Nearly 500K Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease each year, analysis finds
Lyme disease is an infection caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, and it is passed to humans by tick bite. Symptoms include fever, chills, headache, fatigue, aches, swollen lymph nodes and rash. Most cases respond to a course of antibiotics, but sometimes symptoms can persist more than six months after treatment. Treatment with HBOT can play an important role in improving symptoms and helping patients regain their quality of life.
Borrelia burgdoferi is an anaerobic organism, and HBOT has a proven effect against anaerobes. Although the FDA still considers HBOT for Lyme disease an “off label” use, some people suffering from Lyme disease show improvement with a course of HBOT. HBOT can augment the antibiotic therapy and suppress the autoimmune response. In studies, patients had a reduction in chronic inflammation, improved cognitive ability and concentration, and improvement in symptoms of depression. Sometimes symptoms continued to improve after the course of HBOT was finished.
Resources
https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/index.html
Fife WP, Fife CE. Textbook of hyperbaric medicine. In: Jain KK, editor. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy in chronic Lyme disease. 5th ed. Germany: Hogrefe & Huber; 2009. p. 149–55.
