Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Fibromyalgia

Chronic and painful conditions that include fibromyalgia are among the most commonly faced health problems in the word. This problem is usually managed by rheumatologists, practitioners, and clinical psychologists. Furthermore, it is also characterized by fatigue, cognitive complaints, high distress, multifocal pain, and nausea. While there is some evidence that pharmacotherapy and physiotherapy are quite effective in the reduction of fibromyalgia symptoms, most patients remain unsatisfied with it. On the other hand, HBOT (Hyperbaric oxygen therapy) seems to have shown significant improvement in the symptoms of fibromyalgia in some cases.

Just recently, a study was conducted in which 33 female patients between the age of 29 and 63 participated. All of these patients were suffering from fibromyalgia. Throughout the entire study, during the HOBT treatment, no other pharmacological treatment was performed. Furthermore, after about 10 to 20 sessions of HBOT, the patients went through a baseline evaluation. These evaluations primarily included tender point count, clinometric questionnaires, physical examination, and similar evaluations.

Furthermore, some functional assessment of Pittsburgh sleep quality index, chronic illness therapy, back depression inventory, state-trait anxiety inventory, and pain catastrophizing scale was also carried out.

What were the results of this city?

With regard to oxygen therapy for fibromyalgia, the results were quite astounding. It was found out that due to claustrophobia, about 5 patients had withdrawn themselves from the HBOT. In others, HBOT had resulted in a great amount of reduction in all of the fibromyalgia symptoms. As a result of this, the life quality of the patients improved significantly. Furthermore, it was also found that HOBT treatment led to the reduction of tender points in two groups. In the first group, the reduction occurred without any changes after 2 months of observation. In the second group, the improvement was related more to HOBT treatment. In the first group, the FIQ score had a lot of improvement whereas in the control group, there was no improvement in the symptoms.

So, it could be concluded that hyperbaric oxygen therapy for fibromyalgia is indeed quite effective and can significantly reduce the symptoms of a patient. HOBT primarily has analgesic effects, that have been studied in neuropathic ad inflammatory pain models. As a result of this, this therapy could be useful for treating a wide range of chronic pain illnesses.

At the same time, an excess amount of pain experienced by patients in Fibromyalgia is primarily because of the hyperexcitability of the pathways that process pain. It has been shown that cell metabolism gets increased due to HBOT, and along with that oxidative stress is also reduced. Furthermore, the nitric oxide levels along with neurotrophic are also increased at the same time. Moreover, the hyperbaric chamber for fibromyalgia may also increase the metabolism in cells, while reducing apoptosis in the body. It might also promote the endogenous neural stem cell neurogenesis. Sometimes, impaired brain functions can also be improved by neuroplasticity induced HBOT.

More studies need to be conducted in order to know the duration of this effect. This will be done by evaluating the protocol further.