Why is a remarkable treatment being denied to thousands of desperate patients? Grice reports

[Guest guest]

*Long, but compelling article on hbot in the UK.

Lucinda

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Why is a remarkable treatment being denied to thousands of desperate

patients? Grice reports

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS & grid=P8 & xml=/health/20\

06/04/10/hoxygen10.xml

*

Waddington is as limp as a sleeping child in his father's arms.

But he is not asleep and there is something disturbing about this kind

of floppiness. His head is lolling and swinging. His limbs seem weak and

uncontrolled.

Ten years ago, during a routine 10-minute operation to correct an

undescended testicle, was deprived of oxygen. The medical

accident, known euphemistically as " acquired brain injury " , left him

with a condition resembling cerebral palsy.

Now he is 13, a handsome boy who communicates by moving his heavy head

in a semi-circle - right for yes, left for no, and subtle gradations in

between, on a scale of one to 10.

" How was school today, ? " his mother, , asks him. His head

sweeps round three-quarters of the arc towards the right. " I see, seven

out of 10. "

" He may appear to be a terrible case, " says, " but if you had seen

him before you'd realise just how far he has come. He could not see. He

could not understand. He cried all day. We spent all our time trying to

alleviate his distress.

" We were told he would probably only ever recognise me as a 'familiar

smell'. Doctors said there was no hope; to put him in a home, to have

another child. "

spent 21 months at Alder Hey Hospital's brain injury unit in

Liverpool. Then the Waddingtons heard about a children's naturopathic

clinic in Lancaster, close to their home, run by former nurse and

midwife Jane Dean. In desperation, they took him to see her.

" 's body was curved like a banana, " recalls Dean. " He had no

control over any of his muscles and was being fed through a tube. He was

on 16 different kinds of medication. There was no cognition at all.

" He had that high-pitched 'cerebral' cry that, once you have heard, you

hope never to hear again in your life. My heart went out to him. I

thought, 'Surely there must be more we can do.' "

Dean had recently watched a television programme about the remarkable

healing powers of oxygen administered under pressure, known as

hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT). She decided to see if it would help

.

She rented a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and had it installed on an

industrial estate in Lancaster. For six months, was treated there

three to five times a week.

He has now been receiving HBOT for eight years and his improvement, say

his parents, is little short of miraculous. " Before the treatment, his

body was tight all the time, " says . " His understanding came back

very quickly. To begin with, he couldn't see. But now he can read, his

maths is good and he can tell the time. He is starting to be able to

squeeze a switch, which could open up a new form of communication. We

take him to football matches and to horse-riding for the disabled. He

remembers everything. He will never walk, but we have our child back. I

believe in my heart that if he had gone into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber

as soon as the accident happened, he would probably have been OK. "

Doctors might be more circumspect, perhaps, but access to HBOT for

at the time of his accident would have been as unlikely then as

it is now for thousands of people who could benefit from it.

Most doctors are unaware of the therapeutic potential of oxygen because

they are not taught about it as medical students. However, research

shows that not only can it reverse potentially fatal conditions, such as

radiation tissue damage, carbon-monoxide poisoning, gas gangrene and

necrosis (when tissue dies following infection), it is also effective

for wounds that fail to heal and a wide range of other conditions,

including multiple sclerosis.

Oxygen is crucial to tissue repair, but its delivery is often impaired

by damage to blood vessels. Breathing high levels under hyperbaric

conditions (increased atmospheric pressure) raises the amount of

dissolved oxygen in the circulation - so more reaches the tissues.

The Daily Telegraph recently highlighted the case of Norris

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2006/03/06/hnorris06.x\

ml>,

16, who suffered a massive radiation overdose during treatment for a

brain tumour. Her symptoms included a severely burned scalp, which

healed after several sessions in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Following that article - which mentioned HBOT's therapeutic applications

- many desperate people contacted us, wanting to know where their

nearest unit was. The news is not good: oxygen chambers cost about

£50,000 and most of the 75 hyperbaric centres in Britain are run by

charities, principally for MS sufferers. A few are privately run, mostly

for the victims of diving accidents, but there are only five NHS units.

" It is ironic that the most powerful intervention in medicine is being

used by lay people in the community,'' says Prof Philip , Britain's

leading expert in HBOT, who is based at the University of Dundee.

Part of the problem, according to Jane Dean, is that HBOT is considered

" alternative " and people are scared of going against their doctor or

consultant's advice.

Dean, who, following her experience with Waddington, founded the

Breath for Life charity to provide HBOT, says charities such as hers

face other problems.

" Our centre is very small, yet it is unjustly classified as an

independent private hospital with specialist technology. It is run by

volunteers and has only one paid member of staff, yet we are being asked

by the Healthcare Commission [the independent health inspection

organisation] to pay the same annual inspection fee - £1,500 - as

commercially run centres....