HBOT for ME/CFS/CFIDS

[Learner1]

People have malignant cells regularly and the body typically gets rid of them before they become a problem. However, EPO could change this.

We now know that EPO is a pleiotropic growth factor that exhibits an anti-apoptotic action on numerous cells and tissues, including malignant ones.

From:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4227521/#__ffn_sectitle

 

[used_to_race]

People have malignant cells regularly and the body typically gets rid of them before they become a problem. However, EPO could change this.

It's also known among cyclists and runners that EPO comes with some risk of cardiovascular complications due to thickened blood. If you use it in a dose that is high enough to be effective, it can put you in the hospital if you're not careful. EPO is a WADA banned substance for a reason. The top level pros who are doping now typically only take it in small doses to beat the tests, and it still confers a modest benefit for performance, but I doubt that would have a big impact on issues like ours.

 

[Learner1]

"Issues like ours" - the problem is that we are each unique genetically and with varied environmental exposures and triggers. What may be fine for one person may be disastrous for another. It's worthwhile to understand as best we can what the pros and cons of any potential treatment are before pursuing it.

I asked my doctor's about EPO during my cancer treatment and they quite logically said the risks were not worth the benefits.

 

[aquariusgirl]

@HTester. I'm wondering if Jamie Deckoff Jones would have some useful data on this point since she treated Lyme or CFS patients with a hard chamber in her practice for many years, I believe.

I thought she personally logged 400 hours of HBOT time.

Kerri Rivera had a clinic in Mexico where many of the autism kids did HBOT too, but she shut it down eventually.

 

[used_to_race]

@HTester one more question on this topic if you don't mind (also for anyone else who'd like to chime in). If you look at the Alveolar Gas Equation we were discussing before, it seems that overall pO2 in solution is affected more by the percentage of oxygen than the pressure, at least for practical pressures a chamber could exert. In fact, if you were to breathe pure oxygen (or close to pure oxygen) at sea level/1ATA, you'd have a way higher pO2 than from the 40% oxygen from the concentrator at 1.3ATA. If all that matters is the pO2, then it seems like home chambers are kind of unnecessary. I believe @Hip might have raised a similar concern at some point.

It would certainly be a lot easier for me if I could just breathe the oxygen for an hour or more a day rather than have to get into the chamber as well and deal with noise, electricity costs, etc etc. Not to mention the inconvenience of explaining to friends and other people who come over what the heck that thing in the spare room is...

 

[Hip]

I believe @Hip might have raised a similar concern at some point.

Yes, in this thread I question whether mild/soft HBOT chambers offer any advantages over just breathing 100% oxygen.

 

[used_to_race]

Yes, in this thread I question whether mild/soft HBOT chambers offer any advantages over just breathing 100% oxygen.

I think you're probably right, unless the pressure somehow has an effect that's not related directly to dissolved oxygen. I may try breathing just the oxygen for a few weeks to see if I notice a drop-off in my health. Would I even need to turn up the LPM on the concentrator? If it's suddenly working against only 1ata instead of 1.3, then wouldn't the output be higher?

@Hip do you know of any relatively cheap devices that can measure the oxygen content of some volume of air?

 

[Hip]

unless the pressure somehow has an effect that's not related directly to dissolved oxygen.

Yes, that's what I was thinking, perhaps the pressure alone does something therapeutic in the body.

Would I even need to turn up the LPM on the concentrator?

At rest you breathe at least around 4 liters of air per minute, so unless your oxygen concentrator can match that, then you will not be getting 100% oxygen. I bought a relatively cheap Chinese oxygen concentrator, but at 90% oxygen my machine only outputs 1 liter per minute. I can get more liters per minute from my machine, but it requires setting the oxygen concentration lower.

@Hip do you know of any relatively cheap devices that can measure the oxygen content of some volume of air?

I have not come across anything like that.

 

[used_to_race]

At rest you breathe at least around 4 liters of air per minute, so unless your oxygen concentrator can match that, then you will not be getting 100% oxygen. I bought a relatively cheap Chinese oxygen concentrator, but at 90% oxygen my machine only outputs 1 liter per minute. I can get more liters per minute from my machine, but it requires setting the oxygen concentration lower.

Well, the concentrator I have supposedly outputs up to 10 LPM. I ordered some nasal cannulas from amazon which should let me get a slightly higher effective %-O2. Maybe I should have gotten a sealed non-rebreather mask or whatever.

Yes, that's what I was thinking, perhaps the pressure alone does something therapeutic in the body.

I think this is a fundamental question with HBOT in general - by which mechanisms does it work? If it's just oxygen then the softshell chambers don't do anything that a concentrator alone can't do. If they can validate the metabolic trap hypothesis, and then validate that increased oxygen will help IDO1 work again, and come up with a curve for how long it will take IDO1 to clear a given concentration of tryptophan at a given oxygen concentration in the cell, AND come up with a relationship between inspired pO2 and intracellular availability of oxygen that doesn't vary much between individuals or cell types, then we are in business. But that's a lot of stuff, to say the least.

 

[Hip]

Well, the concentrator I have supposedly outputs up to 10 LPM.

Is that 10 lpm at near 100% oxygen?

With my machine, because it only outputs 90% at 1 lpm, I try to get around this by letting it fill up a large plastic food bag with oxygen for 20 minutes, and then I attach a mask to the bag, and breathe in this 90% oxygen, and also breathe out back into the same bag. That way you do not waste the oxygen, as you breathe out almost as much oxygen as you breathe in (we normally breathe in 21% oxygen, and breathe out 16%).

In addition, the bag slowly fills with CO2 from your out breath, which is an added advantage, because as the CO2 levels increase in the bag, you get a vasodilation of the cerebral arteries (because CO2 is a potent brain blood vessel dilator). Furthermore, because of the Bohr effect of CO2, you get more oxygen into the tissues (higher CO2 blood levels cause oxygen to leave the hemoglobin and enter the tissues more readily, that is the Bohr effect).

In fact, I wonder if elevated CO2 from the out breathe in HBOT chambers may be a factor that makes these chambers more effective.

After about 5 or 10 minutes breathing from this bag, the oxygen starts to decline and the CO2 increases, so then you have to stop. But you can fill up the bag again with fresh oxygen and repeat.

 

[used_to_race]

Is that 10 lpm at near 100% oxygen?

The manufacturer states that it outputs about 87-93% oxygen at 10 LPM. So yeah, I guess that's pretty close.

In fact, I wonder if elevated CO2 from the out breathe in HBOT chambers may be a factor that makes these chambers more effective.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The chamber is constantly being pressurized with new air from the compressor, so I don't think the CO2 levels in there would be too different from normal. It does get pretty humid inside though, probably due to the humidification of the oxygen coming out of the concentrator.

 

[Hip]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The chamber is constantly being pressurized with new air from the compressor, so I don't think the CO2 levels in there would be too different from normal.

I've never tried HBOT, so don't have much knowledge about how these chambers work. But I imagined that the compressors would be turned off or turned down once the chamber has reached its operational pressure, which can be anything up to 3 atmospheres.

Or is there a bleed system which continually allows some of the air out of the pressurized chamber, with the compressors then supplying fresh air from outside? Even with a bleed system, you still may get some CO2 build up.

I know that inside the chamber, people usually breathe oxygen supplied by masks, because pressurizing the whole chamber with oxygen is extremely dangerous in terms of fire risk (that's how those 3 Apollo astronauts died).

But even though people don oxygen masks in the chamber, I imagine they would still breathe in some of the air in the chamber, and thus would breathe in elevated CO2 concentrations if the CO2 does build up in the chamber to some degree.

 

[used_to_race]

I've never tried HBOT, so don't have much knowledge about how these chambers work. But I imagined that the compressors would be turned off or turned down once the chamber has reached its operational pressure, which can be anything up to 3 atmospheres.

Basically the two inputs are the compressor and the concentrator, and at the other side of the chamber there are usually a couple release valves that start to open at a certain pressure (for most of the soft chambers it's 1.3ata, or really just below that). I think it's designed that way so that you don't get too much buildup of CO2, but also just to make the thing a little more user friendly. But the result is that air is constantly cycling through the chamber at a decent rate. It's not perfectly sealed either - if you were to turn off the compressor when at full pressure, you'd lose about 1psi every couple minutes.

 

[Hip]

@used_to_race, are you talking about soft chambers here, or the large hard chambers which can seat several people? It's the large chambers I was thinking about.

 

[Wayne]

Or is there a bleed system which continually allows some of the air out of the pressurized chamber, with the compressors then supplying fresh air from outside? Even with a bleed system, you still may get some CO2 build up.

@Hip -- When first going into my mHBOT unit, there are essentially three different sounds: 1) Oxygen coming in from the oxygen concentrator; 2) Filtered air coming in from the compressors; and 3) The sound of the compressors (my oxygen concentrator is about 30 feet away behind a closed door, so can't hear it). -- After about 5 minutes, as the pressure is closing in on 1.3 ATA, the release valves begin to open, so you now have a fourth sound.

I know that inside the chamber, people usually breathe oxygen supplied by masks, because pressurizing the whole chamber with oxygen is extremely dangerous in terms of fire risk (that's how those 3 Apollo astronauts died).

This is the way it is in hard HBOT chambers at higher ATAs, and they take great precautions to not have any metal or anything else that could cause an explosion. For some reason--which I'm not fully aware of--it's a different story with the soft chambers. The person I bought mine from says she takes a battery powered fan in with her, along with her laptops, cell phone, etc. This would NEVER be allowed in a hard chamber.

But even though people don oxygen masks in the chamber, I imagine they would still breathe in some of the air in the chamber, and thus would breathe in elevated CO2 concentrations if the CO2 does build up in the chamber to some degree.

Before I purchased a "silencer" for my mHBOT unit, it was quite loud (and annoyingly so). I talked to the place I bought it from about it, and told him I was turning the compressor off as much as possible because of it. He seemed a bit startled by that, and said it's important to keep the compressors going to ensure a steady stream of fresh air. I don't recall whether he specifically said it was because of CO2, but I think it was. He seemed to indicate this is not an issue whatsoever as long as the compressor is running.

BTW, the silencer is a very small HBOT-type unit that absorbs the vibrations normally associated with air moving going into a pressurized chamber. And it did reduce the noise by about 80%+ (quite a relief). However, for some reason, I still like to turn off the compressors, and let the pressure very slowly dissipate for the next 15 minutes or so.

As much as I like the pressurized mHBOT experience, I also like the different feeling I get (a little more relaxed) when I'm just laying there without the compressors going. I suppose it could be a CO2 factor, but it could also just be the even greater quietness. Don't really know the answer to that one. But I do occasionally go back to sleep after I turn the compressors off, and it's a different kind of sleep than when the chamber is being continually pressurized.

 

[olegsel]

https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...-and-mclaren-howard-papers.47488/post-2229864

 

[ebethc]

@Wayne

how long is a mHBOT session?

I'm not a diver, so I don't know anything about the technology and what it's trying to simulate... I think it's trying to create something similar to a low pressure system (weather) -- is that remotely accurate?

 

[used_to_race]

@Wayne

how long is a mHBOT session?

I'm not a diver, so I don't know anything about the technology and what it's trying to simulate... I think it's trying to create something similar to a low pressure system (weather) -- is that remotely accurate?

Typically ranges from 45 mins to 2 hours, but most people probably do an hour.

It's not "trying" to simulate anything. It's high pressure, so if anything, it approximates an altitude far below sea level (maybe 3000m).

 

[Donsboig]

I know this is an old thread but I've been looking into HBO and found this video which I feel did a good job of explaining the science behind it.

The key thing I learned was that our haemoglobin cells are already basically carrying as much oxygen as they can. The pressurised chamber allows extra oxygen to be forced into the blood plasma (the liquid which carries the haemoglobin) and transported around the body. Not sure how this compares to just breathing pure oxygen without the pressure chamber

 

[Wayne]

The pressurised chamber allows extra oxygen to be forced into the blood plasma (the liquid which carries the haemoglobin) and transported around the body.

@Donsboig -- My understanding is that the pressurized chamber forces oxygen deep into tissues and joints that normally don't have a lot of oxygen available to it via the bloodstream. In other words, we can greatly increase oxygen levels in parts of our body that is unable to be done by the bloodstream alone.

This is why (apparently) HBOT can be so good for tick borne infections like Lyme, which like to hang out in the joints, cartilage, and neurological system where oxygen levels are generally lower. These kinds of infections can survive better in that lower oxygen environment.