STROKE

Hyperbaric oxygenation therapy has proven its effectiveness in this condition, world-wide, both in terms of clinical research and with clinical results. 10 years ago, HBOT demonstrated its value in stroke therapy, helping many stroke victims recover far beyond expectation. At this time, it was thought that the primary mechanism of action was HBOT’s influence on recoverable brain tissue (or the ‘penumbra area’ of the brain); in essence, WAKING UP the brain. It was also known that HBOT increases the formation of blood vessels to damaged tissue, so it was thought that a series of HBOT could repair the damage caused by a stroke by both helping ‘wake up’ damaged brain cells and ‘creating new permanent circulation’ to these damaged areas. Now recent research is showing us another reason for the positive results seen with HBOT—Stem Cells. HBOT causes the body to produce stem cells in the brain, aka new brain cells. This is a key to long term recovery for stroke patients. Not only does HBOT stimulate the formation of new brain tissue, it also helps in re-organizing the brain (neuroplasticity). You see, after any brain injury, including a stroke, the brain is compromised and can have permanently damaged tissue. However, the brain has the ability to re-organize itself, allowing other parts of the brain to take over the functioning of the damaged tissue. HBOT has shown to enhance this effect. This means that not only does HBOT affect recoverable brain tissue, but it also affects non-recoverable tissue—the perfect solution for any stroke victim aiming to have a full recovery.

Here are some articles on Stroke:

Ohio State University Medical Center to Test Efficacy of Hyperbaric Oxygen Medicine on Stroke Victims

Tue, 20 May 2008

ANAHEIM, Calif., May 20 /PRNewswire/ — With the financial support of Sechrist Industries, Inc., The Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery (CMIS) at the Ohio State University Medical Center has begun testing the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen medicine on experimental stroke models. CMIS is a multidisciplinary center dedicated to excellence in patient care, clinical training, research and outcomes studies pertaining to the techniques and technology of minimally invasive surgery. Currently utilized for the treatment of chronic, non-healing wounds, carbon monoxide poisoning, crush injuries as well as other indications, the use of hyperbaric medicine for stroke victims is at the forefront of hyperbaric research. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is the treatment of the entire body with 100-percent oxygen at greater than normal atmospheric pressures. Hyperbaric medicine greatly increases oxygen concentration in all body tissues, even with reduced or blocked blood flow, stimulates the growth of new blood vessels to locations with reduced circulation (improving blood flow to areas with arterial blockage) and causes a rebound arterial dilation after treatment, resulting in an increased blood vessel diameter greater than when therapy began, thus improving blood flow to compromised organs. The CMIS team is hopeful that these benefits of hyperbaric oxygen treatments will positively affect stroke patients. “Ohio State University Medical Center is one of the finest health care institutions in the country,” stated Jack Rollins, President and CEO of Sechrist Industries, Inc. “As the world leader in hyperbaric oxygen technology, we feel that it is important to join forces with CMIS to support research in the field of hyperbaric medicine.” “We believe that there is a window of opportunity to treat stroke related injury of the brain using hyperbaric oxygen. The challenge lies in accurately defining the perimeters of that window,” says Chandan Sen, Director of the Comprehensive Wound Center at the Ohio State University Medical Center.

Effects of Hyperbaric Chamber on Brain Injuries to be studied

July 13th, 2007 By Ed Yeates

It speeds up the healing of wounds, but can it do the same for brain injuries? We’re talking about hyperbaric oxygen, and LDS Hospital hopes to find some answers, with the help of about 60 volunteers. Because of a stroke, Keith Jackson has difficulty remembering. Though the stroke caused no paralysis, it did affect his vision, when he tries to see something to the far right, and his short-term memory. Jackson tells us, “We can be getting ready to go to the store, we need to go to the mall to buy something. Five minutes later, I’ll say, ‘Where are we going?’” Brain damage has also apparently affected his sensitivity to situations around him. For example, “I get upset. I get emotional real easily. I usually withdraw. I don’t talk,” he said. Keith volunteered for a feasibility study at LDS Hospital to see if sessions inside the hyperbaric chamber really help. People around the country say it works, but Dr. Lynn Weaver says, as of yet, nobody has scientific data to prove whether hyperbaric oxygen does for the brain what it does for the healing of wounds. Dr. Weaver explains, “We test them before they go in. We measure things later, after they finish. So we can prove, do they get better, do they get worse, or do they stay the same.” Right now, LDS Hospital has 38 patients, like Keith, volunteering for this first-phase study. They come in on a daily basis for a one-hour session, five days a week. That will continue for three months. This baseline study is sort of like a preliminary hearing to see if there really is enough data to warrant the big science: a follow-up multimillion dollar, randomized, controlled study, involving several medical centers and many brain injury patients. The Utah research team is looking for more people with brain injuries to volunteer for this first-phase study. If you are interested, call LDS Hospital at 801-408-3623.

Possible New Therapy for Stroke Patients

June 30, 2007 – 7:04pm

By Kristen Johnson

A type of therapy known to heal diabetic wounds and treat people with carbon monoxide poison could now be used to treat stroke patients. Doctors at Erlanger Medical Center recently used the Hyperbaric Chamber Therapy to help a 23-year-old stoke patient make some large strides in her recovery. When Magen Hampton would get bad headaches and her right side would go numb she never thought much of it, until one day last year, when at just age 23 she suffered a stroke. “I was fixing to get ready to go to work and I felt like someone stabbed me in my neck,” Magen Hampton said. Married with three children, Magen Hampton thought she was invincible. But after a blood clot to her brain caused a stroke, she was left partially paralyzed on one side. “My arm just stayed limp and I couldn’t lift it up,” Magen remembers. Because of a trach to help her breath, Magen says she couldn’t undergo the normal physical rehabilitation for stroke patients. That’s when she went online to look for alternatives and came across Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. Initially, doctors at Erlanger Medical Center used the chamber to heal Magen’s head wound – the result of surgery to relive swelling to her brain after the stroke. Dr. Jim Creel says, “Oxygen is a drug and it goes to sites of injury and it improves the oxygenation…does a lot of good things for the cells.” Magen soon regained movement in her arm saying, “When you get out you just feel like you have a million times more energy…and you just breath a lot better.” Altogether, Magen underwent 30 hyperbaric treatments. But doctors are quick to say this type of therapy is not for everyone. “There’s an awful lot of research that needs to be carried on with this therapy..there’s off label programs around the country that have done a lot of this…but for HBO to be accepted this has to be undergo scientific scrutiny at a research institution,” Creel states. As one of the most active research stroke centers in the southeast, Doctor Creel says he hopes Erlanger can be part of developing the Hyberbaric Therapy for stroke patients further. As for Magen she says, “I want to be able to do my little girls hair and play video games with my little boy.”

A review of oxygen therapy in ischemic stroke

Neurol Res. 2007 Mar;29(2):173-83

Singhal AB.

Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. asinghal@partners.org

Neuroprotective drugs have so far failed clinical trials, at high cost, and intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (i.v. tPA) remains the only FDA-approved acute stroke therapy. Hyperoxia, acting via multiple direct and indirect mechanisms, may be a powerful neuroprotective strategy to salvage acutely ischemic brain tissue and extend the time window for acute stroke treatment. Of the available oxygen delivery methods, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) appears to be the most potent, while even normobaric oxygen therapy (NBO) may be effective if started promptly after stroke onset. HBO has so far failed to show efficacy in three clinical trials. The failure of these trials is probably attributable to factors such as delayed time to therapy, inadequate sample size and use of excessive chamber pressures. Previous trials did not assess long-term benefit in patients with tissue reperfusion. In this modern era of stroke thrombolysis and advanced neuroimaging, oxygen therapy may have renewed significance. If applied within the first few hours after stroke onset or in patients with imaging evidence of salvageable brain tissue, oxygen therapy could be used to ‘buy time’ for the administration of thrombolytic or neuroprotective drugs. This article reviews the history and current rationale for using oxygen therapy in stroke, the mechanisms of action of HBO and the results of animal and human studies of hyperoxia in cerebrovascular diseases.

Oxygen therapy in acute ischemic stroke –

experimental efficacy and molecular mechanisms.

2009 Mar; 9. Curr Mol Med.

Poli S, Veltkamp R.

Department of Neurology, University Heidelberg, Germany. roland.veltkamp@med.uni-heidelberg.de.

Hyperbaric (HBO) or normobaric oxygen (NBO) therapy applied in acute ischemic stroke aims to increase oxygen supply to the ischemic tissue and to reduce the extent of irreversible tissue damage. Over the past decade, multiple studies have clarified the potential and limitations of oxygen therapy in preclinical stroke models. Considering that the reduction of the infarct size amounts to 30-40%, the cerebroprotection induced by HBO is moderate. In the experimental setting, the effective time window of HBO initiation is only a few hours. Higher pressures (2.5-3 ATA) are more effective. Even though oxygen therapy has some effectiveness in permanent cerebral ischemia without vascular recanalization, it appears more promising for bridging of a transient ischemic period until reperfusion of the penumbra takes place. Compared to HBO, the implementation of NBO to the clinical setting would be substantially less demanding. Although recent experimental NBO-studies are promising, significant effectiveness of NBO was only shown in transient cerebral ischemia and if started within a narrow time window of maximum 30 minutes. Some studies suggest that the effect of HBO is superior to NBO both during transient and permanent cerebral ischemia, even if treatment initiation is delayed. Limited experimental studies do not support an additive effect of a sequential combination of both therapies at present. While the therapeutic potential of oxygen therapy in ischemic stroke was considerably better defined over the past years, the underlying cerebroprotective mechanisms of oxygen therapy remain to be fully elucidated. Recent studies have demonstrated that physical oxygen therapy indeed improves oxygen supply of the ischemic penumbra as well as the cellular bioenergetic metabolism. Therefore, the mitochondria including their role in apoptotic cell death pathways as well as the modification of the cellular hypoxia sensor HIF-1alpha are considered as potential “downstream pathways” of oxygen therapy. Finally, its beneficial effects on the ischemic microcirculation suggest an important modification of various cell types within the neurovascular unit.

Strokes— Statistics and Prevention

May 9, 2009; by Dr. Ramsey

In order of predominance, the leading causes of death in the U.S. are (1) cancer (2) cardiovascular disease and (3) stroke. The main cause of strokes are blocked carotid arteries (80%) and more than half of the people who have strokes have absolutely no symptoms prior to stroke onset.

Half of the Medicare costs go directly to patients with strokes. Strokes are either caused by ischemia (poor blood flow from the carotid arteries), a clot from local or distant tissues or from a bleed (arterial hemorrhage within the brain from weakened vessels or injury).

Since most of the strokes in the US are caused by narrowing carotid arteries, we look first at preventing this. Lifestyle plays a large role here. First, make sure your blood pressure is not high. Second make sure that you have plenty of essential fatty acids in your diet. If you are at higher risk than normal (overweight, smoker, high blood pressure), consider an enzyme called nattokinase to go along with the fish oil and it works as good as taking Coumadin, better than aspirin at preventing clot formation and plaque buildup.

If you are reading this article and you or someone you know suffered a stroke, the absolute best medicine you will ever receive for this is Hyperbaric Oxygen. (See insert at end of this article). Very few hospitals will offer this care to stroke victims, yet it should absolutely be the first line treatment to restore optimal oxygenation to the starving tissue.

There are genetic predispositions to strokes that go completely unknown until the first stroke, called Atriovenous Malformation. The only way one would know of such a condition is to have an angiogram to look for backflow of the vessels or to have an MRI, which does have some false negative outcomes.

Therefore, knowing which symptoms may suggest an onset of a stroke, or a transient ischemic attack (TIA) is as follows:
Sudden…

* numbness or weakness of anywhere in the body
* dizziness, loss of balance
* trouble speaking or understanding speech
* confusion
* severe headache
* loss of vision or sudden dimness

Prevention is key:

* If you have any of the above listed symptoms, get to a hospital within 2 hours of onset and insist upon an MRA (magnetic resonance angiography) – although expensive to your insurance company, can save your life
* If you have a family history of stroke, or if you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or are overweight, have a simple carotid artery test called a Doppler study.
* Assure that your blood pressure hasn’t changed significantly in the past year
* Assure that your cholesterol is monitored yearly and maintained at optimal ratio of good to bad cholesterol with lifestyle and supplement measures, avoiding statin drugs as much as possible
* If you suffer heart fluttering at all, have an echocardiogram to rule out atrial fribrillation.
* Use increased precaution if you smoke (with fish oil and nattokinase) and try to decrease if possible.
* Exercise daily — even if it is a simple walk around the block
* Optimize body composition, which means to increase your lean to fat ratio, regardless of your overall weight
* Be mindful of alcohol consumption and decrease when possible
* Without fail, minimize your stress as this is a major contributor to alterations in heart health, blood flow, nutrient depletion, cholesterol management etc.
* Here is an affirmation for you to use daily as well. When you say the words, feel their vibration in your cells. If you can feel them with ease and don’t notice any resistance in your body when you recite the words, you are in vibration alignment with prevention of strokes:
o Life is change, and I adapt easily to the new. I accept life – past, present and future”. [taken from You Can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay]

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and Strokes

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) works by saturating a person’s blood and plasma with oxygen resulting in increased oxygen delivery to tissues. In fact, because HBOT forces oxygen into the body under pressure, oxygen dissolves into all of the body’s fluids including the blood plasma, the lymph, and the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. All of these fluids carry the extra oxygen to the tissues and cells of the body, even where circulation is poor or blocked.

The extra oxygen in the tissues helps the healing process in many ways, including: Enhancing the white blood cells’ activity at wound sites and ability to fight infection; promoting the development of new blood vessels for increased circulation to hypoxic areas; assisting the body to build new connective tissue in damaged areas; reducing edema by vasoconstriction; and blocking cytotoxic effects of many harmful gases/poisons.

No matter what causes a stroke, the result is a localized area of damage in the brain called an infarct. The injured area has a central core of damaged tissue that cannot be repaired, surrounded by an area that is not as heavily damaged. Between the damaged tissue and the unaffected, normal brain tissue is a zone called the penumbra. The penumbra contains dormant/idling neurons that are intact but nonfunctioning. HBOT, by providing extra oxygen under pressure, helps wake up these idling cells so they can recover their function. Once these neurons begin working again, many of the symptoms of stroke disappear.
HBOT also has many other benefits for the treatment of strokes, which include:

* Relief of oxygen starvation or hypoxia
* Increased microcirculation or capillary development to increase blood flowDecreased brain swelling or edema by constricting nearby blood vessels
* Relief of muscle spasticity
* Reduction of free radicals that continue to cause tissue damage
* Stimulation of nerve impulses through the brain and spinal cord
* Protection of the integrity of cell membranes so they can function properly

Edward Teller

May 31, 2009; by Carlo Lingiardi

It turns out that Edward Teller who developed the atomic bomb used to end WWII did use a 100% oxygen rigid hyperbaric chamber and a portable one when he was travelling to be better after he had strokes and I’m renting the chamber from the very person who gave these treatments to Mr. Teller who eventually had one for himself and did treatments until he died. So even if I certainly don’t need any reinforcement of my conviction of the efficacy of HBOT for TBI I know that one of the most intelligent mathematician who ever existed after Einstein used it to himself his all life. I’m not a doctor and I’ve just always been above average in math but the logic of the effect of oxygen to injured parts, brain included, is too simple not to be understood.

Brain-Injury Treatment Changes Brandon Woman’s

Life

January 6, 2009 by LAURA FRAZIER

BRANDON – Mary Ellen Gottlieb spent five years mired in frustration, dealing on a daily basis with the lasting effects of a stroke she suffered in 2003. Until recently, the Brandon woman, 50, was resigned to the notion that she might never fully recover or work again. But one day in November, she pressed the “play” button on a YouTube video, and serendipity came to call. A stroke at age 45 left Gottlieb with hemispheric facial paralysis and body weakness, random memory glitches and haywire motor skills. With little hope but time in sight, she applied for disability benefits and hunkered down at home, where she passed the time “talking on the phone and surfing the Internet.” Fast-forward to November, when Gottlieb — trolling for information about stroke recovery treatments — came across a series of YouTube videos that would alter the course of her life. The clips chronicled the stunning progress of brain-injury patients treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy administered by physician Paul Harch of Louisiana, a leader in the field of hyperbaric medicine. “They showed a young man who [before treatment] was strapped to a wheelchair all slumped over. He couldn’t even track a flashlight with his eyes,” she said. Segments shot months later — after dozens of daily treatments and intensive physical therapy — show the man walking, talking and playfully teasing his doctor. “He was in a horrible car accident and had been comatose, but he went from a nearly vegetative state to having so much sparkle and life. I thought, ‘If this treatment can do that for someone so severely damaged, what could it do for me?’ “ Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, commonly used to promote the healing of wounds from surgery, injury, disease or infection, is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of brain injuries or neurological disorders, but Harch and other doctors across the country report using the therapy for such conditions with great success. Because insurance companies typically will not pay for such “off label” uses, the treatment is cost-prohibitive and not widely available. To inquire about the therapy, Gottlieb called Harch Hyperbaric Research Foundation in New Orleans. Harch formed the nonprofit group to study and document the effects of hyperbaric medicine in the treatment of stroke patients and those with brain trauma, cerebral palsy, autism, carbon monoxide poisoning and other neurological conditions. Staff members at the research center noted Gottlieb’s high level of post-stroke function, and when they learned of her background in marketing, economics and nonprofit management, they started asking the questions. The kicker: They had a full-time position to fill at the research foundation. Would she be interested? She wouldn’t draw a salary, but in exchange for coordinating patient travel, accommodations and in-kind donations for research programs, she would receive the regenerative therapy for free. Gottlieb jumped at the out-of-the-blue opportunity and packed her bags the week before Christmas to prepare for a move to New Orleans. In December at her mother’s apartment in Brandon, Gottlieb gushed with hope for her own recovery and for participants in the foundation’s latest study — a clinical trial to document the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with brain trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. “I’m going to be like their house mom,” she said. “I know what it’s like to have a traumatic brain injury. I know how terrifying and demoralizing it is when you can’t add or subtract and you keep falling down and bumping into things and forgetting things. I thought I was going crazy, and I was so frightened. My heart is with these people.” Physician Allan Spiegel of Palm Harbor treats patients with traumatic brain injury, stroke and other conditions at National Hyperbaric-Tampa Bay, one of four facilities in the nation recruited to participate in Harch’s clinical trial. Spiegel said almost every patient he has treated during the past 11 years has seen positive results. Some, he said, experience dramatic recoveries nothing short of miraculous. “With brain injuries and neurological disorders, nothing works all the time,” Spiegel said. “But nothing works as well as hyperbaric oxygen therapy.” Last year, Spiegel formed a charitable foundation, Healing Heroes Network, to help fund the treatment for brain-injured soldiers. He said doctors and patients and their families across the country are eager to see the clinical trails completed and brought before the FDA for approval. Spiegel lobbied with Harch and other hyperbarics proponents for a bill introduced by Congress in November that would require the Department of Defense to pay for or reimburse wounded soldiers for any procedure proven and available to treat their injuries. The group hopes the results of the clinical trial under way will be more than enough to push the bill through so soldiers can start receiving treatments. Gottlieb can barely believe she will receive the therapy and have a hand in a study with the potential to benefit military men and women with traumatic brain injuries. “This treatment basically regrows damaged brain tissue,” she said. “We can give so many of these severely wounded veterans their lives back.”

Benefit dinner may help Pinconning stroke patient

return home

December 09, 2008 by Marjorie Talaga

A few dollars spent on a plate of spaghetti could help a Pinconning man return home. Family and friends of Mike DeWyse have organized a spaghetti dinner and silent auction to raise funds for a medical treatment. DeWyse, 56, suffered two strokes and underwent two brain operations in 2007. He is now a resident of a Saginaw nursing home, where his wife, Mary, visits him daily. “I want to be able to take him home and be able to care for him at home,” Mary DeWyse said. “I don’t want to visit him in the nursing home forever. I’m fighting for my husband’s life and my life, too.” The event is set from 4-7 p.m. Friday, with a silent auction to follow, at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 360 S. River Road. Dinner take-outs will be available. Cost is $6 for adults, $4 for children 5-12 and free to children younger than 5. Mike DeWyse received physical, occupational and speech therapy following his strokes, but, his wife says, “The doctors say he wasn’t able to participate enough in his own rehabilitation.” Now, Mary DeWyse has set her hopes on a treatment called hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The therapy was developed as a treatment for diving disorders but has been used for other conditions such as problem wounds, anemia, skin grafts and burns. These are Medicare-approved conditions. Other conditions, such as strokes and migraines, usually are not covered by insurance. Some insurances consider HBOT for stroke victims still in the experimental stage. Mike DeWyse has received 40 HBOT treatments. His wife says she has seen a marked improvement in his behavior and abilities due to the treatments. “It does work and is working,” Mary DeWyse said. “It’s been two months since his last treatment and he has still not regressed.” The cost for DeWyse’s treatments has been $10,000, which has been paid for out of pocket. With more treatments, he could improve enough to come back home, Mary DeWyse said. HBOT is the medical use of oxygen at a rate higher than atmospheric pressure. The patient, sitting or lying in a special chamber, is exposed to increased pressure, which allows more oxygen to reach the cells for both healing and therapeutic benefits, proponents say. In stroke victims, there is death of some brain cells and damage to some surrounding cells. HBOT research indicates that some of these surrounding cells are recoverable with treatment, proponents say. “The dead cells are not coming back,” said Judy Burkholder, clinic director of Sara’s Garden, a hyperbaric clinic in Wauseon, Ohio, where DeWyse received treatments. “However, the damaged, or ‘idling’ cells are getting just enough oxygen to stay alive but not enough to function. So we must find a better way to transport oxygen to these cells. HBOT treatments can help form new blood vessels and nerve cells that serve as new bridges to other, already working cells.” Some of the 100 items in the silent auction are: a U.S. flag donated by state Sen. Roger Kahn; a walleye fishing charter trip for six to seven people; certificates from Harvey’s and The Lone Star restaurants; clocks from Prime Brothers; pillows and hand-made afghans; a nativity set, and a homemade dinner for four. Anyone who is unable to attend the dinner but would like to make a donation may make a check payable to K of C 4102 and send it to the Knights of Columbus Hall, 360 S. River Road, Bay City, Mich. 48708. Write “Mike DeWyse” in the memo area. DeWyse was grand knight for Council 4102 in 2007

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