Why isn't mHBOT talked about more in the lymie community?

Day one of mHBOT was completed this morning.

After some paper work and a consult of the different procedures, I was in the chamber.

It looks, feels, and even smells like an airplane. Pressure was at 4 psi (1.4 ATA). 1 hour.

Ears pop just like ascending and descending on an air flight. The entire chamber constantly fills with oxygen. There's an oxygen tube you can breath right into (but not necessary).

All the extra oxygen definitely makes you sleepy (I guess similar to breathing techniques to relax).

There's enough room to sit up if you get tired of laying.

After the first dive, I feel no different (didn't expect too). However only 5 hours have passed. I'm making sure to think objectively because there definitely can be a placebo effect. Simply not feeling "bad" is not good enough, I will need to feel significant improvement throughout this experiment where it's obviously not placebo.

Some quick context about patient zero (me):

1. "newer" lymie (all symptoms manifested 3 months ago).

2. A month and half of treating it (abx, herbs, vitamins/supps, healthier nutrition)

3. 15+ symptoms down to 3 or 4. only experiencing mild herxing, every couple days or so. (I don't know if it's the calm before the storm, or I've just been recovering well since I wasn't sick for too long). But there's enough going on that I know everything is not yet okay.

4. schedule in advance to 10 committed dives (9 more to go). 2 dives per week. Will most likely do 20.

Definition of success:

Because I already don't feel bad and symptoms and herxing are annoying and bothersome but not debilitating, the defintion of success for patient zero is symptoms must be eliminated completely. At this point in my recovery, simply "feeling better" is not good enough. I've felt a lot better for a month now. Lingering symptoms must be eliminated (of course not necessarily all at once).

I will update after dive 5 and 10 and if anything relevant happens in between.

cd3764 said...
Kudos to you for trying this!

I must admit my chest tightened when I read "dive". I'm claustrophobic and can barely handle open air MRI's lol

Good luck! Your plan for updates sounds good - thanks for letting us know!

lol. Any chance you can get over the fear? It may be the treatment you need to get that last 2% out of your system. Deep tissue, muscle, and bone penetration is the concept of mHBOT.

It's why I'm doing it, it's the pesky last 10-15% of the healing "hump" I need to get over. I now those suckers are hiding in there.

cd3764 said...

dacarte3 said...
Any chance you can get over the fear? It may be the treatment you need to get that last 2% out of your system.

I could get over the fear - what I can't handle is the price tag....

I know. And $60 per dive is still pricey in the long haul and in the world of mHBOT this is a REALLY good deal. I wouldn't be doing it if was 100 plus per dive. I don't have $1000+ per month I can soley dedicate to this.

If it was cheaper or I won the lottery I would do a lot more.

I am positive it killed my babesia as I herxed from it. I don't think it did much to my bartonella.

I believe it. HBOT is pressurized 0-2 though not 0-3 like ozone. There isn't a lot of long term research out on either HBOT or ozone on the net or the library as I have gone there to check out medical journals. Bummer. That ebook I mentioned was the best I had found on HBOT. "The oxygen revolution."

I can't even imagine it...

There are a lot of moms on here who also have kids with lyme....so hopefully you can connect with some of them.

Thanks for the update, dacarte!

I understand the difficulties in assessing the effectiveness of a new treatment. Congrats on the improvements with your Lyme symptoms no matter what gets the credit!

I'm not sure I understand why you're getting IGeneX testing done again. Once we test positive for Lyme, future antibody tests will always show some degree of positive and it can be a mix of IgM and IgG due to Lyme's crazy effects on the immune system.

It's the presence or absence of symptoms that LLMD's use to determine active infection since testing is so unreliable.

Hi dacarte3,

Are there any updates with your mHBOT treatments? Would really like to know.

and phoiph, how many treatments did it take for you to resolve your lyme symptoms? And what was the pressure used?


Cheers

Post Edited (recentlyme) : 12/14/2016 7:01:13 AM (GMT-7)

I'm familiar with phoiph story, it was a part of my motivation.

I didn't even realize I didn't give a last update.

Here's my conclusion:

mHBOT makes you feel better. That's a good thing. It makes you feel better because of simply what it does. All that extra oxygen has multiple benefits for your blood, immune health, neurological health, etc.

Every time I left a session, I felt awake, clear, and had more energy.

However, this sounds exactly like something else. Exercise. A good workout, does the exact same thing. Your oxygen level increases from an hour plus of heavy breathing. Endorphin, serotonin, and dopamine level rises. Testosterone rises. Immune health is boosted.

A good workout produces higher quality of sleep. Also important for boosting immune health, etc.

I personally would recommend consistently working out (with an oxygen mask) to essentially get the same benefits as well as the additional benefits that simply lying in a chamber can't provide compared to physically working out.

And working out is free (plus the cost of an oxygen mask).

Does mHBOT do all the things it is theoretically supposed to do? Most likely. But so does consistent exercise? yes.

Daisies 1000,

I appreciate your experience and perspective, and believe you when you say that you have noticed differences in reactions between individuals using different pressures/protocols. It would be helpful to know more about the variables involved (e.g., what pressures were used in the hard chamber, frequency, and over what time frame, etc.)

Higher pressure (HBOT) certainly has its place for many, many serious conditions. The potential problems tend to arise when the higher pressures are used consistently over time with neurological conditions.

Dr. Paul Harch, who has been researching and practicing mHBOT/HBOT for over 20 years, discovered that people who were being treated with higher pressures for certain conditions (like non-healing wounds, for example), definitely experienced wound-healing, but were not experiencing improvement (and sometimes regressed) in their concomitant neurological conditions.

If you consider chronic Lyme to be a neurological condition (as is Autism, brain injury, CP, stroke, MS, Parkinson's, dementia, etc.), then there is plenty of documentation that mild pressures are generally safer and more effective for these types of conditions.

Here is one article Dr. Harch wrote on the subject:

More is Better: The Recurrent Illusion of Higher Pressure HBOT in Chronic Brain Injury, by Dr. Paul Harch: www.wisconsinhyperbarics.com/research-pdf/more-is-better.pdf

dacarte3...

There are physiological differences between EWOT (Exercise With Oxygen Therapy) and breathing 02 in a pressurized chamber (hyperbaric).

When breathing oxygen under pressure, the red blood cells are first saturated with 02, and the pressure then forces the 02 beyond the red blood cells, directly into the plasma, fluids and tissues.

When breathing "normobaric" oxygen with (or without) exercise, the red blood cells also become saturated with 02, but they can only carry so much 02 once they become saturated. The extent of 02 delivery is dependent on the efficiency of the circulation. Without the additional pressure, the 02 cannot spill over and be infused as deeply into the fluids and tissues.

An experiment was done decades ago where blood was removed from pigs and replaced with saline solution while the pigs were placed in a hard chamber w/02 at high pressure. The pigs functioned normally without blood, as the pressure forced adequate 02 into the tissues. (The blood was later re-infused, and the pigs suffered no ill effects.)

To be sure, the pigs would not have survived this experiment if they were only breathing 02 (without pressure) and exercising on a treadmill.

There are also many, many additional benefits of hyperbaric, including release of stem cells, reduction of inflammation, reversal of hypo-perfusion, signaling of healing genes, improved immune system function, gut repair, etc., that make it a very powerful treatment.

tickcheckguy...

I'm sorry to hear about your experience, and that you had to discontinue mHBOT.

In observing dozens of people over several years, I have found that it is important for those with chronic illnesses to start very, very slowly and work up to the full mHBOT protocol over time. This method takes time and patience, but usually avoids severe reactions, and allows most people to continue treatment. I also find that the more toxic a person is, and the more medications they are on, the slower they may need to start.

Unfortunately, even expert practitioners may treat someone with mild pressure protocol for a brain injury (concussion), for example, but may not take into consideration the need to work up slowly due to the severity of their Lyme condition.

When analyzing the ROI, I lean more towards a holistic approach minus HBOT/mHBOT. Breaking the bank/going bankrupt to pay for the amount of dives (40+) needed to see the beginnings of measurable improvement may not be worth the stress for some (then the stress not helping the healing process).

A holistic approach, plus regular consistent exercise (I don't believe I need to defend the plethora of health benefits of exercise) is a more practical approach in my opinion.

Use the right herbs to push blood and oxygen deeper into the body. Way more cost effective.

Put things into the body that assist the body to function optimally. Food based nutrients, healthy chemicals released from the body during physical activity, healthy microbes your body needs (probiotics), safe NATURAL supplements to assist organ health and celluar function. Assist the body in detoxing.

I feel like this classic/natural holistic approach that most lymies engage is the best way to go.

Sometimes trying too hard to re-invent the wheel can happen. I put mhbot/hbot in that category. Sure, does it "work", yes to varying degrees. But so does the basic things that humans have been doing since we became homosapiens.

Post Edited (dacarte3) : 12/17/2016 8:52:49 AM (GMT-7)

decarte3...

I respect your passion for exercise.

I was an avid runner for 17 years, mountain climber, etc. before I was infected.

I became so dysfunctional when I had Lyme, I was unable to eat more than 5 foods for over 5 years. Drugs, herbs and supplements became out of the question, as they caused huge reactions as my body became increasingly chemically sensitive. Exercise to oxygenate my body was impossible at the time, except for continual pacing due to head to toe, 24/7 searing nerve pain. I lived in that hell for 8 years.

I was astounded at how ill I had become, based on the fact that I was already very active and living cleanly. If it were only as simple as exercising and returning to my former healthy and active lifestyle once I became ill, I would have done so...but I was beyond that point, near death, and couldn't return without intervention.

Fortunately for me, I found mHBOT. It literally saved my life. I now do everything I did before I was infected, no medications, no restrictions.

Regarding cost, I purchased a home chamber (I was homebound, and this was my only options). If only this was the first investment I made for Lyme, instead of the last, I would have saved hundreds of thousands on failed treatments...so I consider it priceless.

We will have to start a new thread (part 2) for this soon, but I did want to ask, what's the difference between the mHBOT and hard HBOT from the stand point of how it affects the person or infections/recovery? I can't afford one either way, but my curiosity is peaked.