Hello Teaaquinn,
My son is 25 years old and had a car accident the 01.01.2012 with a severe traumatic brain injury.
In January 2014 I read this article from Israelien medical research about oxygenic therapy for traumatic injuries.We live in Switerland and here and in Europe nobody knows about this therapy. Even the neurologist thinks nothing about it.
I have asked Assaf arofeh medical center in Tel Aviv and I found too a hyperbaric center in quebec.I had a very good feeling with the center in Quebec but they don't have a medical team. My son goes in Mai to Israel .He will have 3 days of evaluation with a neurologist: SPECT,IRM and cognitive evaluation.If the neurologist is agree he will have 60 cessions of HBOT. Once a day, 5 days, 2 days free.
That means he will have to stay 3 months in Israel..It's the first time I read a recital of such an experience and I am grateful to you.
We feel confident but worried.
Can you tell us if you heard about side effects and how you felt during the 40 cessions.
Thank you for your answer.And excuse me for my English.

DBS,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. I am sorry to hear about your son's injury. This thread has not been active since December 20, 2013. I have not seen teaaquinn post in quite some time.

As you push for therapy for your son, you may look into high dose DHA fish oil. It has as much anecdotal evidence as the success with HBOT. I have not seen research about HBOT so long after a TBI. Usually it is used right after the injury and as such reduces the time to return to consciousness in some patients. I hope it is of benefit to your son.

Please feel free to tell us about your son's struggles. There are plenty of people here who can offer support.

My best to you.

This forum's weird rules prevent me from posting links since I'm now. So anyone interested in actual clinical data I am trying to link below will need to go digging for themselves.

In 2015 Efrati published a study on HBOT for blunt mTBI people without PTSD. The results echo Teaaquinn's improvements.

Furthermore, the study addresses the flaws of prior studies showing no benefit over placebo (as Mark_in_Idaho mentioned). Basically, what was previously thought of as placebo was actually therapeutic dosing of oxygen.

Google this: PMC4499900

Note that isn't reasonable to attempt a placebo for the patient, so a double blind study isn't easy to create. Note that in the study above, objective SPECT scans (and neuropsyc testing to a degree) provide strong evidence without a double blind setup.

Since this post was last active, Dr. Harch also published results similar to Efrati's linked above:
Google this: PMC5674654

Regarding getting worse after HBOT, that is extremely unlikely. Dr. Harch's paper here will shed some light on anyone with enough brain power to read all of it...
Google this: dosage-hyperbaric-oxygen-chronic-brain-injury

Lastly, Dr. Figueroa has these two informative papers:
Google this: 5-Clinical-Results-in-Brain-Injury-Trials-Another-Perspective

Google this: Figueroa-Wright-Neurology-HBOT-Evidence.pdf

Bottom line is that HBOT works for many people. Whether it's worth the cost to one is their own decision. I've seen it as low as $100 per 1 hour session. Rather than look at the cost of it, a better question is "can you afford not to?"

It seems promising, though it'd be nice if there were more a larger number of studies supporting its efficacy. I also worry about long-term effects -- there don't appear to be any short-term adverse consequences, but what if all the extra free radicals it creates increase your risk of brain cancer in like 30 years? (not saying that there's any reason to believe that, just saying it doesn't seem like the long-term effects have been studied).

Personally, I did a total of 30 sessions at 1.5-1.75 atmospheres, from around month 3 to month 7 post concussion (20 consecutive sessions at around month 3 followed by 10 sessions around month 7).

At a minimum, there's unquestionably a short-term benefit -- I felt noticeably better on the days that I had HBOT. There was also a withdrawal effect. Whenever I stopped treatment, I would feel awful for a day or two afterwards (but then that passed).

I did see long-term sustained improvement over the course of my treatment, but it was relatively early in the course of my injury -- so I have no idea how much of the improvement came from the HBOT vs. natural healing or other factors. The improvement over the course of the sessions wasn't dramatic (the HBOT hardly cured me, I still have significant issues) but it was significant and noticeable.

I might try it again at some point. Ultimately I stopped, not so much due to the cost, but more due to the time commitment (it was taking 4 hrs of my day, in terms of the treatment time + commuting to and from the treatment center).

I'd love to see studies with more people and consideration of long term effects as well. Unfortunately, it seems quite costly to run so many treatments, and I imagine it's hard to get people to commit so much of their lives for the treatment.

In my opinion, your consideration of long term effects is valid. Granted, I'd worry more about long term effects of medication use or increased potential of early onset dementia or Alzhiemers over HBOT. Hopefully 40 - 80 sessions of HBOT would reduce the need for meds or reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disease. Again, just my speculation!

I did hear the owner of the Rocky Mountain Hyperbaric Institute say that people who stick to a 40 session treatment without pause tend to see better results than those who go through fewer. Meaning, the results you got from 30 might have been better if they were done without a break (and with a few more sessions). I'm by no means criticizing your decision to get 20 then 10 later!!!! I understand it's a huge time and financial commitment! I'm just trying to say that I've heard a guy in the industry say that results come from consistent treatment. Granted, that's just one guy's observation...

Whatever the case, I'm glad to hear you experienced improvement!

The Harch and Efrati studies I tried to link treat 86 people with 40 sessions. Harch did two sessions a day M-F over 4 weeks. Efrati did 1 session / day M-F over 8 weeks. Both have before and after neuropsyc testing that some very worthwhile cognitive improvement over the course of 40 sessions! That doesn't include the other improvements people report such as fewer headaches, better sleep, less photosensitivity, reduced hyperacusis, better emotional control.

The 86 people in the Harch and Efrati studies were more than 1 year post injury, so it's hard to argue that natural healing produced the improvements.

The Efrati study was also a cross over design, which also shows the improvements weren't produced from natural healing.

I'd love to see a study or report of individuals who have went through 40 sessions of 60 minutes at 1.5 ATA over 8 weeks who have NOT experienced improvements or have experienced minimal improvement. I'm curious how little one can expect to get out of that treatment. If such as study showed that 95% of TBI patients 1+ year out experience significant improvement, I think that helps people feel comfortable committing the time and money.

I haven't heard of someone going through 40 treatments and not experiencing improvement they were happy with.

My daughter is almost 8 yrs out and she went to Dr Harsch about 3 years ago. She was in one of his studies and she benefitted from the HBOT.

Since then, she has been diagnosed with 4 different types of migraines. It turns out that there are migraine genes and her concussion triggered them to become responsive according to her migraine docs at UCSF and the Mayo Clinic. Botox has really helped with the painful headaches. She receives Botox at Stanford.

There are many NEW migraine inhibitors out there that have recently been cleared by the FDA. My daughter turned 26 this year and is now on public assistance. IF YOU HAVE PRIVATE INSURANCE, THE NEW MIGRAINE MEDICATION WILL BE SENT TO YOU FOR FREE. I think you have to get approval from your doctor stating that you have migraines IF IT WORKS FOR YOU, YOUR DOCTOR CAN PRESCRIBE IT. (this is why the companies send it to you for free. Public assistance won't pay for the medication so the company won't send it to you for free. IT'S CRAZY and sad at the same time. Hope this helps you all out there. My best to you..Hopefulmom. She started a blog for people like herself. The pictures are her own taken out at Mavericks. TBI Brain Waves

Who do you see for such diagnosis and how does one get diagnosed with such incredible detail?

I don't really get much pain, but I suspect I maybe suffering from silent migraines or aura-only migraines.
But no doctor that I have visited would go into such detail to actually diagnose me with anything. All of them listen to my symptoms, dispense basic migraine medication and have me report back.

The amount of detail you describe in such diagnosis is nothing that I have experienced...and I'm up to 4 different neurologists to-date.

She was first diagnosed at UCSF through their vestibular testing that lasted 2 days. Yes she too was given prescriptions for pain that had bad side affects.

She was 1.5 yrs from having no private insurance so she looked up doctors who were experts in migraines and decided to go to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Appointments can take months to get so call ASAP. The doctor from the Mayo Clinic was the one who encouraged her to try Botox.

Hope this helps