I've seen reported use of this treatment for FM somewhere, when I find it I shall post..........

A Burst of Fresh Air

Deep-sea divers have long known the benefits of hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) -- a method for efficient delivery of pure oxygen -- to treat those with the "bends," a condition that can occur as a diver rises to the surface and the changing pressure causes nitrogen gas bubbles to form in the lungs, tissues and bloodstream, leading to a potentially lethal blood flow blockage. Today, doctors use HBOT to treat a number of other conditions -- carbon monoxide and cyanide poisoning, wounds that aren't healing properly, serious burns, soft tissue and bone infections and certain complications from radiation therapy. While everyone agrees about the usefulness of HBOT for these conditions, there is another usage that is generating much debate -- the practice of using HBOT to address neurological problems, including brain damage from strokes.

About HBOT

HBOT administers 100% oxygen (versus the 21% that is in the air we breathe) in a chamber with an air pressure considerably greater than the air around us. The pressure dramatically raises the number of oxygen molecules entering the bloodstream -- by as much as 2,000%. The vastly increased oxygen level allows the oxygen to reach bone and tissue that it normally can't reach, where it may accelerate healing. The oxygen also can enhance functioning of white blood cells, the infection fighters, which may improve aspects of immune system function. It is the ability to heal tissue that has neurologists evaluating HBO for use with stroke patients. Harry T. Whelan, MD, medical director of the Froedtert & Medical College Hyperbaric Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, is leading a new study to determine the effectiveness of HBOT for acute stroke treatment. I called him to discuss this and what HBOT might do for stroke patients.

Oxygen and Stroke

Dr. Whelan explains that an ischemic stroke -- caused by a blocked artery -- kills some brain tissue that is deprived of oxygen. However, although the tissue in the surrounding area, which is called the ischemic penumbra, is starving for more blood, it continues to have at least some oxygen from nearby unblocked vessels, so this tissue continues to survive in an extremely delicate position. The smallest change can kill it or, conversely, rescue it from destruction, potentially saving a great deal of the patient's future functioning. By using HBOT for treating ischemic stroke, concentrated levels of oxygen are rapidly delivered to the ischemic penumbra, helping to heal and improve blood flow to this precarious tissue as well as helping prompt formation of new blood vessels in the area. Dr. Whelan says that patients must receive therapy within 24 hours of the stroke and preferably within six to 10 hours. His institution has reviewed the medical literature and is ready to start the pilot study this fall, with broader expansion in about two years.

HBOT for Previous Stroke Damage

What about treatment for strokes that happened months or years ago? While logic would tell you otherwise, Giuseppina Benincasa-Feingold, MD, who has an HBOT center in Brewster, New York, has had success in treating these older injuries as well. The belief of those administering this HBOT is that the ischemic penumbra cells never die but remain idle, like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for something to revive them. While Dr. Whelan and others disagree, saying that the tissue cannot survive even days, to say nothing of months or years, there are a number of doctors who strongly support this belief. A pediatrician by training, Dr. Benincasa-Feingold became interested in HBOT when her then three-year-old daughter who has cerebral palsy took part in an HBOT study at New York-Cornell Medical Center. Her daughter showed rapid cognitive improvement, but when the study was completed, her mother had no place to take her for additional HBOT. She began to educate herself in the practice and today has a center in which she delivers HBOT to post-stroke patients as well as to children who have cerebral palsy or autism.

When I spoke with Dr. Benincasa-Feingold, she explained that although common sense would indicate that using HBOT so long after the fact wouldn't work, she has seen real improvement with stroke patients even six years post-stroke. Furthermore, she says that imaging techniques have shown the ischemic penumbra area of the brain light up when treated with hyperbaric oxygen many months and years later. Ideally, she agrees, treatment should take place immediately following the stroke, but she says that the possibility of improvement makes even later treatment worthwhile. She adds that it can't hurt (the only side effect seems to be popping in the ears, similar to take-off and landing in an airplane, and the main contraindication for treatment is for those on a few unusual medications) although it is admittedly costly and time consuming. Her protocol for stroke patients is 40 treatments given over four to eight weeks, and they run about $200 per treatment. As of now, insurance doesn't cover HBOT for stroke treatment.

To discuss HBOT post-stroke therapy with a doctor, or for information about practitioners nationwide, go to http://drcranton.com/hbo/find.htm.

Be Well, Carole Jackson, Bottom Line's Daily Health News

Sources:   A Burst of Fresh Air

Giuseppina Benincasa-Feingold, MD, Valley Health and Hyperbarics, an HBOT center, Brewster, New York.
Harry T. Whelan, MD, medical director, Froedtert & Medical College Hyperbaric Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.