Sunday, November 29, 2015

Getting Started - Hyperbaric Hope

Hi, I'm Leah, and I've had fibromyalgia for 14 years. I'm 37 now, married, and I have three kids, aged 8, 6, and 1.5. They're great, and they deserve a mom who can function. So does my husband.

When I met my husband, I was working a full-time job in an office, and it was taking a heavy toll on me. I had migraines, and I got sick often. When we got married in 2006, I quit my job, and since then, I've worked part-time from home. At my best, I worked 20 hours a week. Recently, I had to give up a job where I was expected to work something like 2 hours a week. My health stinks.

I'm going through this very quickly, and I'll explain more about Fibromyalgia and Hyperbaric Therapy as I go on, but right now, I want to tell you about starting the therapy.

A few months ago, I found this article about Hyperbaric Chamber Therapy, and followed the breadcrumbs until I was able to make contact with the Segol Center for Hyperbaric Treatment, which is where the initial article's study ran.

I met with the staff there, including the author of the article, Dr. Shai Efrati, and began the paperwork to start treatment. They requested a number of blood tests, a chest x-ray, and an MRI. I did the MRI a few weeks ago, and today, I started treatment.

There are a lot of rules:
1. No electronics. not even a hearing aid - I think pacemakers are ok, because the spark couldn't get out of the body, but I didn't ask.
2. Everything you wear has to be at least 80% cotton (though they didn't ask about my underwear) - no wool, no synthetics.
3, Only human hair wigs are ok.
4. No contact lenses.
5. No food, but gum is ok, even recommended. They give you water.
6. No toilet - better go before.
7. You have to cover your shoes with cotton thingies.
8. They take your blood pressure and temperature every day before treatment.
There are a bunch more, but those are the basics.

Oh, and here's the part you might not know - you do it 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months.
It's like having a job.

And instead of paying you for it, they expect you to pay - quite a lot. I don't want to write the specific numbers here, because things change, and I'm not going to come back to this page and change it every time. It's not cheap, and as of now, in 2015, no insurance pays for it. At all. On the other hand, if I can get back to working half-time, I'll be able to make back more than that long before the first year is up - so it's all relative.



4 comments:

  1. I will be following your progress and reading with interest. I like your writing style btw. I wish you the best of luck and look forward to good results. Wow - 3 months seems like a long time but it'll fly. xxx

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