Stroke Survivor Blog

Steve’s HBOT treatments are nearly completed. He won’t be doing the full 40 recommended sessions, because he doesn’t want to spend nice days inside of the chamber. He is discouraged because he hasn’t seen a more dramatic change, so he wants to give up.

Part of the reason there hasn’t been more of a change is that he wasn’t able to tolerate a deeper pressure, because his sinuses kept plugging up due to the decompression. Without the optimum hyperbaric oxygen pressure, the results are less noticeable. Steve is able to tolerate a 2 ATA pressure and that’s all his technician feels comfortable with, because he doesn’t want him to experience any more sinus or ear pain. But even with the lower pressure, there has been some progress, mostly in pain relief.

One thing Steve’s noticed is that the “pins and needles” feeling in his arm and hand is almost all gone. Hallelujah! It’s still sensitive, but not painful like it was before. He doesn’t have as much pain in his knee or ankle either. For the last two days, he hasn’t needed a Lidocaine pain patch on his ankle. But I have to keep asking him if there’s any change in this or that, and I wish I had a way to gauge and measure improvement or change in each area. The way it is now, our “measuring system” for the success of the HBOT treatments is highly subjective to Steve’s attitude, energy level and pain threshold. When he’s discouraged and in pain, all he focuses on is the negative. He wants to see the big change right now without realizing it may come gradually.

When he underwent ECP (see video), it took at least 25 treatments (of the 35 he received) before he noticed any considerable improvement. I was hoping he’d give the hyperbaric oxygen therapy the same effort. But being in the HBOT chamber isn’t as comfortable as the ECP was, although he sleeps most of the time. He’s a mouth breather, so his mouth gets dry from the blowing oxygen, and he doesn’t like that feeling.

He has about four more HBOT treatments left, so I’ll give you an updated report when he’s done.