One quarter of the way through!

Well, today Peg completed her 10th dive in the HBOT. All this week she has been at 2.4 atmospheres. Monday thru Wednesday were pretty uneventful…just more of the same: some discomfort and pretty mild reactions that come and go in the afternoon and evening.

Thursday, however, was different from all of the other dives. Towards the end of her dive, Peg began to feel worse. She became warm inside the hood, and she seemed to “zone out”. When her hood fogged up, Molly, the technician monitoring the HBOT process, tried to get Peg’s attention to make sure she was OK. Peg felt slow in everything she did, and had trouble understanding Molly over the phone. She also felt a tingling in her arms. At Molly’s instructions, Peg turned off the oxygen and removed her hood, whereupon she did feel better. Peg “sat out” the rest of the dive, but she was not herself when she left the chamber.

Outside the chamber, Peg rested on the couch, but her head felt like nothing she has ever experienced. It wasn’t really pain, and it wasn’t pressure – it was more like writhing, stress, or being out of control, but it was focused in the top of her head. She was emotional and cried quite a bit, and then it passed. She described it as feeling like she was coming apart, and she began to feel more “connected” with the real world as I stroked her head.

Eventually we walked to the car and headed home. About half-way home, Peg began to feel more normal. She had a few more episodes in her head and neck, and then she had a long nap at home. Later, she had that same strange feeling in her shoulders (also accompanied with crying), and still later she had more of the feelings down her arms and wrists, and also down her legs.

When there are symptoms like this in the chamber, there is always a question of whether or not oxygen toxicity is a factor (each patient’s threshold is different), but since the symptoms continued after Peg exited the chamber, it seems like these are just more intense Herx reactions. My personal theory is that the Lyme bacteria are dying off because of the oxygen levels, but once dead, they are just toxic “dross” that the body must then deal with. Another possibility is that the spiral-shaped Lyme bacteria are “boring in” deeper to try to escape the hostile oxygen-laden environment. Either way, the Lyme’s days are numbered, as it can’t survive in the environment that the HBOT creates.


B. burgdorferi, a spiral bacteria that causes Lyme Disease, seen through a microscope


At the end of the evening, Peg felt much better. We stood in the backyard for about 45 minutes and watch the lightening storm as it worked its way across the sky. It was awesome, and it was awesome that Peg was feeling better.
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This morning (Friday), Peg felt exhausted and foggy-headed, and her eyes were swollen from crying. Overall, though, she has been feeling better…swelling is down, here moles and scars are smoother, and she feels more flexible. She decided to go into the HBOT again today. She arranged for a 10-minute break in the middle of the dive, and that seemed to help. Even so, Peg felt overcome and emotional, and had to really fight to cope with feeling sick. Afterwards, Peg had some of the same symptoms as yesterday, but they were less intense. She experiences random pains, and her legs and feet hurt more today, but the head “symptoms” were milder.

So, at this “one-quarter of the way” milestone, Peg can still use your prayers to be able to cope with the reactions and effects of the treatments as the Lyme disease is being defeated. In the mean time, I am proud of Peg’s hard work and her pressing on toward her goal.

All hard work brings a profit…
- Prov. 14:23a (NIV)