Multiple Sclerosis: UHMS Position Statement

In quick postscript to Monday's post, announcing our new multiple sclerosis page, we recommend the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society's position statement to all MS patients and caregivers. And for the record, we're for evidence-based hyperbaric medicine, responsible off-label usage, and self-guided research. All at the same time.

Diabetic Foot Ulcer: New ACHM Registry Is ACES

Compelling real-world data would add an important new story to the medical literature on HBOT for diabetic foot ulcers and other chronic wounds. Here comes just the study. Sponsored by the American College of Hyperbaric Medicine and led by ACHM vice president Thomas E. Serena, MD, FACS, FACHM, and the The American Hyperbaric Comparative Effectiveness Study (ACES) Group, the research registry is entitled "A Prospective, Real-world, Multiple-treatment, Multicenter Clinical Study to Evaluate the Efficacy, Safety, and Comparative Effectiveness of Hyperbaric Oxygen in Combination with Best Practices in the Treatment of Wagner III Diabetic Foot Ulcers." (Pause. Deep breath.) Investigative sites across the US aim to enroll 250 subjects. ACHM will provide details and begin enrollment before year-end.

Off-Label HBOT: Multiple Sclerosis

Millions of multiple sclerosis patients have been treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Many have benefited, we don't doubt. But here's a prime example of doctors and patients acting more on hope than on evidence.

The medical literature on HBOT for MS does not impress. Plenty of fine studies altogether have shown rarely significant and never sustainable health improvements. Nor can we find any reasonable hypothesis why HBOT should work. Still, in their Cochrane Review meta-analysis, Bennett and Heard call for larger randomized, multicenter trials. So do we. For the time being, though, our check lands firmly in "scant."

Jump to our new multiple sclerosis page to learn more and to use our HyperbaricLink Evidence Index to guide your personal research.

MS: No Laughing Matter?

Don't tell Jonathan Katz, who asks: What happens when a comedian gets MS? That's long for multiple sclerosis. And this is short for an entertainment tip and O2.0 Content Alert. We've no idea what professional therapist Dr Katz thinks about hyperbaric oxygen chambers, but we'll wager it's a whole lot funnier than what we'll be posting later today. While you're waiting why don't you go subscribe to Hey We're Back, the shortest, funniest podcast in all of podcastdom.

NOT A Pressure Cooker

Again we bite our tongues whenever we feel the urge to debate healthcare reform in these posts. Thank us later. Suffice it for now to say we don't quite understand why even some our most trusted sources are predicting the end of hyperbaric medicine as we know it. When suddenly comes this odd report straight from the chambers of Congress:

Sitting in an easy chair, Mr. Baucus seemed relaxed – chipper even – sipping from a paper cup of “Buffalo Blend” coffee brewed in his office. He smiled easily after nearly four months of such high-pressure negotiations over the health care plan that staff said his conference room, where talks were held, often felt like a hyperbaric oxygen tank.

Surely the Senator's staffers have never enjoyed a nice relaxing dive. Maybe that would get our lawmakers thinking clearly.

Preface: Off Label, On Message

Please eavesdrop on our recent correspondences with O2.0 readers who feel that words like "investigational" and "off-label" might create the impression hyperbaric oxygen is strictly experimental or completely untested for indications not covered by insurance. The continuing conversation has informed both our diction and our outlook, as we prepare to expand our Conditions list well beyond the 13 UHMS-approved indications.

To one reader we wrote:

Besides safety, the FDA and insurers and HyperbaricLink visitors demand to know about efficacy, and proven efficacy is the only sure road to approval and reimbursement and wider practice. Of course what outcomes we can gather from the clinic and from growing bodies of lesser evidence matter, too. So while opinions and beliefs vary widely, and political and economic battles rage on, we'll be applying some hyperbaric pressure on the medical community to conduct bigger trials and publish more compelling evidence in bigger journals. Along the way, we're also here to connect healthcare consumers to clinicians who can treat them now, on or off label, as doctor and patient see fit.

We'll work extra hard going forward to be accurate and complete on this score. As the poet Wallace Stevens once wrote, "The accuracy of accurate letters is an accuracy with respect to the structure of reality." Quick, someone, go tweet that!

Watch This Space

Just minutes to go on this first night of autumn. Just enough time to thank you, dear readers, for allowing us a sharp slowdown these last few weeks to reflect, retool, and prepare for relaunch. Stay tuned for fresh new content every week. More conditions pages. More clinic and clinician listings—the most comprehensive HBOT directory anywhere. And more voices, views, and velocity toward making HyperbaricLink truly your #1 Web Resource for Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy.

Hyperbaric in space, continued

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy continues its cameo role in ABC's science fiction drama Defying Gravity. In last night's episode, as well as the two preceding, HBOT gets a brief mention for its role in wound care. A crew member loses a thumb in a zero-gravity accident and has it reattached. Hyperbaric treatment speeds recovery so she can pilot the Venus lander with all ten digits. In 2053, that's quicker than growing a new thumb.

Sundance, Eat Your Heart Out

If you like movies and partying at altitude, you'll love movies and healing at depth. Bend Memorial Clinic (Bend, OR) is now running its own chamber film festival, thanks to a thoughtful donation from the local Blockbuster. Ryan Combs, BMC Service Line Director, says

most patients are in the hyperbaric chamber for two hours every day for 45 to 60 days. You can go through a lot of movies in that time, and everyone is grateful for the Blockbuster donation.

O2.0 is pleased to paste your logo here, Blockbuster, with encouraging words for the company to strike more such deals with more HBOT centers nationwide.