HBOT

Hyperbaric Oxygen treatment is one of the high visibility treatments that works really well for a lot of kiddo’s on the spectrum. And it doesn’t work at all for others. There’s a new company in Colorado Springs offering HBOT treatments, and our DAN , Dr K. is their medical advisor. I spent a while on the phone with this company today. Nice guy.

So one of my discussion topics for our May 6 appointment with Dr K is starting HBOT treatments with Dominic.

The way HBOT works, is that it increases the oxygen concentration in the bloodstream significantly enough that it permeates through brain tissue to get to brain cells that may be dormant (or in Dominic’s case, may just be missing synapses). At the around dive 35-40, you begin to see angiogenesis, which is where the body says “oh, there’s a cell here, I should put in a regular blood flow to get it oxygen.” Basically, it reactivates dormant or damaged brain cells which we believe Dominic has.

The idea is to do it frequently enough that its always a progression of how far the oxygen goes in the brain – no more than 3 days apart. We actually will probably try to do this Mon, Tues, Thurs and Sat all summer if it comes to pass (since things will be busy during the summer but MUCH busier in the fall). The chambers are big enough for one of us to get in it with Dominic, and we’d put in a DVD player for him. (aside, the one of us who gets to get in with him also gets some benefits of HBOT, not as much as Dominic will because he’ll eventually have the O2 concentrator mask, but some benefit nonetheless)

One interesting tidbit the guy mentioned was that they’ve seen kids with major gut stuff have lower GI improvements with the oxygen. Something about the gut being a low priority for oxygenated blood in the body? Anyway, it would be nice to see some gut healing as well, since that’s such a fragile balance for Dominic.

We’re going to go see them May 7 and do our first, free dive. The guy said we could borrow his portable DVD player for the first one, and we would likely end up buying our own if this all comes together. (we’ve been talking about one for ages)

Cost wise, its not cheap. But, its not as pricey as many I’ve seen online. Its not covered by insurance, but as long as we get Dr K to “prescribe” it, we can write it off of our taxes. We will get a cut rate for buying a package of 40 dives.

Timing wise, there’s better chance of it being a long term positive for Dominic if we do it while we still have a ways of ABA to go. IE – we get more oxygen to his brain, and then if he’s one of the kids for whom this is a huge benefit, the ABA will work that much better. I’d love to start this in May and do 15 weeks at 4x a week then another 10 at 2x a week. It sounds like its one of those things that you want more intensity at the beginning of the process for deeper healing. So we’ll see. On the internet, the parents who report it works for them, say it works miracles. Those who say it doesn’t work just don’t see anything as opposed to regression.