Would You Take a ‘Jesus Shot’?
Can you put Jesus’ healing powers in a miraculous little dose meant to offer long-term relief of pain?
Dr. John Michael Lonergan says yes, and it’s in the form of the “Jesus shot.”
“He credits Jesus with the idea to combine the ingredients in one injection,” says ordained minister Mary Schrick, who owns of Full Circle Health in Edmond, Oklahoma.
However, the $300 mixture of Dexamethasone, Kenalog and vitamin B12 swirls with controversy.
Courts convicted Lonergan of tax evasion, and the State Medical Board of Ohio revoked his medical license in 2005. Seven years later, though, the Oklahoma Medical Board voted to allow him to practice again, provided he had supervision.
Now, Lonergan’s cocktail is in the spotlight after a Texas politician reportedly used taxpayer money to seek out the shot while on a business trip.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a former rodeo cowboy who suffers from chronic pain, said the “Jesus Shot” worked well for him. But many practicing medical professionals say the shot’s claims are “outrageous.”
“This is some variant of giving some anti-inflammatory drug and cortisol, which is what all chronic pain patients are treated with regularly in almost all pain clinics,” said Dr. Vania Apkarian, a physiology, anesthesiology, and physical medicine and rehabilitation professor at Northwestern University. “It’s effective for a week or so, and eventually the pain comes back.”
