Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy- A Chamber of Hope

Regaining Nerve Growth

This blog is a little funny and odd. Let me start out with yes, I sat in that weird chamber above and I spent many many hours in there.

As you know in my previous blogs, I had severe nerve damage and at the time I was doing hyperbaric oxygen I wasn't walking or moving my leg at all. I did not have any nerve growth from my severed sciatic nerve in my right leg.

Let me talk a little about the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Most people have never seen or heard about them and that is probably more of a good than bad thing. They are used for healing, healing severe injuries. They work by breathing in pure oxygen in a pressurized room or in my case it was a chamber like in the pictures above and below. In the chamber, the air pressure is increased three times higher than normal air pressure. Under the conditions in the chamber your lungs can have more oxygen than would be possible with normalized air pressure. So your probably asking why were you in there?

Well, I had a doctor that was what you could call "out of the box" and one day he showed up and really expressed my need for trying this so called chamber out. So I did, you are willing to try anything when you feel like you have nothing.. With breathing in the pressurized oxygen through your lungs, it gets carried to the rest of your body, therefore promoting stimulation of cells. And for my sciatic nerve it was worth a shot to walk again and achieve nerve growth.

What it is like in the oxygen chamber

First you go in and sit down, they put on.. the best way I can explain it is a rectangular oxygen bubble over your head, which gets hooked up to a a few different hoses that give you the pressurized 100% oxygen. In a sense you are "diving" down under, but really not moving at all. Yes, it is a very weird concept for people who have no idea about it. I would sit in this chamber for hours and hours a couple times each week, and I use to dread going. I hated it. I didn't understand the meaning of it at 11 years old. You just had to sit there for hours in this small chamber with a couple other people. The good thing about it was I caught up on all the movies out during that time frame of my life. They would put in a 2-3 hour movie and by the time it was done we would be pressurizing back "to the surface" or really just back to the normal air pressure outside the tank. Very interesting concept huh? But it was a huge part of my life, a huge part of my healing and nerve growth.

Something special happened in the tank

People who think this type of medicine doesn't work, are very very wrong. Something happened my first time in the tank that I will never forget. Mind you, since my injury this was probably 6 months post operation. I did not have any feeling whatsoever below my incision which was in my upper thigh. I could not feel or move my entire leg. In the hyperbaric chamber at a certain depth of the pressurized air, my foot would start to tingle. And this was special, this meant my nerves were stimulating... This meant my nerves could STILL have stimulation. The tingling was one of the best moments when afterword it was explained in such a miracle type of matter. That the first time I tried the chamber, it was working.

Can I blame my entire nerve growth and stimulation on this chamber? Maybe. If not 100% it definitely had a huge impact on my recovery!

Good Doctors

The doctor I had, could have saved my leg. Never turn away from those "out of the box" doctors. Always try new things, and never lose hope. I know some people can get very discouraged with doctors now a days and how they approach you or your issue with what is going on, but I promise you there are some good ones out there. My hyperbaric oxygen doctor was one of them. This guy is tattooed in my memory and someone I will never forget. This man did so much for myself and my family. And I owe him a lot. One day I will return to Jacksonville, Florida in hopes of still finding him in the same office or somewhere else, but I will show up and he will see what a special case I was that not only do I walk, but I run, I workout, I formed a life that is no longer bound to a wheel chair. Yes I have limitations, but I live a somewhat normal life. 

Again, Don't take anything for granted

Life is beautiful, YOUR life is beautiful. So many critically ill people are out there right now in hopes of regaining their lives back like I did mine. I am very humbled and grateful of where I am today and overcoming the long journey of how I got here. Just always remember, there are so many people out there that have it so much worse than you do, they are fighting every day just for another step, another breath, another form of stimulation to keep them going.

I hope you enjoyed this read. 

Thanks as always for reading and following.

LIVE BEAUTIFULLY.