Need help healing? Try some extra air

There’s not much that can be done to treat many of those symptoms and Hoblin thought her life irrevocably changed.

Until she discovered mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

A fairly unknown therapy used to help treat a variety of maladies, ailments, conditions and trauma, it’s just now beginning to grow in popularity in the United States.

Patients breathe in pure oxygen in a sealed chamber where the pressure is slowly increased to three times normal air pressure.

Proponents of the treatment say the process speeds up the body’s natural healing process and has been recognized as a viable treatment for a long list of different maladies.

“It’s the medical use of oxygen at a pressure higher than atmospheric pressure,” said Dr. Grace Johnstone, a chiropractor who operates Community Hyperbaric clinics in East Hardwick and Montpelier. “We pressurize the chamber,” she explained, and the patient is “breathing concentrated oxygen.”

Hoblin began treatments in East Hardwick in April 2016, and she credits the still-fairly unknown treatments with helping her get back on course.

“It’s certainly changed my life,” Hoblin said.

How it works

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy speeds up the body’s natural ability to heal because the increase in atmospheric pressure that occurs in the sealed chamber allows the body to absorb more oxygen at the cellular level, which is said to promote healing.

A small motor pressurizes the chamber and an oxygen concentrator takes room air, which is normally about 21 percent oxygen, and concentrates to between 90 and 95 percent oxygen.

Patients breathe the concentrated air through a mask during a session. At normal pressure, oxygen attaches to red blood cells and is transported around the body, where it is deposited. When a patient receives hyperbaric oxygen therapy the oxygen is also deposited in the plasma.

“Basically, we are oxygenating the fluids in the body,” Johnstone said. Oxygen is an anti-inflammatory and promotes healing and its presence in the plasma means it can reach parts of the body that it normally wouldn’t under regular conditions.

“Not even Lyme disease can hide from it,” Johnstone said. She actually began looking into the therapy after she contracted a rare form of Lyme disease five years ago.

“I tried the traditional approach, antibiotics; we hit it hard,” she said. While the antibiotics didn’t work, the hyperbaric oxygen therapy and some recommended supplements did.

Along with helping bolster the immune system the therapy can also be used to treat a long list of problems according to the Mayo Clinic, including severe anemia, brain abscesses, air bubbles in blood vessels, burns, carbon monoxide poisoning, sudden deafness, gangrene, skin or bone infections, non-healing diabetic wounds, radiation injuries and vision loss. But the Mayo Clinic said there isn’t sufficient evidence to support claims that it also can be used to treat brain injuries. Johnstone and her patients don’t think there’s any doubt on that score, though.

“The issue is that treatment needs to be done with some frequency, especially early in care for a stroke or brain injury. Four or five times a week,” Johnstone said.

According to the Mayo Clinic “hyperbaric oxygen therapy is generally a safe procedure” and complications are rare. A few side effects or hazards include temporary nearsightedness or middle ear injuries brought on by the increased air pressure in the chambers.

Other harmful effects, though rare, include seizures or a collapsed lung brought on by changing air pressure. Certain medications aren’t compatible with the treatment, and Johnstone requires patients to fill out an extensive submission form in addition to having a referral from a physician before receiving treatment.

A game changer

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy may not be an acknowledged treatment for injuries like Hoblin’s, but she only needed a few sessions to see positive results. She’s convinced it works.

Before her first session, she was unable to drive herself the 45 minutes to East Hardwick, but that quickly changed.

“I was going four times a week, and within the first week I could drive myself back and forth,” she said. “It increased the amount of driving I could do instantly.”

She noticed other changes, too.

“My energy skyrocketed,” she said.

After eight months, she bought her own chamber to use at home. Now she has between four and six sessions a week.

“I’m continuing to see myself improve, I’m capable of doing more complex tasks all the time,” Hoblin said. That includes working again part time on her own small business doing software quality assurance. While she’s not back to work full time she is “back to being a fully functional human being,” which is a far cry from where she was before the treatments.

“Last summer, I was able to go to concerts and restaurants again and deal with the crowds and noise,” she said. “This year I’ve been able to pack up my stuff, drive a few hours for a trip, be in crowded places and then drive myself home.”

Serena Kent has also utilized the treatment. The Hyde Park native was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2014, and traditional treatments weren’t working. She began doing her own research and stumbled upon hyperbaric oxygen therapy as a possible remedy.

Kent, who also suffered from concussion symptoms before being diagnosed with Lyme, began traveling to East Hardwick for one or two sessions a week in August 2016.

Concussions and Lyme disease share many of the same symptoms, and since beginning treatment Kent has noticed that the symptoms of both are diminishing. She no longer suffers from such severe headaches, fatigue or sensitivity to light and sound. Her brain fog, confusion, seizures and vision problems have dissipated.

Kent was just finishing up her freshman year at UVM when she was diagnosed with Lyme, and until recently returning to college wasn’t something she could even consider.

“I’m just finishing up an online class, and wouldn’t have been able to complete the writing component before” hyperbaric oxygen therapy, she wrote in an email to the News & Citizen in early August.

“I am so grateful to Grace for all her support, and for her help in improving my Lyme and concussion symptoms,” Kent said.

In Johnstone’s eyes, stories like Kent’s and Hoblin’s are proof that hyperbaric oxygen therapy works for a wide variety of illnesses, even if not all are recognized yet.

“People can recover and not spend the rest of their lives with a disability,” she said.

She wants to make the treatment more readily available to all Vermonters, and along with her clinics in East Hardwick and Montpelier she also recently founded the nonprofit Hyperbaric Vermont.

For information: communityhyperbaric.com.