let's try something different. Um, the first time I sat with medicine, there was no proper preparation. It was like be here at this time, and it was ayahuasca, needless to say. It's not, it's not one of those you go lightly into, but again, I was so desperate. I get there, you know, the medicine certainly helped me, you know, it put the soul back into my body. But because I didn't know about integration either, it didn't take very long for old patterns of behavior and thinking to come back. And then that perpetuated the belief system that I'm broken, nothing could fix me. Um, so it wasn't till the second time I sat with medicine where I learned about proper preparation, sudden intention, integration, that my life changed substantially. I I got out I got out of that survival mindset and more into a thriving mindset. And, you know, I was approached by a CEO of a company who does a coaching company and she heard my story and saw, you know, such a transformation. She's like, I want you to be a coach too. And I was like, listen, I am I am not ready yet. I still need to like integrate. I need to get my life together before I tell people how to get their lives together. And she's like, that's how I know you're gonna be a good coach because you're gonna do the work. And uh that's what led me to working with ethnogenic medicines and helping veterans and first responders.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 09:21
Wow. Well, thank you so much for being so vulnerable with sharing such a deep and heavy path that you've been on. And I'm so glad that you are here with us and doing the work that you're doing because I can't wait for you to share some of the things that you've seen and and the you know stories. So tell us a little bit about um ibogaine as a as a medicine and what your maybe first experience was with it. How long ago was that?

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Lorna Sturchio: 09:50
So the first time I sat with ibogaine, well, let's backtrack. So Ibogaine is a medicine that comes from West Africa. It is a root medicine, and what's different compared to other plant medicines is that it's not just working on serotonin, it works on various neurotransmitters like dopamine, GABA, serotonin, non-epinephrine, and there's plenty more that I can't name off the top of my head right now. It's a promiscuous plant medicine, it's the way I like to look at it. And, you know, the first time I heard about it, I was like, no, thank you. That sounds pretty extreme. I don't need that. But as it kept crossing my path, you know, the call for this medicine to sit with it started getting louder and louder. And I started working at Beyond. And when they onboarded me, they said, hey, we are uh putting together a veteran uh cohort, you know, that we want to do for veterans. Would you like to be a part of that team to build this program? And I was like, absolutely, absolutely. I would love to. Um, so we last year and last November of 2023, um, we decided to, I'm sorry, 2024. We decided to go down there, do a sit with a fractional dose to kind of understand this medicine. We called ourselves Cohort Zero. We couldn't do a full flood because no work would get done at that point. And, you know, it was it was pretty beautiful, even just with a fractional dose. I felt a lot of shifts happening. And then we built that program in eight weeks, and then I decided, okay, we built this program. I really want to sit with the full amount of a flood dose. Let's see what this is like. And I sat with it in March, and it was beautiful. I thought it was gonna be something intense like ayahuasca or you know, psilocybin, but it was probably one of the most gentler ones for me because everyone's experience is different, but for me. So the journey with ibogaine, generally speaking, is about 12 to 14 hours, and then after that, you know, people go through their gray stay. And this is where the medicine is still in in a ibogaine form, and it takes up up to 72 hours for it to turn into a metabolite called noro ibogaine in your liver. And this is critical because this is what builds that like neuroplasticity for a much longer period. People have a you know, they can feel the effects of this medicine working about three to six months compared to other medicines where it could be like two weeks, a couple days, or maybe maybe a month. So you have a lot of support after that. My own personal experience, there was a lot of visuals. One thing it taught me was that, you know, a lot of self-love because there was a lot of self-hate that I held on to, a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, you know, um that just carried with me from childhood all the way into the military. And most of my visions and insights weren't just around the military, it was around, you know, my whole life, like how I treated myself. And, you know, I came out of that kind of like a new reborn, like a rebirth.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 13:08
Amazing. Wow. And you mentioned that you were carrying on two gallon bags of medications between the the ayahuasca ceremony and then the ibogaine. Had you already gone off of a lot of those medications?

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Lorna Sturchio: 13:22
So I had gone off about half of them. And then with ibogaine, so the way that I like to explain it is ayahuasca, she put the soul back into my body, but ibogaine fixed all the broken pieces. And I was, um now I'm completely off all my medication. I'm not taking anything. I can't even really take coffee. Like what I'm drinking right now is decaf. I'm just so sensitive to everything.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 13:45
Yeah, I've heard that a lot of people that have gotten addicted to, say, like oxy or different opiates, when they do ibogaine, it's almost like it kicks all of that off of the receptors and it frees all those receptors up so that it's almost like this massive neurotransmitter and neurological reset where a lot of the people who have developed um addictions or dependencies on different medications, they they come out of it just not needing those anymore.

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Lorna Sturchio: 14:14
Yeah, yeah. It's about 80%. I'm not gonna say it's a hundred percent, it's not all foolproof. Um and it's pretty, pretty amazing to watch. You know, you see someone come in with no life in their eyes and they're just zombies, and they come out of that room and you're like, is this the invasion of the body snatchers? What happened? Like you you look amazing. Even their fascia's changed, they look 10 years younger. And what research is showing is like compared to conventional medicine or conventional rehabs, you know, it takes anywhere to at minimum 18 months for people to like reset their neurotransmitters after getting off these hardcore, you know, drugs with ibogaine, it's a matter of days.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 14:57
Yeah, that's incredible. 

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 14:59
That's incredible. And how profound, too, that we hold in our face and in our eyes and in our expression all of the pain and the suffering and the trauma. It's like when you carry that around on your face, and then you go through something like that, and all of a sudden somebody looks completely different within 12 hours. I mean, I think that there's there's so much to that. There's so much that could be that we still need to like understand and study and appreciate about just the human psyche and and the effects it has on our on our physical bodies.

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Lorna Sturchio: 15:34
Yeah, yeah. A lot of times people focus on like the mental part, you know, it's also affecting our body. It's, you know, affecting our spirituality, you know, sometimes it can awaken some things in people. We have a uh doctor on our team who's now actually studying, you know, the three brains, the mind, the heart, and the stomach. And he's seeing that there's, you know, there's a synapsis that's happening between all of them when this medicine is introduced to people. Mm-hmm.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 16:02
Very cool. And how many groups of veterans have gone through this program since you started working with them?

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Lorna Sturchio: 16:09
We are on, so it's not just veterans. First and foremost, I just want to reiterate that. So, like we work with veterans, first responders, and spouses because we also believe that, you know, I've been a military spouse and I know how hard it is to be on the other side. What's also different about us is that with other um entheogenic programs that are out there, you know, they usually put military female veterans together with spouses and it kind of mitigates the work that we did ourselves and dismisses like, hey, we raised our hand too. My my whole theory around that is is like if you don't, would you ever put a man, you know, civilian with male veterans, like male spouse with male veterans, would you ever do that? No. Then why are we doing that with women? Why can't we be held to the same standard? So that's one thing that, you know, I really advocated for is that, you know, female veterans have a voice because we're underheard and underserved. And same with spouses, you know, they need their, they need their space too. But we've done so far 16 cohorts.

Dr. Ayla Wolf : 17:15
Oh, wow. That's a lot.

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Lorna Sturchio: 17:17
Yeah. And, you know, we we plan on growing more and more, but it's all intentional. We're we're all about, you know, quality over quantity. Last year we did about one to two cohorts a month. Um, this year we're gonna do two and then ramp it up to three at some point. And then hopefully um our end goal is to do one cohort a week. 

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 17:37
And this is in Mexico, correct? Yes, yes.

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Lorna Sturchio: 17:39
Our our clinic is down in Cancun. 

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 17:42
Okay. Got it. And so you're flying back and forth then multiple times a month?

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Lorna Sturchio: 17:47
Not um, so I work remotely sometimes, but when I'm pushing a female veteran cohort through, I will be on site. And then um, I'll also be on site sometimes for, you know, on-site coaching. Because I feel, you know, I just there's something that just being on site, seeing these changes that kind of just fills my cup up when I'm feeling a little burned out.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 18:08
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And so talk a little bit about the process of preparing to go into an Ibogaine experience and and then kind of also that integration piece afterward, because this is where you're doing a lot of your work with these people who are going through the the process.

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Lorna Sturchio: 18:26
Yeah. So, I mean, there's a it's kind of like a spectrum when it comes to preparation because when people are highly in addiction, you know, our our goal is to just try and get them there, you know, and then when they're like somewhat have some, you know, wherewithal, then we start working with them a little bit. But sometimes they've been so far into their addiction that, you know, we just need to get them through. And then once they've understand, you know, the whole process, then integration is really wonderful. For the people that are suffering with like mood disorders or, you know, even optimization. What we usually do with like the civilian side of things, we have two preparation sessions to get them down there. Then there's a lot of on-site coaching and workshops to prepare them for their journey. Like we teach them how to navigate, uh, what to expect during grace day, what the felt experience is like. And then on the other side, we, you know, there's some more on-site coaching. And then when they go home, they have two more sessions with their integration coach. And also we built a community, an app on the circle app, the Beyond Circle app, so where they can always stay connected with the same people and keep learning about their integration. And then we have weekly um Tuesday night integration calls for everyone to like check in and continue doing the work. With the um veteran and first responder program, it's built a little bit differently. We do a four-week prep plus, and that's like with a group where they meet once a week and then they meet with their coach individually, at least two times prior to to kind of you know build intentions, what to expect again and like how to navigate the experience. Then they're on site for eight days, and then afterwards, they have another four-week integration with their facilitator in a group setting, and then they'll have two more coaching sessions to kind of help integrate, and then they can also partake in the circle app and weekly integration. But this is just the beginning. I'm still thinking of building like a six-month curriculum to continue like the integration after the integration. Because let's be honest, the work is never done, and you know it's it's multifaceted in many ways, you know. Like we're not just focusing on one part, like the mind. It's the mind, body, spirit. You know, what are you doing? What are you moving? What are you how are you nourishing yourself? Are you getting enough sleep? And then I also encourage, you know, journaling, you know, because I don't care how much medicine you sit with, our minds love to lie to us. Can keep us tracked, you know, see the bigger picture. So when that lying comes in, we'll be like, you know what? Yeah, I'm actually doing a really good job here. I'm not the person I was. And sure, I'm not who I want to be, but I'm moving, I'm going in the right direction.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 21:13
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the facility down there also has medical staff because there are certain medical screenings that people have to go through in regards to cardiac function and all that, correct?

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Lorna Sturchio: 21:25
Absolutely. So when you check in, one of the first things you do is you get labs done. You know, you'll have a urinalysis, blood work, 12 lead EKG, and you'll get a lot of those while you're down there. It's not just a one and done kind of thing. It's through your whole whole time there before, like when you arrive, before you sit with the medicine, after you sit with the medicine, the next time you sit with a supplementary dose afterwards. We are huge advocates, you know, because this is very taxing on the heart. What happens is it prolongs the QT level, which is like the beat between heartbeats, and it could really send people into cardiac risk. Yeah. So we have a A full trained staff, always 24-7, there. Um, a nurse is with you the whole time in the room, speaking to the doctor. And she's also there to monitor your vitals and not only your vitals, also be there for your comfort level. So you're never alone when you're journey in this profound medicine.

Dr. Ayla Wolf : 22:19
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's incredible. And I I would, you know, my next question is going to be what are people's biggest fears going into this? And I know I think that Ibogaine did get a kind of a bad rap, so to speak, because of the cardiac risk. But when you do it properly and when you do all the correct testing before and it's medically assisted, it's very safe when you do it the right way. And so I think that, you know, sadly, it's it's not legal in the United States yet, even though people are really working to make it available to help people with addictions and trauma and depression and PTSD. But I think it's it's the cardiac risk that really was the barrier. But it really seems like that's been figured out. And when it's done correctly in the way you're describing, it, you know, it mitigates those potential risks, correct?

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Lorna Sturchio: 23:17
Yeah, absolutely. And they've found that, you know, magnesium is really important in supplementation before and even during when you're in the journey. So, like my ID, because you're gonna be hooked up to an ID the whole time, is gonna be a different cocktail than say yours would be, you know, based off of what your labs. Like it's very specific.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 23:35
Yeah, yeah, amazing. So, medical risk aside, what would you say are people's biggest fears going into it? Is it that they're going to relive these experiences they don't want to have to relive?

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Lorna Sturchio: 23:49
Yes. And, you know, of course, you know, this is the the whole reason why we go to therapy, but we're really good at repressing, suppressing, and avoiding all that in in our own protector ways, right? One thing I love to tell my clients is this medicine is divinely intelligent and it comes from a place of love. It's not a malicious molecule. Everything that's happening is happening for you. And I've had clients where they're like, I really want to go back to this traumatic period. And sometimes it may take them back there, but they'll see it from a different perspective, like a third person's watching or a bird's eye view, or from that other person's perspective. And other times the medicine's like, listen, you've dealt with this day in and day out. We're not gonna go back there. I'll handle that, don't worry about it. But let's focus on this other uh trauma or adversity that did affect you that you weren't aware of. Let's let's explore this.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 24:42
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Amazing. And then what are there other ways that you would describe it as being different from psilocybin or ayahuasca or some of these other psychedelics? 

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Lorna Sturchio: 24:57
besides the duration, you know, obviously it's a very, very long time. And then Grace Day, that's a whole experience in itself. With like, say, psilocybin, LSD ayahuasca, you know, peyote, those are more of like an external experience. You know, they take you out of yourself. And with Ibigaine, it it's more of an internal experience. You're excavating all your memories, your life, maybe past lives too. I know that sounds a little esoteric, but it does happen. It's more of an introspection. It takes you just down and in while everything else takes you up and out. Yeah. Another thing that's oh, sorry. It's really about you and your lived experience and almost a review of that. Yes, yes. So there's actually like two phases of the medicine. So the acute phase is where people have that onergenic or that wakeful dream state sometimes. Not everyone gets visions, you know, but it can be really intense. And that phase usually lasts about four to six hours. Sometimes people, you know, um have emotional purging, mental purging, or physical. 

And then, you know, of course, expanded consciousness, ataxia, you know, they're unable to uh have mobility, but the nurse will help them in and out of bed to use the bathroom if need be. And then there's that second phase, which is about six to eight hours, and that's more of the introspective period where you're still in the medicine, it's just subdued enough where you're looking back and you're like, man, that acute phase, a lot of stuff popped up. Let's reassess that. And then some people have like a life review in that in that period. This medicine also allows people to ask questions that is very direct. I've I've tried to ask questions with ayahuasca or psilocybin. It's kind of like an enigma with ibogaine, it's it's pretty, pretty like concrete when it's explaining something. Example, I know this sounds really weird, but you know, like I said, I was very suicidal, right? So my credit was screwed up. And I was like, well, you know, now that I see a future, now that I know that I'm gonna be here a while, like I need a better quality of life and I need to fix my credit. How do I do that? And it just laid it out. Okay, well, you have some of the earned savings, pay this off over here, pay this over here, and everything will be taken care of.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 27:11
Like you literally kind of asked about your credit score, and yeah, it was like, here you go, here's the plan.

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Lorna Sturchio: 27:17
I mean, it's not gonna let you like ask for lottery numbers, like obviously not. Right. Yeah, like for a better quality of life. Yeah. Um, and you know, some people ask questions about like the universe, like, why are we here? Wow, can I see how it all started? To, you know, just simple questions to like what I had, you know, the the sky's the limit. I the way I like to look at it is, you know, imagine you have a conversation with God or the universe. What would you ask?

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 27:42
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I okay. I I was gonna say, I'm like, I probably wouldn't ask about my credit score. Like, but what would I ask? That's a great question.

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Lorna Sturchio: 27:52
Yeah, yeah. And and what's also different about this medicine compared to other medicines is, you know, when we wear an eye mask with any medicine, you know, it allows you to go deeper, see your psychological patterns, and just truly go deep and like see yourself. And then when you like open your eyes, you know, you're still seeing visuals or whatever with, you know, ayahuasca or psilocybin. With ibogaine, if you need a pause button, you know, you just lift your mask and you can ground into the room, catch your breath for a moment, and then when you're ready, you can go back in.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 28:22
Okay, sure. What would you say are some of the most common misconceptions that people have about ibogaine that you hear over and over again?

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Lorna Sturchio: 28:33
One that I hear a lot is for people that have a strong conviction in Christianity, they think they're betraying God. You know, they think, you know, oh, this is a sin, you know, I shouldn't be doing this. And I read a beautiful quote in one of the Ibogaine books that I read that, you know, people go to church to talk about God. People do Ibegain to be with God. There's like an embodiment of it. Another thing that people worry about is that it's not gonna fix them. You know, they're like, what if, you know, what if I'm just quote on pardon my French, I had a client be like, what if I'm just an asshole at the end, you know? And I'm like, well, you know, this medicine could really open your heart a little bit. And don't get me wrong, you know, there are certain personalities that this medicine cannot help. Like if you're a narcissist, definitely there's not enough medicine in the world for that. But but if you are generally a good person, it will help you. Because a lot of the times where we are so brash and irritable and short with people is because internally we're not feeling good. And so we express that externally.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 29:40
Yeah. Going back to your comment on the the religion, in your experience, now that you've had 16 groups go through, the people who are religious, would you say, if anything, it only kind of helped strengthen their relationship with God after having this experience?

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Lorna Sturchio: 29:58
Yeah, actually, it strengthens whatever your belief system is, you know. Um, and then there's some people that are agnostic, and then on the other side, they're like, there's something. There's there's definitely, you know, I feel it, and then it's in their own, you know, any way that they relate to. That's why I call it an entheogenic medicine, antheosperitic producing,

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Lorna Sturchio: 30:16
spirit producing. You know? So, and I've had a client go through who actually had trauma around, you know, religion. You know, you grew up in a Mormon family, and so he was very anti all that. Well, he came in on the other side with a whole new belief system that basically what I mentioned before put his soul back into his body. Wow.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 30:38
Yeah. And then talking about a lot of the PTSD maybe symptoms that people experience in terms of the autonomic dysregulation, sleep dysregulation, mood dysregulation. Uh, and again, the people with traumatic brain injuries have all these same issues as well with the autonomic nervous system being dysregulated, sleep cycles being dysregulated, emotional dysregulation. Are you seeing that after an ibogaine session that people are able to go back into their lives with a lot less of this symptomatic burden of all these kind of things that are often so highly disruptive in their lives?

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Lorna Sturchio: 31:17
Yes. For a majority of people, I have seen that. Again, this is not a magic pill, and I never want to like, you know, misconstrue that. This is a catalyst for change. Um and, you know, these people, you know, like I mentioned, Grace Day is really challenging. And because we flooded all the neurotransmitters, sometimes sleep is hard for those few days, but then afterwards, or even for a couple weeks after. But after that period, they're able to sleep better. They have better REM cycles and they hit their deep sleep and they feel a little bit more rested, well rested. And, you know, let's let's be honest, like sleep is not a pillar of health, it's the foundation of health. And when once that falls into place, everything else seems to, you know, just line up for them. Yeah, it's it's like I said, it's it's a miracle watching these huge shifts happen in just days, weeks.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 32:13
Yeah, that really is incredible. And I think for people who, like you said, maybe you kind of try to fast track some people with addictions, it would make sense that when you have people who are suicidal or severely addicted to different substances where the risk of overdose is huge, like this could be the thing that just really advances them quickly to a place where they can then make some key life changes moving forward and really start start fresh.

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Lorna Sturchio: 32:40
Yeah, yeah. It gives them that second chance on life, you know, because it really just wipes everything clear. And from what I've read in the research, is that it resets the brain to the endogenous chemicals you had between the ages of zero and seven. Like, think about where you were and that exponential learning. Like ancient philosophers used to call this the age of reason. Like, what would you do if you had a second chance?

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 33:03
Yeah, that's a really fascinating concept that it resets your brain to kind of your neurotransmitter state of being seven years old.

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Lorna Sturchio: 33:12
Yeah.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 33:13
And yeah, most seven-year-olds, that's when they are they're super curious, right? They're they just want to learn, they want to figure the
world out. And like how amazing to kind of bring your brain back to that place and then start over again, but with an adult body.

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Lorna Sturchio: 33:28
Yeah, yeah. And you yeah, I mean, like, think about where we were too, like abstract thinking. We were learning like multiplication and like theories and like grammar, like some language, you know. So it's this is why people go to it when they're going for optimization. It can kind of turn back the time on aging in your brain.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 33:47
Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah, because we get so kind of locked into our stubborn ways of thinking to be able to reset that and to have more of a seven-year-old mentality of let's let's just be open to thinking outside the box and doing things differently. And that's incredible. Now, you had also mentioned that you just recently had some professional athletes go through. Were there people that were doing it more for our optimization?

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Lorna Sturchio: 34:13
So the the last group we had go through was an uh elite athlete cohort, and a bunch of bunch of them were MMA fighters, boxers, and lacrosse. So a lot of like, you know Concussions. Yeah, exactly. And like one of one of my clients, you know, he had balance issues, memory issues, tremors, couldn't sleep for his life depended on it. He was really struggling. And he came out just this last week, and I, you know, just had a recent session with him, and he was saying, you know, I don't have any tremors. My memory's coming back, my balance issues. I haven't tripped or ran into anything in so long. And, you know, this is just this is just the beginning on the research on that, you know. I didn't think like this something like this would ever be possible. You know, I tried when he went in to kind of manage expectations, like, hey, you know, this this maybe maybe just change your relationship with what's going on. And instead, it, you know, it even shocked me. It was like, wow, everything is wiped clean. Cool. Congratulations.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 35:14
Amazing. And what where do you see kind of the future of this going? I know you mentioned you you at your particular space in Cancun, you're hoping to do weekly. Do you have a huge waiting list of people that are trying to get in? And and where do you see the future of this going as far as a therapy?

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Lorna Sturchio: 35:34
Yeah, so right now we have about 700 people on the wait list. Last time I checked, I'm sure we're getting more. You know, there's obviously a demand, but again, we want to do this with quality, intentionality. You know, these are literally people's lives that we have in our hand. There are legislations happening slowly but surely, you know, to try and bring this to the U.S. You know, there's Americans for Ibogaine who's trying to build a kind of like a standard for everyone, you know, when we do bring this to the to the U.S., like how are we gonna do it? You know, because safety's the priority here. Texas just passed, you know, the Texas Ibogaine Initiative for research, which is the largest funding anyone has ever got, you know, $50 million. I think there's a you know, a right to heal bill that's currently in the house right now to explore other options with Schedule One, you know, medications. I mean, these the fact that Ibogaine is even scheduled as a Schedule One is surprising in itself because no one's gonna go to a party and abuse this. No way in heck is that gonna happen. And two, we obviously know it's got a lot of medical benefits. So why is it schedule one? You know, maybe there needs to be a a rescheduling, or you know, that that's just uh that's a whole other thing. If if everything is fast trapped, which you know, I don't really see with our government because our sorcery it's our government, it does what it does. You know, maybe we can see the stateside in like five to seven years, but you know, that's only if it's fast trapped. Yeah, and that's still a long time when you're suffering.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 37:12
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So Texas, I remember um I believe the governor of Texas was really instrumental in trying to get funding for this to be able to at least say, let's, can we at least please do some some research and and start to actually have some research on safety parameters and outcomes and all of this as the first step in getting it approved and and legalized in the country for these for these types of situations. So it's it's exciting to see what comes of of that now that that's been approved and and they have the funding.

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Lorna Sturchio: 37:48
Yeah, yeah. And it's really surprising because Governor Rick Perry, you know, is a very hardcore conservative, you know, is definitely against cannabis or anything. And, you know, he saw the changes and he was like, we gotta, we gotta save our people because there's an there's an epidemic happening, not just for for veterans, but even, you know, for everyone. Like mental health is a huge issue in the US. Why are we not helping people, you know?

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 38:15
Right, right. And when there's a a therapy that has some pretty incredible outcomes, why aren't we studying it more? Exactly.

Lorna Sturchio: 38:24
Exactly.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 38:25
And do you know what that research is going to look like? Are they going to do the research through the VA hospitals in Texas?

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Lorna Sturchio: 38:34
I'm not sure if they're gonna do that through the VA hospitals. I think right now it's privatized, but I know there is some talk about VA hospitals with other medicines like psilocybin and MDMA. And currently they're doing ketamine that's off label, but I'm not sure like so much on the research side of that.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 38:53
Yeah, yeah. I I've heard there's been some fairly large MDMA trials that are are in place and and continuing as well.

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Lorna Sturchio: 39:04
Yeah, I mean, we'll see, we'll see, you know, but what we're doing now is not working, and you know, we're we're overprescribed, not just veterans, but everyone, you know, and it seems like there's a business in keeping us sick.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 39:20
Yeah, like you said, you had to take all your pills, and then you take pills for the side effects of the pills, and before you know it, you got your two one-gallon bags uh full of bottles, and you're walking around and not feeling like yourself. Yeah, yeah.

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Lorna Sturchio: 39:35
Grateful for the whole experience because it's led me to where I'm at, you know, and I I wouldn't I wouldn't know had I not gotten to that point of desperation. And you know, I could be of service to help anyone else who feels hopeless or thinks that there's, you know, no way out. There actually is. There certainly is. You know, give yourself a chance, take that risk because a life that you have planned for yourself is can be so much better than what you already have in store.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 40:10
Yeah. And where can people find the the website and the contact information for the the clinic that you work at?

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Lorna Sturchio: 40:18
Yeah. So I have uh a link that I can share with you. It's with Beyond Service and then of course beyond for people that are just regular civilians. We do have a long wait list, but again, I I look at this as an investment in yourself, you know, and and you don't have to be at a point of a breakdown to come through. You know, I I get a lot of people that that come to me and they're like, well, I'm not I'm not a a veteran. I would I didn't see war, you know, all my all my stuff's kind of minimal. And I'm like, listen, drowning in seven feet is still the same as drowning in 70 feet. You need air, you need help. Let's not minimize what you have. You could also reach me on Instagram and um, you

Lorna Sturchio: 40:58
know, LinkedIn. Awesome.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 41:01
Well, I will put all that contact information in the notes. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to cover before we wrap up?

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Lorna Sturchio: 41:10
Not that I can think of. I'm sure once we get done with this, I'll probably have a lot more to add. Sure. Well, hey, we can always do another. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you having me, you know, being a voice for again the people that um, you know, being a voice for people that need the help, you know, whether it be mental, emotional, physical, like let's just explore all the options.

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Dr. Ayla Wolf : 41:40
Yeah. Well, when I first met you at Pranamaya Island Resort, you sat down across from me at the table for dinner. And I I think when somebody else asked you about, you know, what you did and you started talking about Ibogaine and the work that you're doing, I could immediately tell you were so well spoken. You had clearly done a lot of research to very deeply understand all facets of the medicine, of the process. And so I was so excited to meet you and have you share this information because it is really powerful, especially for people who have had brain injuries, concussions, PTSD, trauma, uh, you know, all of that. I think that this can offer people a way through that's really intense and powerful and beautiful. And so I'm I was so happy to meet somebody who really is boots on the ground, walking people through the process, helping them before, during, and after. So thank you for sharing your perspective and and your insights into this topic, which, like, like we've said, you know, is kind of misunderstood or miscategorized for different reasons. And so thanks for clarifying all of that for people to have a better understanding of what this medicine is, what it can do, what it looks like, all of those things.

Lorna Sturchio: 43:02
Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Awesome. Absolutely. Well, you have a great day. I look forward to keep staying in touch and hearing from you soon. Yeah, absolutely. Medical disclaimer. This video or podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is formed. The use of this information and materials included is at the user's own risk. The content of this video or podcast is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and consumers of this information should seek the advice of a medical professional for any and all health related issues. A link to our full medical disclaimer is available in the notes.