A Paradigm Shift in Sickle Cell Care: Dr. Sota Omoigui’s Golden Half Hour Discovery - Episode 107

For over 7,300 years, sickle cell disease has been a painful and often devastating reality for millions. Patients and their families have navigated a world of reactive, hospital-based treatments, enduring unimaginable pain and facing life-threatening complications. But what if the solution wasn't a billion-dollar drug, but something much simpler, hiding in plain sight?

In this life-changing episode of the Caregiver Relief Podcast, host Diane Carbo sits down with Dr. Sota Omoigui, a board-certified anesthesiologist and pain medicine specialist. Dr. Omoigui shares his groundbreaking discovery that is poised to transform sickle cell care forever—a shift from reactive crisis management to proactive, at-home prevention using simple oxygen therapy.

This isn't just a theory; it's a solution that is already changing lives, preventing hospitalizations, and restoring hope to families. Prepare to be inspired!

What You'll Learn in This Episode 💡

This conversation is packed with incredible insights. Here’s a sneak peek at what Dr. Omoigui and Diane discuss:

• The "Golden Half Hour" ⏳: Dr. Omoigui reveals the critical first 30 minutes of a sickle cell crisis where the sickling of red blood cells is still reversible. This is the window of opportunity that has been missed for centuries.
• The Power of Oxygen 💨: Learn the science behind why early, low-flow oxygen at home can stop a crisis in its tracks, allowing cells to return to their normal shape and function.
• A History Hiding in Plain Sight 📜: Dr. Omoigui walks through historical research, some dating back to the 1920s, that pointed to oxygen as the solution—clues that were overlooked until now.
• From Reactive to Proactive Care 🏠: Discover the paradigm shift from waiting for a crisis to escalate to empowering patients and families to become their own first responders at home.
• Real-World Impact in Nigeria 🌍: Hear inspiring testimonies from Nigeria, the epicenter of sickle cell disease, where over a hundred patients are already using home oxygen to prevent crises, blood transfusions, and hospital stays.
• Hidden Dangers for Patients ✈️: Uncover the risks of low-oxygen environments that many people don't think about, such as sleeping (nocturnal hypoxemia) and air travel, and how to manage them.
• An Affordable, Accessible Solution 💰: While a single hospital visit can cost thousands, a home oxygen concentrator costs around $500-$600, potentially saving the healthcare system hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Why This Episode Matters 🙏

This isn't just another medical discussion; it's a story of hope, perseverance, and a simple solution that could alleviate immense suffering worldwide. Dr. Omoigui's work demonstrates that sometimes the most profound discoveries aren't complex, but are rooted in understanding the fundamental problem.

For caregivers, healthcare advocates, and anyone affected by sickle cell disease, this episode is a must-listen. It provides not only critical information but also a tangible path forward to a better quality of life.

Ready to be amazed? Click play and dive into a conversation that is set to change the future of sickle cell care!

Find out more about Dr. Sota Omoigui's work:

• Website: SickleCellDiscovery.com

Podcast Episode Transcript

Diane: Welcome to the Caregiver Relief Podcast, where we bring you conversations that empower, inform, and. And inspire family caregivers and healthcare advocates. I'm Diane Carbo, your host.

Diane: Today's episode is one that can change many lives.

We're honored to be joined by

Dr. Soda. a board certified anesthesiologist, pain medicine specialist and independent translation researcher who has received over a thousand citations for his scientific work on July 4th, 2024, Dr. Soda. Announced a discovery being called a paradigm shift in sickle cell care, an approach that moves from reactive hospital-based crisis treatment to early intervention at home using oxygen therapy.

His breakthrough may offer the first true solution in over 7,300 years to prevent and stop sickle cell crises, saving lives, reducing suffering, and restoring hope to families around the world. So I'm gonna dive in right now and we're gonna learn about this powerful story in discovery. Dr. Soda, thank you for taking time outta your busy day to share this amazing information.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to specialize in pain medicine?

Sota: thank you Diane. I realized that pain medicine was one of the last frontiers in medicine. and that, there was still a lot to be achieved in pain. And so the, my first, my first, project was to, Try and, find out the origin of pain, which is, what happens from the time you get a cut on your finger to where you feel it has pain in your brain. And, mankind has tried to,find out this, try to solve this puzzle since we've worked on earth for 300,000 years. And, Plateau tried it 400 BC and the Scott tried it, gave his own theory, 16 44 80.

Za and Wall provided their own theory in the 1965, but none of their theories, which sued the test of time in 2002 after going through the literature as a translational researcher. What I do is to evaluate existing research and see if I can find a pattern, see if I can find the various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and put a puzzle together.

2002, I published my theory called about chemical original pain, and there I identified the inflammatory chemical called calcitonin gene related peptide, CGRP. As been one of the major chemicals responsible for migraine, and 17 years later, the FDA approved the Fed drugs to treat migraine by blocking CGRP, so Oh wow.

So from 300,000 years for my attempt to try and solve a problem, 300,000 years old. I now segued to sickle cell, which is 7,300 years old, so that's quite a baby compared to 300,000 years old. So my goal is to do research just like JFK said, where we send the man to the moon with Americans, we do it not because it's easy.[00:05:00]

Because it's hard. Yes. I have done my try to work on things that are not just not easy, not difficult, but merely impossible. And that is what I have tried to solve. So I've taken one step further than GFK to T solve the impossible and Sickle Cell has been what you can call impossible. It has.

Really being a plague of mankind for seven times. Yes. 300 years. And even in the last 100 years of modern medicine, we have not had any solutions. But yet,

Diane: yes,

Sota: the solutions have been hiding in plain sight in the literature, and that's the amazing thing about this. And I will go through, I identify how, sickle cell first discovered in 1910 by Herrick, and we observed sickle cells in the blood of a dental syringe.

And then in 1927, Han and Gillespie suggested that hypoxia. A low oxygen environment caused the sickling of red blood cells a major breakthrough. Now, three years later, Sri War in Canada reported that the number of sickle cells in the blood may be varied by the change of the partial oxygen pressure and that this was a reversible reaction.

That's when light bulbs went off in my head. The key word was this could be a reversible reaction. So I went further in the analysis and found more and more literature that proved that point. In 1983 and Q stated that deoxygenated reversible sickle cells possess the ability. To go back to their normal discoid shape upon reoxygenation.

So what happens is that in a sickle cell crisis, the initial period of the crisis is reversible. You have reversible sickle cell, so in a low oxygen environ. They what we, in the scientific language, we say they polymerize, they become sticky and rigid and change their shape so they're no longer able to transit through blood vessels.

But the initial period, if they see oxygen is like a CPR for those cells, if they see oxygen within that initial period, they'll go back to normal. They start flowing like normal cells. But what happens is that. If they don't see oxygen with repeated sickling and on sickling, eventually the cell membrane, the cell wall gets damaged, and then when the cell wall gets damaged, the cell essentially dies, and a dead cell like a dead human being, does not respond to oxygen.

And this is why that by the time patients get to the hospital, which is a normal current paradigm of treatment, oxygen no longer works. And that's how the sickle cell disease fold modern medicine For a hundred years that oxygen doesn't work because by the time they got to the hospital, they were already in an irreversible sickle cell crisis.

The cells were damaged. Now continuing. In 1991, Robert Herbal stated that the phospholipid part of the cell membrane, when it's initially altered from the initial reversible cycling, can go back to normal if it is oxygen again, 1 19 91. So we have all of this, all of these researchers. Talking about the reversibility of the initial sickling.

and one a curious thing was that in 2015, Melanie Gonick at MIT released a video on YouTube of their basic science work called predicting the Behavior of Sickle Cells. And the whole purpose of their lab and their video was to assist in the work of antis, sickling drugs like hydroxyurea and what their video shows, and it's on YouTube called Predicting Behavior of Sickle Cells, showed that they showed the sickle cells initially with a bench shape, a sickle shape, but when they see oxygen, they go back to normal and they start flowing normal.

So the question was this, and this was where Big Pharma missed the whole thing is that Big Pharma has been looking for a medication when the solution is a gas and not a gas in the hospital, but the gas at home in the golden half hour, which is the first 30 minutes of a sickle cell crisis when the cells are still reversible.

And if, and I have to give credit to big pharma, they spend hundreds of millions and billions of dollars. I point to the drug at Dak View by Novartis, a $665 million drug that they produced. And what does that drug do is a monoclonal antibody to p selecting to essentially act when the irreversibly sickle cells.

Create an inflammatory reaction by attaching to the lighting of the blood vessels.

Diane: That's fascinating to me. I've been a nurse, as I told you, for over 50 years and, so I've seen sickle cell, crisis many times over my lifetime as a nurse, and, it's horrific. And most, when I first went into nursing now 50 years ago, most people didn't lead the. Most people didn't live beyond their teens with this, not many.

and now I see that they're living longer. But,I'm giggling when you say big pharma spent all this money and they ignored the most important thing, but they couldn't make money on of a simple little, little toll that's not only affordable, but it can be kept at home and addressed very early.

I love

Sota: that is very correct. So Novartis, they passed phase one trials. They passed phase two trials. They went into the market. And in the market they found out that patient with sickle cell had more crisis on dark view than on placebo. So the European medical Agency revoked the approval.

The UK medical agency revoked the approval and the approval is hanging by trade in the United States.

Diane: I'm just excited that you've, you have found a, the golden half hour is so critical and it's so affordable and,it keeps them from having a crisis. So I hope that, the US will also revoke after a period of time when they see your solution. Can you tell me, how the medical community is responding to your discovery so far?

Sota: my discovery because, Nigeria in Africa is the epicenter of sickle cell disease in the world with about five to 10 million patients with sickle cell disease. Wow. Yes. So I did present my discovery in the US and also presented in Nigeria and in Nigeria. My initial, when I, when I. Presented my discovery on July 4th, 2024, and where I stated that Let oxygen be your medicine.

Just like Hippocrates said, let food be your medicine. I said, for sickle cell, let oxygen be your medicine. In Nigeria, it's being remarkable. There are many of the patients now, we have at least a hundred patients. Who have oxygen cylinders? Oxygen concentrators. And we have testimonies on the website.

Sickle cell discovery.com. And you have little kids going into crisis. They put on their oxygen, couple of hours later. Their back plane. What will normally have sent them to the hospital for one week, two weeks, three weeks, is prevented. We've prevented hundreds of blood transfusions, hundreds of hospitalizations, lots of hundreds of pain and crisis has been dramatic and so to You just need to read the testimonies on the website to see how lives have been transformed for the first time they have a gas that can prevent and stop the crisis in the cold half hour.

Diane: That's fascinating to me. because it's such a simple solution and it's, I like, like I said, I've seen young children and older adults in crisis and it's awful. Their lives are very. Restricted. so to do this, to give them a better quality of life, what does a family need to have in place to use early oxygen therapy effectively at home?

And how do they get it, with, how do they get their doctors to learn more about your approach?

Sota: they can go, the doctors can learn more. They can go on the website, sickle cell discovery.com. I have all my. Research articles there and all my publications, I was an advisor to the FDA on anesthetics and life support drugs.

I'm a recipient of FDA Advisory Committee Award so they can see the whole scientific background, they can see all my references, they're all on the website. And for the families, they just need oxygen. Those in, in, Africa because an oxygen cylinder is much cheaper. And the refill of the gas is much cheaper, the use there.

But in the US home, oxygen concentrators that meter specifications, which means continuous flow, not pulse dose, 1.5 to two liters per minute. Oxygen purity of 90% plus or minus 3% at all flow rates are about 500 to $600. So the doctors can, prescribe that if the doctors. As not ENT infuse on the idea, they can contact me through my website.

I'll do a tele call with them and I'll prescribe it for them. But for just a $500 home oxygen, they can prevent all the terrible sequela of a sickle cell crisis. So what I've come to do is to change the paradigm from a reactive approach, waiting for the patient to get into a crisis in the hospital. Yes.

So a preventive, symptomatic approach where the parent, the family, and the patient become their own first responder, and where we de centralize power from the hospital to the home and we preserve their dignity and their health. Yeah.

Diane: I worked on both sides of the fence in healthcare. I did nursing and I also worked on the insurance side.

and I was a care manager. So I often had, insurance companies,I would ask insurance companies to go out of contract for things. I can't imagine that, our insurance industry, even Medicaid would pref, would prefer to. Provide an oxygen, unit in the home, an oxygen concentrator in the home to meet your specifications than to have to 'cause it would avoid to me.

They're avoiding, a hospital admission. They're avoiding, serious, very expensive medications that nobody can afford and probably are going to be denied for most sickle cell. Patients because, so I can see this as being something that everybody should, would want to jump on board with and promote because it's just pro being proactive instead of reactive, to, a healthcare crisis.

Sota: That is true actually, in 2016 is an article. I have the reference on the website. Medicare spent $811.6 million on all the complications in a single year. Of sickle cell crisis. Now remember, a full crisis leads to all the complications, a vascular necrosis of the hips. A hip transplant. Yeah, a hip replacement.

It, it ends up in a stroke. It ends up in end stage renal disease, kidney failure. It ends up with acute chest syndrome. It ends up with a lot of very terrible complications. That is simple. $500 home oxygen concentrator can prevent. And let me tell you, Ms. Dan. Once that irre sickle cell has become irreversible and attaches to the line of the blood vessel, it's a very complex inflammatory cascade that happens multiple inflammatory chemical mediators.

And that's why big pharma has a problem in trying to find a magic bullet because at the point you're trying to find a magic bullet, the train has left the station.

Diane: yes. I know Big Pharma very well, and I find it disgusting because that it's all about greed and it's not about what's best for patients and.

Here you have a simple solution. And I, that's why I felt a need to have you be interview you today, because I think it's gonna be, take a grassroots effort to put the word out because, big pharma will try to fight this or ignore it or prevent you from being, successful at promoting this, some way.

How, some way. I just think that's the way they work. but I think that if. My family caregivers and my, the healthcare advocates out there know somebody with, sickle cell. It needs to be, it needs to be addressed. It needs to be, announced from the, rooftops that we have a solution, a simple.

Financially easy, affordable symptom that could prevent so much and cost if a,do you know what the average sickle cell crisis costs in, in the ho? What the, what cost a crisis to occur? what the cost is for it in a hospital.

Sota: depending on the complications, degree of hospitalization, the blood transfusions, and of course they'll be on oxygen.

Then when oxygen doesn't work, so you're looking at thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars and if there's any, that's what I thought. You need a hip replacement, Then all you have all of that you, you get, and I have to get big pharma credit. They've really worked and tried.

One of the major advances was the drug called Hydroxyurea uhhuh, which essentially increases the level of hemoglobin F. And how does what, how? How did hemoglobin F evolve from nature? Hemoglobin F evolve for fetal hemog. To allow the fetus in the uterus, which is a hypoxic environment, to allow the fetus to be able to transfer oxygen to its hemoglobin because hemoglobin F has a higher oxygen affinity.

So oxygen is mentioned over and over again. So what. And again, and another point which has alluded most physicians and patients is that in sickle cell, the most dangerous time for a crisis is during sleep, is called nocturnal hypoxemia because during sleep is a low oxygen environment.

That's why most crisis or occur and wake them up at night. I've seen articles in New York Times and CNN where the patients are afraid. They think there's a demon coming at two to 3:00 AM to come and stab them with knives. But the problem was that nobody was looking at the literature at all trying at all, change it all at attributed.

Nocturnal hypoxemia took sickle cell crisis because during sleep there's shallow breathing. A cell vascular congestion. So the amount of oxygen taken is less. So for a normal person, sleep is restorative. But for a patient with sickle cell, sleep is the runway to a terrible sickle cell crisis. And With an oxygen concentrator or insulin there, if they have any daytime stressor, they just need to put on their oxygen and that solves the problem with then I can tell you that,I likened my discovery to the d isolation of insulin in 1921 by in Canada and diabetes was a uniformly fatal disease.

Killing people in their twenties and thirties. there are a lot of discoveries we take for granted today where yes, people a hundred years ago were dying. So with I, with the isolation of insulin, it made, diabetes a manageable disease.

Diane: Yes. It wasn't

Sota: cured. It was manageable. So the same thing. My discovery of home oxygen in the golden half hour has come to make sickle cell a manageable disease.

No different from diabetes or high pressure during differences. Oxygen is the medication.

Diane: I, you were talking that, you were speaking about, sickle cell crisis has happen at a lot at night because there's low oxygen. Do you encourage people with sickle cell to wear an oxygen mask or a CP Pap p or a BiPAP or something during sleep?

Sota: No, it's not, it is not even as, complicated as that. All they need is, oh,

Diane: okay.

Sota: It's a nasal cannula.

Diane: Just a nasal cannula,

Sota: 1.5 to two liters per minute. If they've had any stressful day, stress could be environmental, excess heat, excess cold, high altitude. It could be intellectual studying for an exam.

It could be physical, very hard, strenuous thing. Then they just sleep with oxygen. And actually on the website you have testimonies of different patients who have been using home oxygen. Some of them just use the oxygen for one hour before they go to sleep. So they've been able to find out different ways that they can use the home, oxygen, some sleep with it, when as necessary to use it as needed.

Now people have asked, oh, is it tox? Is there any oxygen toxicity? leg, oid, ah, arm, did a study of, home oxygen for children for five years. And there was no toxic effect because nasal cannula oxygen is 24% oxygen at one liter per minute uhhuh, and 48% oxygen at two liters per minute. And the oxygen we breathe in is 21%.

So this is really what we call low flow oxygen.

Diane: Okay.

Sota: Yeah, and what does an oxygen concentrator do? It's a machine. That takes in air. Absorbs nitrogen in the safe bed and brings that oxygen. Why? Because you, the air we breathe in is 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen, and 1% rare gases. So if you have a special material that absorbs nitrogen, then what you get is mostly oxygen.

So it just a very simple device.

Diane: Yes. life is very stressful and I can't imagine, children, out and play out wanting to be out and play in the heat or the cold. and that's what happened. Often they would come in, they'd be playing and they would have a crisis. I know that dehydration is another cause, which is easily.

Solvable with just drinking, making sure you keep hydrated. And that's a big thing everywhere. Everybody's carrying their water around with them, so that they stay hydrated. god forbid we go a few minutes without a drink in our hands, but,this is extraordinary. Now,I read where people.

that flying can be a challenge for somebody with sickle cell because of the low oxygen level on the plane. how do you resolve that? Do you ha now you're telling me I'm get, what I'm understanding is you're telling me that just an hour or two. Before bedtime or if you needed, or when you feel like you've had a stressful day, can help you avoid a crisis.

just by, by being proactive.

Sota: Yes. and flag time is a very dangerous time because aircraft are pressurized to 8,000 feet. And at those levels, patients with sickle cell will desaturate. Starting within 10 minutes of takeoff of the aircraft.

Diane: Wow. They

Sota: desaturate down to 77%, whereas a normal saturation is 95 to a hundred.

And this was a hidden factor in a lot of mortality and mobility of patients with sickle cell who were going on long distance trips, short distance strips, short strips without understanding the danger they were in. And the ignorance is so astounding, even in National Institutes of Health.

Recommended that patients with sickle cell, she'll put on warm clothes and drink lots of fluids because they fail to understand that the highest levels of research in the United States government that low oxygen, a low oxygen hypoxic environment is a se a precursor to a sickle cell crisis. So there are many patients who died after flights.

A few who died during the flight.

Diane: Oh my,

Sota: A few had a vascular necrosis of the hip after a flight because the knowledge wasn't there. So that part of my discovery to bring this knowledge and what needs to be done, aircraft should provide compressed medical oxygen. They used to do that, or airlines used to do that upon requests.

All seems like 10 to $20

Diane: uhhuh, but

Sota: airlines in the United States are requiring patients to bring. FA, a approved portable oxygen concentrators that cost two, three, $4,000 and they now have to bring 4, 5, 6 lithium ion batteries, which are even dangerous to the aircraft, which makes no sense. the European Airlines British Air with Air France provide compressed medical oxygen, and I've tried to discuss with the Department of Transportation.

To compel the US airlines to once again provide compressed medical oxygen to patients who need it to part the Americans with disability at. But yeah, I've, I'm yet to succeed in that. But air travel anywhere, there's a law of human environment. it is, precursor to his sickle cell crisis.

The literature is there, the basic science is there.

We just needed to put everything together.

Diane: So what steps are being taken to make this discovery accessible and recognized across global healthcare systems?

Sota: I've given several Zoom lectures to try to educate doctors, especially in Nigeria, a few in the United States, this discovery is just a little bit above a year old, so it's a whole of society movement to get knowledge out.

And, what I would tell people, 'cause I've had different people come with their own different theories of this drug and that drug, I say, you know what? The proof of any theory are the patients,

Diane: yes,

Sota: whatever you can do, phase one, phase two. But if phase three takes you out of the market, then that means you didn't work.

The proof of oxygen home. Oxygen is out there now on the sickle cell discovery website. This as simple as that.

Diane: Unbelievable. So what is your vision for the future of sickle cell care and how can caregivers, patients, and medical professionals support that shift?

Sota: it'll be a tremendous shift. It'll save millions, hundreds of millions of dollars.

It'll save patients pain and suffering. what is a normal treatment when they go a crisis? The universal cells, the cell walls are damaged, the cells die. They obstruct the blood vessels, and the body has to clear these obstructed blood vessels by destroying these cells. So what you have after a crisis, the hemoglobin drops.

And then when the hemoglobin drops, then involve it. It's a blood transfusion. And so it's like a cat chasing the tail or a dog chasing the tail going from one complication to another, whereas in the golden half hour of oxygen, all of this is avoided. Yes, all

Diane: of that. No, we need presentations to insurance companies.

They should, they, especially the bean counters because they would hear your information and go back at the auditors and look and see what the costs are that they've spent on this and look at it compared to what you're offering as such a co, not, it's just truly cost effective and simple solution.

it could save them. Hundreds of millions of dollars in providing care while providing a quality of life for the patient.

Sota: Exactly. If you listen to this, if you read the testimonies, the little kids start playing the student finishes the exam. I have patients whose fathers will say yes.

Their child could not finish an exam without going into a crisis.

Diane: Oh, now

Sota: with home oxygen, they finish the exam, they're doing well. They come home, they have their lives. It's a paradigm shift then.

Diane: Yes. Yes. And that's why I had to have you on to, to help start promoting this because there's so much out there, there's so much pain.

And we have a public health crisis where, most people that are on,are with sickle cell. May become disabled or are on disability, and that insurance is very limited to what they wanna pay. So I would think those disability insurance carriers would say, and the managed, managed care companies would say, We need you to come talk to us. We need you to help us and, get the word out because, it's just amazing. I'm just very impressed by it.

Sota: Thank you. Thank you. I'm, and I'm available. I'm happy to meet with them. I'm happy to present the science to them. I'm happy to present all the literature, and I'm happy to present the patients the ultimate proof of any theory or of any discovery, and they can reach me to the website sickle cell discovery.com.

I have my WhatsApp platform there. my email address is medicine chief@aol.com. They can reach me through my email Medicine Chief one Ward. Or through the website, I'm happy to present because this is no different from the isolation of insulin for patients with diabetes.

Diane: Yeah. Unbelievable. Yes sir. I wanna thank you so much for your time and to my listeners out there, I just want you to know all Dr.

Soto's information will be at the bottom of E at the page. And I create a permanent page, sir, so that you will be able, so what people perusing through my site will be able to find you and find the information. So

Sota: thank you Ms. Dan. Thank you for all the work. Thank you sir. All the work you are doing to,

to bring the health information out to people. Yes. you're doing a great job and I commend you for it. Thank you.

Diane: I'm just a, I'm just a messenger. you are the amazing person here. and I'm so grateful that I was, made aware of you, Tara Slaughter, made me aware of you, and I said, oh, I've gotta talk to that man because.

Like I said, I'm an old nurse and I've seen the terrible, complications of sickle cell and I just think this is such an easy solution to my family caregivers out there. You are the most important part of the caregiving equation. Without you, it all falls apart, so please learn to be gentle with yourself.

Practice self-care every day because you are worth it.