HBOT thoughts: (12/19/5) Questions answered… but I just added:
Actually, this will
be a fairly long story…so I moved
back to the MME next to my son!
Hyperbaric Oxygen
Therapy (also known & commonly referred to as HBOT) has been a potentially
powerful intervention that I have been aware of for quite some time. Dr Gunnar Heuser is one of our docs from our Mold case that we just
settled after 4 years. Four years ago he wrote a letter to Dr Rimland regarding the positive
spect scan results he had on a child with Autism. No response (Dr Heuser was
frustrated by this, but it is probably just enormously challenging to keep up
with the correspondance DAN must get). I think the first person I heard about
HBOT from was Melanie Gentile (best Autism friend, AMT pharmacist for TD-DMPS & amazing). She had done HBOT with Dr Cassidy in Santa
Monica with the hard chamber, 100% oxygen, glitzy space, $250 an hour. Her
daughter with Rhett’s syndrome (on “The Spectrum”) showed no response, but
still felt from stories of other parents that it could be powerful…with tons of
spect scans to demonstrate positive impact on Cerebral Palsy kids immediately
following treatment. So that was probably 4 years ago as well. It having
therapeutic value was consistent with our theory of then that we maintain today
that they are toxic & loaded with pathogens, but beyond that didn’t do it.
In “The World of
Autism” – TWA for short… HBOT is a relative newcomer (I had Shannon Kenitz – International Hyperbaric Ass.
President speak to parents at the free conference I had in October of 2004
about HBOT). In “The World of CP & Brain Injuries” HBOT has been fairly
extensively utilized. I have been hanging out with these parents for years now
because their specialty is neurological regeneration which is what we felt we
needed following years of detox including 8 months at the Edelson Center.
(knowing that detox is a constant companion for our son) General consensus
among the parents of these kids & adults I was meeting was that HBOT could
& was often effective while doing it, but that the improvements fell away
after treatment ceased. Dr Heuser & Dr Steenblock seem to feel that the 40
session mark will help ensure maintenance of improvements. Keep in mind that
you always tend to hear about the failures of other programs wherever you go,
because if what they had tried before had been completely successful…you probably
would have never met them at this new “thing” they were trying. Whereas you
tend to hear about the successes of whatever program you are currently
participating in. (this reminds me of all the docs who say…I have never had a
patient of his/hers come to me healed…WHY & WHO WOULD KEEP SEARCING IF WHAT
is being done is EFFECTIVE…my guess is most people go on with life & thank
our dear God we were blessed with answers!
Bottom Line: despite
recommendations for it from Dr Heuser & others & because of these
unsuccessful stories, the expense, my son’s slow but plodding progress, my time
being sucked up doing this type of stuff, etc. & Dr
Klinghardt’s very luke warm opinion of it…we just didn’t do it. Cut to Mother’s
Day 2005…my son is now apparently having seizures, one to two seconds where his
head shoots down…I cancelled the conference I
was supposed to have with Klinghardt,
Buttar, Yasko, Mercola,
Heuser, Steenblock, Bonlie, etc. & focus on the job
at hand…GET RID OF MY SON’S SEIZURES ASAP!!! I was already friends with Shannon Kenitz & Samir from OxyHealth to the point where he had
already offered to loan me a chamber to try at no charge! Well let’s get that
sucker delivered! Within two weeks it was set up and ready to go in my garage.
Now my son was having about 12 a day & turbo-charge mogobaby (my nickname
when I was 7…sounds suspiciously like I would have been put on Ritilin today!)
was taking over. Only problem: IT DID NOT TEST (Energy testing based on muscle
testing using the intention) repeatedly. We ended up only doing one “dive” to
1.4 with the oxygen for about 40 minutes total! Despite having this chamber in
my garage for over two months. By this time we were going back & forth to FuturesUnlimited & seeing
dramatic drops in his seizure activity with each visit. I didn’t really
understand what I was supposed to learn from my son not wanting HBOT…but every
time something like this happens…it is to teach us something!
Tons of HBOT going
on out there right now! Here are my concerns which I discussed with Dr
Steenblock who in my estimation knows MORE THAN ANYONE ON THIS SUBJECT! HBOT
seems counter-intuative…our kids are full of oxidative stress (as a rule) &
neurological inflammation (which by the way is what we reduced at futuresunlimited & lowered his
seizures)…the last person you would put in a chamber…but like Samir pointed out
to me & rumor has it Dr
Kartzinel will atest based on his experience with his son (who tried it
when an injured athlete in his area had one brought in to use & in the off
times they used it & saw great results) these kids universally are having
great success (symptom abatement). Here’s the advice Dr Steenblock gave:
1.) Never put a child with cold/sinus infection
in a chamber
2.) Always give Vit E & magnesium
(anti-oxidants)
3.) Never eat in a chamber (if they seize…&
HBOT can trigger an isolated seizure in a person who has never had one) during
the seizure they stop breathing often times & when it is over they suck in
air & lodge whatever food in the mouth in the airway. It will take a
certain amount of time to lower the pressure safely to assist the person.
4.) Never have a soda/unopened container that the
pressure will explode.
5.) Confirm the chamber has been thoroughly
cleaned prior to your usage. Toxins will be released during a session that must
be wiped out of the chamber or they remain to be absorbed by the next user.
It
all sounds basic, but these are very important. I went on to describe a
negative response a child had after going in a chamber in San Francisco which
has the docs concerned there & after he told me it is very safe universally
to use the chamber he went on to say what probably happens if there is a
negative response is the oxygen is getting to a spot of mercury in the brain
& oxidizing it to a more dangerous level & causing further damage in
that spot. Reversible (like EVERYTHING is!), but points to having the mercury
levels down in these kids being desirable before HBOT. We also talked about it
being desirable to have a marker on oxidative stress & getting it to go
down, even a little bit, before they go into a chamber…then you know you have
somewhere to go if it spikes that isn’t beyond what the body has already
handled. Knowing what I do about neurological inflammation & stimulus going
hand & hand, I would also suggest some “down time” before & after HBOT.
I would also not put a child with red cheeks & ears (obvious lack of PST)
in a chamber, because the microbial inhibition that comes from the HBOT &
increased oxidative stress might exacerbate this.
Before
I go into what Dr Bonlie has to say…here is an article on stem
cells & HBOT!…that thinks HBOT actually creates stem cells &
appears to be documented. Perhaps there is another explanation for why the MME
& HBOT don’t seem to like each other in Dr Bonlie’’s opinion.
Now
let’s really open the can of worms & go on to say that Dr Dean Bonlie
of magneticosleep.com has found that the patients he sees who have done
HBOT (I would guess that most of the patients he sees who have done HBOT have
DONE A LOT OF IT because by the time you get to him…let’s just say these patients
are thorough!) do not respond as well or as quickly to the MME. He speculates
because the HBOT is damaging to stem cells which he attests the MME grows. He
has found however that once more time under the MME is spent & improvement
begins, that this seems to be overcome. On the backside, he has found in a
Parkinson’s patient that was improving nicely with the MME, all the improvement
went away with HBOT (also glutathione). Other docs use the word agenda when I
tell of concerns & experiences that are negative about other options…I
don’t know what to think, but hope that HBOT has lasting benefits beyond the
symptom abatement that will come with treatment & that it won’t make other
very promising healing interventions involving stem cells (injection or stimulation
with MME) less effective. All of this stuff is costly…I just want to know how
they all go together…that is why my goal is still to have an early 2006
conference with all these docs to have an open discussion about what they are
finding!
Now
to our even stranger finding. I do a lot of what we do based on “voodoo” muscle
testing & energetic testing to guide our way. What was strange is after our
stem cell injection & MME time he wanted a heavy duty detox week…which
actually makes sense because whenever you heal tissue it will release toxins or
visaversa..anyway…what didn’t make sense is that with this sauna/detox he
wanted HBOT…but NOT WITH OXYGEN & NOT BEYOND 30 MINUTES 3+ TIMES A DAY
& with the Alpha stim during the middle ten min at pressure. Here was
another example of our testing telling us something that was intellectually
flawed…My son’s new stem cells were not going to like HBOT!
So
what was this…well I began to ponder why & chatted with Andrea (known as the mom who sells
the clay & gets really excited about everything that has worked for her
son, including HBOT – she came to pick up the chamber out of my garage &
can help people get them. She has a brain with an infinite capacity to shift
out of the paradigm & see stuff in a pragmatic way…sometimes off the charts
with excitement, but wow can she process info. Well the analogy that came to me
for why this might be testing this way regarding my son & HBOT was a toilet
that is clogged. Wait…what so many users of HBOT don’t realize is that there
are two very separate modes of action: 1.) which is appreciated is the
increased oxygen level in the cells from the higher concentration in the
chamber & 2.) the less appreciated pressure itself on the cells of the
body. My thought is that it is actually the pressure (think lymph drainage in a
macro-sense) that is producing the benefits more than the oxygen, or possibly
in spite of the increased O2. It is basically acting like a physical molecular
pump to drive things in & out of the cell (sort of what the magnetico sleep
pad enhances by raising intra-cellular potential & making electrons
available). Back to the clogged toilet…you wouldn’t plunge it & hold it
there waiting for the debris to unlodge…you go up & down with the pressure
to get things moving…what my instinct was telling me, following the lead of
MT’ing, was that the chamber can be used on the cells like a plunger on a
clogged toilet, but that you would have to do multiple short dives without
extra O2 & have somewhere for the debris to go. And this technique allows
the possibility of getting the benefits from the HBOT without potentially
sacrificing stem cells (which we need for ultimate healing and re-myelinating
of nerves).
Well
on December 16, 2005…Dr Heuser was at our celebration party for the end of our
mold case. He had been one of our treating/expert witnesses regarding my son’s
injuries from his mold exposure…needless to say…we chatted & I told him
this theory & he was curious about it & actually thought it made sense,
but to him the bigger picture was that 4 years ago he demonstrated AND
PUBLISHED the results on a child with Autism’s spec scan improvements after LOW
PRESSURE (1.3) HYPERBARIC using Samir’s chambers. After I told him my concerns
about maintaining improvement he said that this child appeared to maintain the
improvement. He wants to study these kids with low pressure, but feels
frustrated by the job of finding them. He worked with Dr McCandless but she is
going to be in Hawaii now. He wants me to find kids to participate in a study.
It would involve pre & post spec scans (which by the way as a doc
specializing in neurotoxicity he pointed out that the anesthesia methods are
better now that Dr Usler is doing but that he still doesn’t like to have a
child do more than 2 in a year) post being after 40 sessions. He will not be
able to do the scans for free but feels confident insurance will cover them.
For HBOT I think I could get him to do the sessions for $50 if the parent pays
for 40 up front. BASED ON THE CONCERNS I LISTED BEFORE…I AM NOT ENCOURAGING
ANYONE TO DO THIS, BUT WANT TO PASS IT ON. He is in the San Fernando Valley
& needs 10 children.
Well,
now I feel better now that I have put to paper my thoughts on HBOT!
Other
noteworthy comments to me by docs per my memory:
Dr Heuser: He has real concerns over the
toxicity of the new chamber. Remember he deals with a lot of MCS, mold patients
& he has seen them get worse from the un-off gased chamber. He runs his
open for three weeks all day before anyone ever gets in! As long as it has a
pungent odor it is still emiting high levels of toxic fumes. We also discussed
this center I will be opening in LA in 1/7 & how I was not sure about my
desire to have HBOT but that if I did a room vs chambers made sense because it
would be more cost-effective for parents like at the ActivityCamp in Canada. He
expressed concerns that whenever you put toxic people (which all neurologically
challenged people are in my estimation) you risk exposure to each others
released toxins. This applies to sauna & HBOT therapy which can both
release toxins. We discussed cleaning the chamber well between users to help
mitigate this, which he explained they do at his center, but I doubt goes on
anywhere where the appreciation for the sharing of toxins is not as acute.
Dr
Steenblock: if my memory serves me correctly about a year ago when I asked him
about HBOt he didn’t like it for kids with Autism…knowing him I originally
thought this simply came from his lack of desire to deal with a bunch of noisy
kids doing HBOT in his geriatric’s filled center. He explained that the stress
the child would experience going into a chamber would override any benefits
from HBOT. Take Away: the amount of negative stress a child presents utilizing
a chamber, and the amount of stimulation it requires to keep them in there
might make it counter-productive. Usually however after the first few sessions
the children have no problem getting in. He seems to have a different opinion
now based on the positive results of parents using other chambers. He has three
hard chambers & one of Samir’s from OxyHealth.
Good Article on HBOT full
of tons of information