Online Patient Communities: Get Your HBOT On

We're noticing more patients sharing their hyperbaric oxygen therapy experiences online, and again we urge our readers and HyperbaricLink visitors to join the revolution already in progress. Offhand, we can't think of a better way, short of participating in a randomized clinical trial, for you to help yourself, help other patients, and help advance hyperbaric medicine.

PatientsLikeMe still earns our loyal fandom and high marks for data richness, substance, and openness. The site's "Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy HBOT Treatment Report" now includes 9 patient evaluations. A start. These 9 patients have undergone HBOT for 12 different reasons, with self-reported efficacy ranging from "none" to "major."

Let's say you're not into sharing your outcomes, but chatting with other patients like you sounds appealing. Try MDJunction. We eavesdropped on a hyperbaric treatment string in the fibromyalgia support group, and elsewhere on the site you'll find snippets of conversation on other HBOT-related topics that may interest you.

Please comment below about your experience with PatientsLikeMe and MDJunction. Where else on the World Wide Web are HBOT patients talking it up? We want to know.

O2.o is the news blog of HyperbaricLink, the independent web guide to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

PatientsLikeMe: Fanned, Followed, Fast Companied

Fast Company magazine just recognized what we've long known about PatientsLikeMe, naming the company among its most innovative of 2010. Innovative indeed—and right up our alley. A beautifully conceived website "committed to providing a better, more effective way to capture valuable results and share them with patients, healthcare professionals, and industry organizations that are trying to treat the disease," PatientsLikeMe ingeniously balances patients' desire for privacy with their need for openness.

For patients (maybe like you) this important site represents the highest and best use of the Internet we can imagine, and as it expands we're eager to see our HyperbaricLink online community participate and benefit. Especially popular is PatientsLikeMe's fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome section, some 12,000 strong and growing. But there's nobody home in the hyperbaric oxygen therapy room, which O2.0 readers will find in move-in condition. And it's free to join.