Texas Soldier Gets Hyperbaric Chamber Treatment In Bay Area

Bradley Thomas was an athletic man who loved the outdoors, but that all changed when the infantry soldier’s tank was struck by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Doctors say the explosion left the 23-year-old semi-comatose, so the Texas man was brought to Tampa’s James A. Haley V.A. Hospital for treatment.

Day after day, he is transported to University Community Hospital in Carrollwood where he undergoes hyperbaric chamber treatment. “He’s going each day into a pressurized oxygen chamber,” said Dr. Ajay Patel. “That pressurized oxygen chamber puts him down to about one-and-a-half atmospheres, and in doing so it increases the amount of oxygen he receives and increases the amount of oxygen that healing tissue needs, such as the brain itself.”

There are risks associated with the treatment, Patel noted. The eardrum could be injured, and patients can develop seizures because of the pressure, he said. But he added that Bradley has not had any complications. “The goal for him is try to get him as much function back as possible,” said Patel.

Since the start of his treatment, Bradley has shown dramatic improvement, doctors say. He went from being semi-conscious to responding by blinking his eyes.

Bradley’s mother, Veronica Thomas, said “it’s just another day closer to recovery,” adding that even small signs of progress give her hope.

Thomas said her son is responding to verbal commands, “He’s smiling, squeezing a hand,” she said. “We’re seeing more spontaneous [reactions]. He just seems like he’s more with us.”

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Stem Cell Infusion And Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment Improve Islet Function In Diabetes

Stem Cell Infusion And Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment Improve Islet Function In Diabetes

ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2009) — A study to determine if patients with type 2 diabetes can benefit from a combination of autologous (patient self-donated) stem cell infusions (ASC) and hyperbaric (above the normal air pressure of ) oxygen treatment (HBO) before and after ASC has found “significant benefits” in terms of “improvements in glycemic control” along with “reduced insulin requirements.”

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The combination therapy could decrease type 2 diabetes morbidity and mortality, said the authors, who published their study results in a recent issue of Cell Transplantation (Vol. 17 No.12).

“Autologous stem cell therapies are an emerging set of therapies with promising results and low side effects profiles,” said corresponding co-author Esteban Estrada, MD, of Stem Cell Argentina. “In addition, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, used primarily in the treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning, air embolism suffered by divers, and as an enhancement to wound healing, has been shown to increase stem cell mobilization and the release of endothelial progenitor cells via a nitric oxide-dependent mechanism.”

The clinical trial evaluated the safety of ASC-HBO combination treatment in 25 patients with type 2 diabetes.

According to the researchers, it is well known that with type 2 diabetes, there is an ongoing inflammation of the pancreas. Their hypothesis suggested that mobilizing stem cells would cause the growth of blood vessels (angiogenesis) and release factors that would result in the local differentiation of progenitor cells with a resulting anti-inflammatory effect. Diabetes, they added, has been shown to impair progenitor cell mobilization, a problem that local stem cell infusion could remedy.

Once more, the effect of the hyperbaric oxygen therapy, they hypothesized, would be to increase stem cell mobilization in such a way as “to target more than one crucial reparative step” to counteract the chronic injury that attack the endothelial progenitor cells and the islet cells.

“Overall, our results show that a close follow-up with intensive diabetic management alone could not be the only cause of the positive, progressive and consistent outcomes we obtained in this trial over one year of follow-up,” said Dr. Estrada.

“A decade ago, research had explored stem cell transplantation and hyperbaric oxygen therapy as stand alone treatments. This study highlights the potential benefits of using an unusual combination therapy to treat diabetes” said Dr. Cesar V Borlongan, Associate Editor of Cell Transplantation and Professor at the University of South Florida College of Medicine.

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Hyperbaric Autism Treatment Shows Possible Promise – ABC News

Hyperbaric Autism Treatment Shows Possible Promise
Hyperbaric Chamber Merits Further Study, Say Researchers; Some Remain Skeptical

Still, perhaps because the therapy, while still unproven as a remedy, does not appear to physically harm a child, this study may draw less controversy than many autism studies have in the past.

Rossignol and the study’s other physicians offer therapy in a hyperbaric chamber in their own practices — a potential conflict of interest that they noted in their paper. They said that this means that results will need to be replicated before the therapy can be recommended.

“Obviously, we need other people who’ve studied this as well,” he said.

The Search for a Cure

Rossignol said he was first introduced to the therapy when his wife wished to use it in an attempt to treat their own two children, who have autism.

For the study, researchers looked at 56 children ages 2 to 7 with varying degrees of autism. Each received 40 treatments of an hour each.

Full article here

Hyperbarics in the news….Boston

Chatham family treated for carbon monoxide poisoning

The family – a couple, their daughter and 5-year-old granddaughter – were taken from a home at 100 Mills Road in Chatham. They all were sick for about a month and a half, thinking it was a bad case of the flu.

On Monday, Joanne Vachon called 911 and reported that her husband, Rick, was having a heart attack. He was taken to the hospital, but doctors sent him home believing that is was a false alarm.

The next day, everyone in the home woke up sick.

Firefighters showed up at the house with a carbon monoxide detector.

“As soon as they walked in, their bells and whistles went off, we were at a very high level,” said Rick Vachon, the homeowner and carbon monoxide poisoning victim.

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The family was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital and spent two hours in a hyperbaric chamber.

“It could have got quite worse, they could have died” said Chief Michael Ambriscoe, of the Chatham Fire Department.\

The family has fully recovered.

The full story can be seen here

Lawmakers want faster progress…

“We keep getting studies,” Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House defense appropriations panel, said at a hearing Tuesday. “That’s the problem with the Defense Department — they study it to death.”

“I would say that you’ve helped us significantly,” Ellen Embrey, deputy assistant secretary of defense for force health readiness and protection, told Murtha and other lawmakers. “I would like to report in future hearings what we’re doing with that money.”

Lawmakers had plenty of ideas of their own: Buy more helicopters to get wounded troops out of Afghanistan faster; begin treating traumatic brain injuries immediately using hyperbaric oxygen chambers; and, most importantly, quit spending so much time studying options that never become reality.

Murtha began the hearing by lamenting the growing number of suicides among active-duty soldiers, higher rates of divorce in the ranks and stories he said he keeps hearing about service members being treated poorly when they ask for help.

But Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, director of the new Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, said there is much positive news since her program was created.

“We have come a long way since just over a year ago when we were a name on a piece of paper,” Sutton said.

Read the full story here

Technorati Tags: Soldiers, with, TBI,, Hyperbaric,, Brain, Injuries,, Blast, Injuries,, Wounded, Soldiers

Hyperbarics in the News….(New Zealand)

From New Zealand we see the following good news:

Doctors have discovered breathing in pure oxygen can give people with wounds that won’t heal a new lease of life.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy was seen as a last resort for those suffering from injuries that did not respond to treatment, but at a privately run clinic its success has meant it is gaining in popularity.

After part of his leg was amputated four years ago, Malcolm Fleck was in agony and could hardly move. His stump was ulcerated and infected and as a last resort he tried hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

“I had 11 operations in four years and this is getting rid of it where antibiotics and so-called well, modern medicine can’t,” Mr Fleck says.

The technology has been used by divers suffering from the bends for decades, but now it is becoming an accepted part of mainstream medicine.

Patients sit inside the chamber breathing pure oxygen through helmets under pressure.  It is this combination that accelerates healing by up to 80 percent.

With titanium implants inserted into her neck, Paparoa schoolteacher Audrey Campbell was in constant pain. She could not stand, let a long work.

Having tried numerous treatments in the past she was cynical at first, but now she’s a convert.

“I wouldn’t have believed it, it’s a really positive experience,” Ms Campbell says.

Both patients are now breathing easy as the pain subsides and their recovery takes off.

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