Hyperbaric Oxygen (HBO) Therapy
This would have to be one of the easiest medical procedures I've ever done. It's just time-consuming and tedious.
You go into a small, specially contructed room with 5 or 6 other people. It gets pressurised to 2.4 atmospheres. You put on a mask or hood and breathe oxygen for 25 minutes, then an 'air break' for 5 minutes. You do that four times, with the pressure gradually normalised during the last 25 minutes. And you do that six days a week for 3-5 weeks.
I felt like I was on a spaceship. You wear special non-synthetic clothes (one static spark with all that oxygen and it's curtains), you have a space-helmet and your contact with the rest of the world is with small port-holes and an intercom. But after the first few days the Jetsons and Startrek jokes wear off and then it's just a grind with no obvious improvements. Well, there might be, but they are so subtle it could be your imagination.
My immediate reaction was to be energised by it, to walk out into the sunshine with a spring in my step. They warn you about tiredness: yes, I was tired, but not the sort of lie-down-for-a-nap tiredness but something more deep-seated, what I've heard described as "bone-weary". The nearest equivalent in my experience is the tiredness you get from shift-work.
It was hard to get to be allowed to do this. I'd been trying for about four years and just came up against brick walls. There used to be a privately run unit in Adelaide but for some reason it was closed down.
Why does it work? Is it the same idea as all the vitamins we take, to "blitz" our systems with oxygen? It fits in with the bacterial theory, especially if this bug is an anaerobe. Whatever, the evidence is there that it does work. Read about the experience in the UK, as well as information about the procedure (mainly for other ailments) from the US.
What is my conclusion about HBO? I just don't know. It's been almost a year and I can't really say it's done me any longer-term good. But at least I can say I tried it!
After 5 weeks of this, they give you a certificate.
© Australian Philosophical Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge 1998
Back to the first page