Hey all, Does anyone have any experience with hyperbaric chamber therapy or has anyone heard anything at all about it? Thanks in advance!
Posted by NMN (Member # 11007) on :
Not yet but I have my first session on Tuesday. I will be doing 5 session a week for a few weeks. I will let you know how it goes.
Posted by Abxnomore (Member # 18936) on :
I have done it. I think it is a great adjunct therapy and it helped move me up several notches with my struggle. However, I don't think it's curative but I am happy I that I did it.
Posted by m0joey (Member # 13494) on :
Depending on your financial situation, you may want to check out ozone sauna and insufflation. This has a proven track record for lyme and seems to do a better job of avoiding the babesia & other aerobic organism problem due to the singlet oxygen in ozone. The cost of owning a top-of-the-line medical grade package is the same as about 60 sessions of HBOT. As I understand, owning a HBOT chamber is in the 5-digit range, and the consensus seems to be that you need continual use for HBOT to be successful. I just made the ozone sauna purchase last week after doing much research on it, and I'm really excited about starting the therapy.
For more info, check out the ozone thread I started
Posted by Bugg (Member # 8095) on :
I did about 45 sessions in a monoplace chamber. I was not "cured" from it. It seemed to boost my immune system and help with inflammation. There are many conflicting reports in PubMed and other medical journals about antioxidant stress with HBOT....I don't know, though.
Good luck...
Posted by ICEiam (Member # 7519) on :
My Daughter did it for 2 months 5 days a week. She has hearing loss in one ear and it also affected her eye sight.
She also started having panic attacks and heart palps while doing HBOT treatment.
I am in no way saying it doens't work, I just know of several people that it didn't help......may have even made them worse.
I have also heard of people it helped, so like any other treatment for this GOD forsaken disease. What works for one doesn't always work for the next person.
Posted by Parisa (Member # 10526) on :
It sent my husband into a horrible downward spiral. At the time, we didn't know about the Lyme and Babesia. Maybe if he had treated with antibiotics it wouldn't have?
I've also heard that it can make Babesia worse. So, I'd make sure you had treated for Babesia prior to any HBO.
Posted by gforce (Member # 18211) on :
Question on HBOT.....What will it do for Decreased Cortical perfusion????
With that being said isn't decreased cortical perfusion related to intracarnial pressure??/
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- Raymond,
Do you mean HYPOperfusion? If so, from what I understand, it has helped others with brain hypoperfusion (too little blood reaching the brain during peak need).
Related to intracranial pressure, though, you'd sure want to ask your LLMD. Lyme, itself, causes increases in intracranial pressure and however it can be done, treating the infection usually helps lower the intracranial pressure.
I know HBOT can cause an increase in pressure in the inner ear and in the eyes (but, as WildCondor points out below problems can be avoided with preliminary steps)
I'm not sure how HBOT would affect cranial pressure but, ultimately, it is supposed to help the abx better reach the cells - and also the oxygen is supposed to help, too.
I don't know if these articles in the next post mention intracranial pressure. Be sure to also search the archives here at LymeNet.
Lyme disease is now being treated with hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy. A new first person article has just been published on treating Lyme disease with HBO . . .
Page last updated at 00:14 GMT, Saturday, 14 March 2009
Oxygen therapy benefit in autism: A decompression chamber may help children with autism, say researchers.
. . . After 40 hours of hyperbaric treatment autistic children showed significant improvements in social interaction and eye contact compared with controls. . . .
. . . .
- Full article at link above. -
Posted by WildCondor (Member # 434) on :
You have to get your ears and eyes checked during treatment, Those problems could have easily been avoided had you had proper care.
The best way to do HBOT is while on antibiotics, the most powerful combination possible. If you waste your time and $ on mild chambers, or multi-place chambers you will not be treating Lyme the right way. It has to be done in a monoplace chamber at 2.4 ATA. You can have babesia and still do HBOT, I did it, and all the patients I was doing treatment with did as well, and it only helped.
The trick is to keep it up, not do 30 or 60 dives and then STOP. You have to keep going, do maintenance for about a year afterward. I would say to do 30 initial dives 2x per day, then 30 more 6 weeks later, ten take 4 weeks off and go back for 6 dives every 8 weeks. Then stretch this out to every 10, then every 12 weeks. Keep it up, don't stop cold, and pulse your antibiotics during HBOT sessions so you get maximum benefit.
Another thing, anyplace that charges you more than $175 per treatment is ripping you off. Don't buy into that, there are cheaper places, you just might have to travel. I have heard ridiculous rates of $250-$375 per dive which is just INSANE.
Posted by Raymond (Member # 13980) on :
Keebler...
Thanks...that's my point...the SPECT said decreased cortical perfusion....says nothing about hypo....hyper....but point is wonder what it would do with ICP....that's why I want a transcranial doppler ultrasond....but it is to little blood.....have problems with eyes anyway...now Thursday I do up in plane....first time I went and flew Angel Air small plane...got sick as dog....I wonder now if that was hypoxia...hmmmmmm
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- "Decreased cortical perfusion" IS hypoperfusion. Just another way to say it. Decreased is hypo - whatever. Hypo always means low.
I would be very hesitant with ultrasound on the brain. Very - for a couple reasons far to lengthy to detail now but, basically, the brain of a lyme patient is very different than that of a person without lyme. Lyme patients are much more sensitive to ultrasound in general and sensory overloads (from even the slightest thing) can send the spirochetes in the brain into a seizure spin. Never a good thing.
I also don't think it would tell you much you don't already know. The picture is pretty clear . . . treating the infection is the number one goal. Just figuring out how is something your LLMD should be guiding, I hope. -
Posted by Raymond (Member # 13980) on :
Here is the other side Keebler....you say hypo I say hyper....let's call the whole disease off
Hyperperfusion encephalopathy (HPE) is a condition due to increased perfusion of the brain which is clinically characterized by headache, seizures, and other neurologic signs associated with increased (or not) systemic blood pressures and edema in the subcortical white matter (predominantly in the occipital lobe). Patients with critical carotid stenosis treated with endarterectomy or carotid artery stenting may develop a HPE syndrome of the ipsilateral hemisphere which closely resembles the unilateral HPE and that usually involves the vascular area subjected ipsilaterally to the carotid stenosis.
Not sure?? But called a HBOT place today and explained how I thought perfusion is a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and if it is vasculitic or encephalitis means edema...Two questions can edema cause decrease blood flow, logical???? I do not know and if it is edema
why not covered by HBOT insurnace??????? A friend of mine who had no teeth could not pronounce a$$ holes so he used to say ahh hole.....yeap....But I talked to a guy at a HBOT place today in MO who told me the pressure we expierence now is 1ata so like Wild said we want something above 2 at least so the 2.4 would seem to fit.....
Now here is the other side....my perfusion is either vasculitic or encephalitis....no seizures, headaches like the old head is a 10 lane bowling alley, 30% carotid and white matter....edema causing the perfusion hmmpppppp let mes know whats yous think.
Oh one other thing Keeb, don't believe to many LLMD's know the dam theory behind the neuro stuff all to well....CIDP, Autonomic, AIDP, ADEM, the man on this stuff is not the neuro lyme guy in NYC. I am sure he has helped many so I will not question.....I would love to get into see NL...in NYC.....
When one has pressure the body has ways of releasing that pressure, by varices (sp) through the hemmroids....but this could be portal vein or aorta....makes me wonder.....
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- Raymond,
If they said you had decreased perfusion, that would not be Hyperperfusion, though, but hypo. But, I do like the idea of "calling the hole thing off"
I also think things can change. You've probably read from Brian Fallon and Jenifer Nields' work with all this but, just in case, you can cross search with their names and these terms.
-- I'm no expert in this and am really toast so I hope others can guide you and that you something fun finds you tonight - somehow . . . somewhere (someone is breaking into a show tune).
====== Oh, I find that andrographis and also curcumin really help to alleviate pressure for me. Magnesium, to some degree, too.
Liver support will help relieve pressure to prevent esophageal varices. The better the liver works, the less pressure to all things connected.
--
You said: " . . .now Thursday I do up in plane . .. "
Do you mean that this Thursday you are to go up in a plane? Last time, the inner ear could have caused what you experienced. Be sure to get some ginger capsules. That is an anti-inflammatory that can help settle the inner ear - in turn, it calms down a lot of other symptoms.
There are also some homeopathics that work pretty well with motion sickness. Sit over the wing if you can, aisle seat. Look straight ahead as much as you can. Cool cloth or ice bag to the neck veins before take-off and landing and during turbulence.
BOIRON Tabacum 30 is one of those. Cocculus 6 is another.
I NEVER drink soda and as much as they lyme diet says no sugar, I gotta say that 7-up or Sprite has kept me from barfing all over the plane. Ginger capsules are not always enough.
Good luck flying. Be sure to keep blood sugar stable, too.
This all can get better. Really. -
Posted by laceyj (Member # 13862) on :
oh yeah i agree about the price
when i was considering it, i negotiated a cheaper price then they had advertised after checking with my insurance it wouldnt cover
Posted by Raymond (Member # 13980) on :
I throw this out there I was diagnosed with pseudo papilldema.......
![[Smile]](smile.gif)