This month's newsletter from Dr. Whittaker features stem cells for PD. I've called the clinic and the gist of what I was told is this:

They use a twilight anesthesia, cut a small incision near your navel, take out some fat, harvest stem cells from it, "treat" them, and then put them back in your body via an IV in your arm. The procedure takes about three hours, you have to be cleared for it (EKG, etc.), and it costs $6300.00.

As part of this treatment they recommend you do a series of hyperbaric oxygen treatments: four before the stem cell surgery and two after (although you can do more). These cost an additional $215.00 each, I believe it was, and you can do no more than two a day.

They have been offering HO at the Whittaker clinic for many years for other things (wound care is one), and I can't help but wonder if the success they see with the stem cell work they have been doing for almost two years now is really more attributable to the HO they request patients do in conjunction with it. Their results with the stem cells are mixed, so we are waiting and watching.

But back to the hyperbaric oxygen (HO). I've read that it helps some people with PD a lot, but others, not so much. My reading seems to indicate that you need at least 10-15 treatments to get to an improved plateau, and then you need maintenance treatments every so often thereafter. It is very individual, like everything, so one guy may need 25 treatments to start feeling better, but someone else may only need 5....if it even helps the particular person.

Has anyone had any experience with hyperbaric oxygen? A ton of sports teams have these chambers to help their athletes heal from injuries, and there are a lot of facilities that offer HO for wound care as well. We'd love to hear if anyone has tried this, and with what result(s).