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Hyperbaric oxygen treatment for IBD

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Posted 7/3/2014 4:02 PM (GMT 0)
I searched the archives for information about hyperbaric oxygen treatment for IBD. There

was some discussion about this subject in 2012 but I couldn't find any recent posts. My

daughter's GI is very excited about the possibility of this treatment helping her ibd and was

just wondering if anyone here on the forum has tried it.

The study he had her read was a review of 17 studies involving 613 patients. The results

were as follows:

     The overall response rate was 86% (85% CD, 88% UC). The overall response rate for perineal CD was 88% (18/40 complete healing, 17/40 partial healing). Of the 40 UC patients with endoscopic follow-up reported, the overall response rate to HBOT was 100%. During the 8924 treatments, there were a total of nine adverse events, six of which were serious. The rate of adverse events with HBOT in IBD is lower than that seen when utilising HBOT for other indications (P < 0.01). The risk of bias across studies was high.

It appears that a  100% response rate for UC is pretty amazing. I always have trouble posting

links here but I will try:

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24738651

If anyone has had any experience with HBOT, I would really like to hear about it.

 

Posted 7/3/2014 4:10 PM (GMT 0)
Forgot to include a link to the article that explains why this treatment may help ibd

http://www.medicalgasresearch.com/content/2/1/6
Posted 7/3/2014 4:23 PM (GMT 0)
Been watching HBOT abstracts for years,interesting they don't try it more often.

Perhaps it works too well and it is too easy to do.

Read the hypoxia abstract on this page.

As a side note,after ischemia in the colon oxygen restores mucus thickness.

Looks like they are saying that oxygen is good in the anus,but lower in the rectum.

Old Mike

 

http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/elsevier/sa1817-tissue-hypoxia-in-pathogenesis-of-ulcerative-colitis-should-we-96By0NbJWD

Post Edited (Old Mike) : 7/3/2014 11:02:52 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 7/4/2014 1:43 AM (GMT 0)
I have to at least pat this GI on the back for thinking outside the box. However, if this was the cure I think there would be a lot more publicity on the subject. I'd say that doesn't bode well but, what the heck, it's probably a lot safer treatment than most. I'd love for it to work and you can post on here with the results.
Posted 7/4/2014 5:27 AM (GMT 0)
Healthy people = no $ in healthcare. Even my GI said that.

Ie. I have had to take thousands of dollars worth of antibiotics in Canada over the past month, because I need to fail 2-3 courses of vanco for my c-diff before I can try a fecal transplant. Why don't they just do the fecal transplant first? Which has a much greater rate of success. Well because big pharma wouldn't be making their $$ off of the antibiotics.

I love hearing about doctors trying new things. My GI is great too. As soon as my colon has become less inflamed it's fecal transplant mania! :)
Posted 7/4/2014 9:01 AM (GMT 0)
Thank you for posting. I have been wondering about trying this privately since reading about it a few months back. Have you looked at the detail of how many sessions were needed and the spacing of the sessions time-wise? I need to read through the individual studies to try and find this I think, hopefully that info is there. On websites I've looked at it says that, depending on the condition, between 5 and 40 sessions of HBOT are given.
Posted 7/4/2014 9:06 AM (GMT 0)
This recent study says it did not do anything for severe colitis over and above standardised treatment, so not a miracle cure
informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00365521.2013.819443
Posted 7/5/2014 6:55 AM (GMT 0)
London Lurker: the article you posted is in 2013. The first link posted by the OP is a "systematic review" whch was just published in june 2014: so it would have included the study you linked plus many more.
Im interested to read the full text if anyone can post it/has access to it. @maggiemay: What do you mean that it had alot of bias?
Posted 7/5/2014 10:26 AM (GMT 0)
It looks like the 2014 article is a re-print though of the research from Jan 2012 in the second link?
www.medicalgasresearch.com/content/2/1/6

Unless there were two reviews, haven't read it that carefully yet...
Posted 7/6/2014 3:51 PM (GMT 0)
We haven't contacted the company yet to find out the specifics because my

daughter needs to talk to her prof to find out if she can take time away from her

research job. It is going to be quite a time commitment. Her doctor told her it will take

anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks, 5 or 6 times a week for 1.5 hours each session at a cost

of $75 a session. Insurance usually doesn't cover it.

 

The name of the company is http://h3oxygentherapy.com/  They have six locations in

Washington state and one in Denver and Phoenix. We would have to travel to Seattle

and because the traffic is so congested, we would probably have to allow 2 hours one way.

Looking at the website, we are considering renting a chamber to use at home if she

starts it and it looks like it may be helping, rather than travel to Seattle every day. The

company rents and sells hyperbaric chambers. I have no idea what that cost would be.

 

Conquer UC - I don't know what they meant when they said "the risk of bias across

studies was high". I quoted that from the results section of the pubmed paper. When I

get a chance I would like to read the whole thing and find out if it is explained.

 

London Lurker - that article you posted is interesting. I'm not sure what qualifies

as a "severe attack of ulcerative colitis". Not sure that that describes my daughter's

condition.

 

Gary- yes, this is the first gi doctor she has gone to who tried to find alternatives to the

drugs. I remember her first appt with him, he said he could easily prescribe any of the

drugs used to treat ibd, but none of the them work very well. That was so refreshing

to hear a doctor admit that. He has suggested a number of things for her to try:

diet changes, probiotics, fermented foods, medical marijuana, etc., in addition to some

of the drugs. 

 

If nothing else, we hope this will heal her fissures that she's suffered with for a year and

a half becuase HBOT is used for wound healing. I did also find this interesting discussion on

a different forum http://www.crohnsforum.com/showthread.php?t=17605

 

I will keep you posted on the results.

 

 

 

 

Posted 7/6/2014 4:17 PM (GMT 0)
I don't like it when doctors blow sunshine up our asses. They did that with my first autoimmune disease. They kept on giving me pats on the back and reassuring me that this treatment works 80% of the time, if that doesn't work this other treatment works 80% of the time, blah blah blah. I was very depressed because these treatments didn't work on me and I thought that I was just one of the unlucky 20% all the time. After learning more about the disease and the treatments I realized that they were giving me lines of BS and false hopes right from the beginning. Prednisone they claimed worked 80% of the time but they seemed to forget to mention that what they really meant was the prednisone worked 80% of the time while you were on it. After tapering off it rarely worked. Surgery was the next option (splenectomy). I was told that it worked 80% of the time but somehow they forgot to mention that it worked 80% of the time immediately after surgery and not months or years down the road when you were right back to square one all over again but this time without a spleen. What I liked about my GI was he hinted to me right up front that I was screwed with this disease and told me that I could look up a bunch of information on the internet (basically admitting that all he can do is hit and miss treatments which might work and might not. I'd rather be told the truth than having all that false sunshine blown up my ass.
Posted 7/7/2014 1:36 AM (GMT 0)
I wonder if oxygenated water enemas would help? Just thinking...
Posted 7/7/2014 11:28 PM (GMT 0)
I would love to know if anyone tries out.

I have been watching this for more than 3 years but can't convince myself that it will help anyone but trapped miners. There is another point, the pressure used in chamber (1.3 ATA vs 1.75 ATA) or if its soft chamber or hard chamber etc. etc. Just too many variables to make any conclusive argument.

I will wait till someone else tries and pays for the treatment.


Offnote,
The other day I came across a YouTube video of a Brazilian doctor that claimed that taking 10000IU or more daily of Vit D has helped his majority of autoimmune disease patients. In other words, your Vit D levels of 70-100ng/ml and should be no sign of autoimmune disease. At least, the arguments he makes are conclusive and trustworthy.
Trying that out once winter sets in, until then soaking up sun with sun sensitive skin because of Sulfasalazine.
Posted 7/8/2014 12:44 AM (GMT 0)
I've heard of the vitamin D cure. Not too convinced on that one. I've also heard that if you take too much Vit D in can make your UC worse. Isn't that one of the vitamins you can actually overdose on?
Posted 3/18/2016 2:09 AM (GMT 0)
Maggiemay, I know this is a very old post but I would like to know your experience with hbot as we are considering this therapy for my 10 year ago old son having Crohns who has not responded to any current meds.
Posted 3/18/2016 5:45 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Svipa,
My daughter didn't have the time to use the hbot therapy because she was busy with school. We were
hoping that when she finished her master's last August she might be able to use it on a consistent basis,
but as it turns out, she is just too claustrophobic to be enclosed in the chamber.

However, she did call her local GI last fall when she was hoping to use the HBOT to ask him if his other patient who was also using hbot had had good results. Her doctor checked back with him because he
hadn't heard from him for some time and found out that he had good results. It did take longer than
anticipated. We were trying to remember exactly what he said, but it seems that it took about 110
hours of hbot before he saw results. He varied the number of hours a day depending on his schedule,
but the bleeding did stop. We aren't sure if he achieved total remission but it definitely did help him
when nothing else had helped. I wish we know more of the specifics. For instance, we don't know if he was on any medication.

I just think that it would be difficult to have any clinical studies using hbot because I don't know how
a person could devise a control group that wouldn't know if they were receiving hbot. If you have any
questions, please let me know.
Posted 3/18/2016 6:36 PM (GMT 0)

maggiemay said...
Hi Svipa,
I just think that it would be difficult to have any clinical studies using hbot because I don't know how
a person could devise a control group that wouldn't know if they were receiving hbot. If you have any
questions, please let me know.

Not all RCTs are blind. In psychotherapy research for instance blind studies are not really possible, a therapist always knows what approach they are delivering and patients can often tell even if not told, doesn't stop guidelines and recommendations being based around their results (although how reliable they are is always up for discussion).

Good to hear an update, it's still a treatment I wonder about trying one day if needs be.
Posted 3/19/2016 10:55 PM (GMT 0)
"As a side note,after ischemia in the colon oxygen restores mucus thickness."
so do they apply this oxygen per rectum to make it restore mucus thickness?
Posted 3/24/2016 10:43 PM (GMT 0)
My GI finally got around to reading his email, he said:

Mr. Wodin,
That idea has been around for a number of years.
Not enough data to support it's use as regular therapy.
I've not heard of the national / international experts in inflammatory bowel disease using it as a standard part of treatment.
Sincerely,
M*** Y******, M.D.

He might have said "What? And cut into Humera sales?"
Posted 3/25/2016 12:25 PM (GMT 0)

JamesonM said...
Healthy people = no $ in healthcare. Even my GI said that.

Ie. I have had to take thousands of dollars worth of antibiotics in Canada over the past month, because I need to fail 2-3 courses of vanco for my c-diff before I can try a fecal transplant. Why don't they just do the fecal transplant first? Which has a much greater rate of success. Well because big pharma wouldn't be making their $$ off of the antibiotics.

I love hearing about doctors trying new things. My GI is great too. As soon as my colon has become less inflamed it's fecal transplant mania! :)

Curious, where are you getting a FMT in Canada? I've been trying to get it for years, but to no avail.

Thanks!
Posted 4/2/2016 9:38 PM (GMT 0)
Hey Svipa,

Sorry I could not find this until now but coincidentally it was just posted today on the Crohnsinfection.org website:

Combining infiximab, anti-MAP and hyperbaric oxygen therapy for resistant fistulizing Crohn’s disease
www.future-science.com/doi/pdf/10.4155/fso.15.77

Aside from pretty darn remarkable results, it links to some other study resources at the end you could look into.

Best of luck.

"Nine consecutive patients with Crohn’s disease and fistulae were treated with a special combination of in ifximab, numerous hyperbaric oxygen sessions and combined antibiotics including rifabutin, clofazimine and clarithromycin as the base antibiotic combination – called anti-Mycobacterium avium ss paratuberculosis (MAP) therapy. At between 6 weeks and 6 months all fistulae healed – included rectovaginal – so that the skin was dry and there was no discharge and no need to wear a pad. Their Crohn’s symptoms of diarrhea, urgency and bleeding also resolved. Continuation with anti-MAP therapy alone maintained healing although one patient who ceased the anti-MAP therapy had a relapse."

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 4/2/2016 3:55:46 PM (GMT-6)

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