Hyperbaric Oxygen

[zoki83]

Thanks for the advice on how to post from private messages Wise, it made it real simple.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perhaps you should post these. Wise.


Quote:
Originally Posted by zokarkan
Hi Wise,
To reply to your question about if hyperbaric oxygen helped in my recovery, I certainly do think so. I sustained a number of injuries and before I started hyperbaric oxygen I was still very weak and my scars were of a very dark red colour, which is also because of my sensitive skin. I also had a wierd colour in my face, most likely from all the stress from the accident and was always getting tired easily. From when I started hyperbaric oxygen, I could see changes in my scars after about 5 sessions! My energy levels also went back up and soon after this my normal colour that I had in my face before the accident returned back. This all happened in about 2months after starting hyperbaric sessions, where I was doing about two to three sessions a week. Regarding my back scar from surgery, I was cut from T1-T8, alot of doctors have commented about how good the scar has turned out. My hailo-thoracic scars I have filled out tremendosly from hyperbaric oxygen and I also have a tracheostomy scar that filled out alot aswell. The scar I feel that turned out the best is the one that I have under my right arm which got operated on because I had a crushed right artery. Wise, this scar was very bad but it has now virtually blended in with my skin! Wise, this is just a bit of brief information that I have sent you but if you would like I can send you pictures of all my scars and describe to you what they used to be like compared to now and I can also let you know about how some other spinal patients went in the hyperbaric chambers, because while I was in hospital about another 5 spinal patients were trying it. Kindest regards, Zoran Obradovic



Quote:
Originally Posted by Wise Young
Zoran, it seems that you are a good experiment. Do you think that the 60 sessions of hyperbaric oxygen helped in your recovery? I did say that Australia is spending more money on stem cell research (not spinal cord injury, at least I did not mean spinal cord injury). However, that situation is beginning to change, with California investing $300 million per year. It is hard to predict.

Wise.


Quote:
Originally Posted by zokarkan
Hello Wise,
When I had my accident 3 years ago I sustained a number of injuries and also got received alot of scars. I had about 60 sessions of hyperbaric oxygen and the colour of my scars started to blend in with my skin and I alot of scar tissue disappeared because of the hyperbaric oxygen. I was just wondering would this same thing be possible with the scar at the spinal cord injury? Also Wise, you said that the way money is being invested in the US for spinal injury therapies could be there in 7-10 years! Since you said that Australia is investing more in spinal cord injury research and has less restrictions, what do you think the time limit will be in Australia for therapies to be available. Kind regards, Zoran Obradovic.

[Wise Young]

Zokarkan, I am so glad that it worked. I just re-edited my description of how to post from private message to public forum. I have spent so much time on these forum and am so use to manipulating messages that it did not occur to me that it would be so complicated. I just posted a poll in the Announcement and Feedback forum after this experience to ask people whether they find this site easy or difficult, because I have just realized that we are catering to users who have a lot of experience of bulletin boards and this site may be very confusing to newcomers.

Regarding hyperbaric oxygen treatments, I want to point out that this is very old technology that was quite popular in the 1980's. Australia (particularly Sydney) was one of the most active countries doing hyperbaric oxygenation therapy (HBOT) of spinal cord injury. There is some controversy concerning whether HBOT improves function in chronic spinal cord injury. Although many scientists are willing to believe that HBOT is useful for acute spinal cord injury, the data supporting such beneficial effects is still very limited. Unfortunately, the field has been complicated by the presence of many clinics that are claiming miraculous effects of HBOT for all conditions and under all circumstances.

I was particularly struck by your message because it seems that you are really a good subject. You were getting HBOT to treat your scars and had spinal cord injury at the same time. Therefore, you are an ideal subject to see whether HBOT improved your function. The way to do it would be to take 200 patients and subject half of them to HBOT and the other half to standard therapies without HBOT. If there is significant difference between the two, this would be evidence to support HBOT and also wider availability of the therapy to more people with spinal cord injuries.

Regarding the mechanisms, oxygen has long been known to have effects on cells. In general, most cells in our central nervous system are operating at the outer limits of oxygen availability. In fact, all it takes is about 6 minutes of not breathing and our central nervous system stops functioning. If we continue that for 20-30 minutes, the central nervous system shuts down and may be damaged. This is particularly true for the brain. The spinal cord has a greater margin of safety but it is not much more. The question is what happens if you provide excessive oxygen to the brain and spinal cord and whether there are parts of your system that were not functioning due to lack of oxygen but can now operate.

There are several well-documented studies from the Japanese showing the compressed spinal cords can benefit from HBOT. Compression of course causes slowing down of blood flow to the spinal cord and HBOT should help provide more oxygen to compressed parts of the spinal cord. Thus, this would appear to be one particular type of spinal cord injury that would most likely benefit from HBOT. The unanswered question is whether HBOT would also be helpful in restoring function to people with compressed nerve roots. Finally, in the case of chronic spinal cord injury without continuing ischemia, the unanswered question is whether or not HBOT stimulates repair and regeneration.

Wise.

[zoki83]

Speaking about recovery after hyperbaric oxygen, I started doing it full time 6 months after my accident and whatever little recovery I got happened after that. I am T4 and I got abdominal muscle function back to T6 or T7, I'm not quite sure which level it was, and I got functions of my back muscles back which T12 controls. The funny thing is that, as I have already asked you Wise, nearly every muscle under my injury I try to contract I can feel contracting, and the people treating me could actually tell when I was trying to contract my muscle because they could feel a small pulsation, but I felt this before starting hyperbaric sessions. For sensation I can practically tell alot of places that are being touched under my injury but it is a very weird feeling, nowhere near normal. This also started after starting hyperbaric sessions. There were a number of other spinal patients that were also going the same time as I was. All had a significant improvement in scars. One lady got a suprapubic cather inserted while doing hyperbaric sessions and nurses in the hospital said that they never saw anyones suprapubic cut heal so quick. The only spinal patient that got a fair bit of recovery was a lady that was C6. She had a bit of recovery before starting but got a fair bit more later on. The funny thing was that when she started getting motor function back, it would be noticed after she came out of the hyperbaric chamber! The thing is that none of us know if this was because of the hyperbaric oxygen or not. Wise, because hyperbaric helps the body to heal alot quicker, could this recovery also have been because we still had some swelling around the cord and the oxygen helped heal it quicker, so therefore function returned? From my experience, I would recommend this to anyone that has bad scars or that has a number of injuries they want to heal a bit quicker. The only downfall is that it is quite expensive, I'm speaking about Australia, and no medical insurance covers it at all.

[zoki83]

Sorry, I also forgot to add that the lady that got function back had a compressed cord and my cord was also compressed. I have added this because of the Japanese studies.

[Wise Young]

Interesting. Wise.