Steady On!

After a break over the weekend, Peg resumed her HBOT sessions on Monday. As you know, last week’s treatments were difficult, but her two treatments this week have been much easier. The Herx reactions have been quite a bit more manageable. Today, for example, Peg felt a little tired, but she reported no severe Herx reactions (so far), and she said she felt pretty good during and after the HBOT. She said that it was reassuring to know that she was making headway against her Lyme disease.

Just a quick review about the HBOT process (in layman’s terms)…under increased pressure (2.4 atmospheres, in Peg’s case), the blood absorbs much more of the gasses you breathe than at normal pressure. For divers breathing air, this can lead to problems when too much nitrogen is absorbed and then decompression comes too quickly (the “Bends”, or decompression sickness). This process and the reason why the gasses are absorbed is described in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_sickness . In the case of HBOT, however, the patient is breathing pure oxygen rather than air, so that it is oxygen that is getting absorbed into the blood and tissues. With oxygen, there is no danger of decompression sickness, as oxygen is beneficial and harmless to the body.

Oxygen is not harmless to Lyme disease, though. Studies suggest that the organisms responsible for Lyme are sensitive to high concentrations of oxygen at the cellular level. In other words, the Lyme bacteria don’t do well in the high-oxygen environment created in the body during HBOT. The result is that the bacteria die off, wherever they are in the body. The dead bacteria are toxic and need to be removed by the body’s normal clean-up process. Unfortunately, when more bacteria die off than the body’s normal process can deal with, there are some negative physical reactions (the Herxheimer reactions we have talked about). This is a mixed blessing…the Herx’s are sometimes difficult to deal with, but they are a sign that Lyme bacteria are dying off in large quantities.

So, in Peg’s case, we’re hoping that there are some Herx’s (to show that the HBOT is working), but that they are not too severe. She’s resting well, despite some mild flu-like symptoms.

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men.

- Ps 107: 19-21