8 replies to this topic

[City Girl]

I am T12-incomplete SCI'd, 3 years post-injury with good recovery. Good is relative, however. I can walk, but I can't run. I still use my wheelchair at work as I have a desk job and sit for long hours. (I work 7-7 Mon & Wed and 7-6 on Fri which frees up Tues and Thurs for my physical rehabilitation.) I will get up to walk to the washroom or to the networked printer in the office. I also have a walker which I often use at the mall or in the summer if I go to some big outdoor event , i.e., Ribfest, Beaches Jazz festival, etc. My balance is not great and it just gives me extra security if someone bumps into me or I lose my balance. If I go out to visit family/friends or to a restaurant for dinner, I just use a cane. I will walk around my house and just use the wall or counter or furniture to point balance, if needed.

I go to the gym 2-3 times/week and use the treadmill (30 mins), I do squats/lunges/chair poses (30 mins), use the elliptical machine (30 mins), use the weight machines for my legs (3 - 10 min sessions), and always spend an hour on the mats stretching afterwards. I still do 1 hour of physiotherapy weekly. I also see a Massage Therapist twice a month. I have a tens unit and try to use that 2-3 times a week (I'll sit on the bed and watch a movie.) I am currently working on my calf muscles. I have built up my anterior tibialis muscles and have very good dorsiflexion (lifting the foot) but my plantar flexion (pointing the toe) is still rather weak. Hence the focus on the gastrocnemius (calf) muscle.

I have suffered terribly with neuropathic pain in my feet and occasionally on my calves and my buttocks since about 10 months post-injury. I take 25 mg of amitriptyline at bedtime. At three years and two months, I started to notice that my neuropathic pain was diminishing. This was also around the same time that I started to focus my exercises and tens stim on the calf muscles. I have also noticed just in the past week or two a warm feeling that occasionally waves over my legs. For a split second, I almost think I have peed my pants but I haven't. Could it be that my peripheral nerves have regrown to the point that I am feeling the effect?

I am a member of the Canadian Paraplegic Association (Ontario chapter). I get their quarterly magazine and skim through it. I like the section on nutrition. It is a passion of mine and I am returning to university this fall to complete my Masters in Nutrition. Consequently, I am very disciplined in my eating and supplementing habits as a tool for health and recovery.

This month the magazine featured a section on Complementary Therapy. I skimmed through it and saw an article on "Healing with Oxygen". I do know that "oxygen therapy" has basically been debunked because oxygen essentially 'corrodes' which is why we need to consume anti-oxidants. This oxygen therapy, however, uses 'pressure' and not purer forms of O2. This 'healing modality' has seen remarkable results with Sport Professionals who incur bone or tissue injuries in that it speeds up the recovery process. Could it, theoretically, speed up the regrowth of peripheral nerves?

My injury is at the Cauda Equina and it is incomplete. My nerves were completely crushed but many of my compressed nerves have decompressed. I do, however, strongly suspect that some were completely severed. Inasmuch as science claims that the spinal cord in itself cannot regenerate, peripheral nerves do, theoretically, have the ability to regenerate. There are obviously many factors that affect nerve regeneration. Activity is definitely one. If you don't use something, you lose it. I have continued to push myself in recovery for over three years now. Age is also a biggie. When I was in rehab there was a larger sample of young people recovering from SCI than there was of older individuals. The body just has more elasticity when it is younger. Diet, mental determination, etc., etc.

Anyway, I continue to push myself and will never give up trying to improve myself physically. At the very least, I maintain a fitness level better than most AB women in their 20's and 30's at the age of 46! I would love to hear from others if they have tried HBOT or know someone who has tried it. I have a consultation this Thursday, February 10th, 2011 at 10:00 am. I don't believe in miracles or magic in regard to healing...but three years of hard work and resultant improvements in my physical rehabilitation have taught me to believe in 'baby steps' and never giving up.

~ City Girl ~

[ulsterkeith]

your symptoms seem very simaler to mine,i also go through as much physio as you,and would like to know the results of your hbot,let me know how it goes,good luck

[davjed]

From another T-12/L incomplete you are doing well. Don't stop what you're doing and trying everything you can to improve. The rewards will come farther along the road..........

[City Girl]

OK, I went for my consult today...and I'm going for it.

I still can't believe that no one on this site has tried HBOT, given that Apparelyzed is global and HBOT is practiced widely in Europe and the US.

New to Canada, Under Pressure http://www.underpressurehbot.ca/ has been operational for only two years. The science behind the therapy is to decrease cell inflammation thus increasing blood flow into the cell and, in turn, increasing cell health which aids in musculoskeletal regrowth/repair/recovery, angiogenesis (growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing blood vessels), stem-cell growth...and, MY INTEREST, 'the potential for enhancing peripheral nerve cell regrowth'.

As I mentioned before, I don't believe in miracles or magic so I'm not holding my breath and expecting to walk on water, but I'm going to give it a try. It's expensive - $300.00 + HST (13% harmonized provincial/federal tax) and they recommend I do 10 sessions as close together as possible. Quite frankly, $3,390.00 is nothing in the grand scheme of life...people blow that much money buying lottery tickets over a five year period and wishing their lives away.

I have tried many, many different healing modalities in the past three years. Some have worked and I have stuck with them. Some were bull$hit and I aborted after a reasonable amount of time/money invested.

Lastly, I don't want to give the impression that I am spending my life 'waiting' to recover from my SCI. I am not. I am very busy living my life investing in relationships with my family/friends, a rewarding career, interesting hobbies, volunteering...and going back to school part-time this fall to complete my Masters in Nutrition. Notwithstanding, as I push myself in living a full and rewarding life, I am also pushing myself in my physical recovery. SCI/health/recovery is constantly changing. Medical science learns new things all the time and I want to be a part of cutting-edge SCI medical advancement...just to see how far I can get. It's a curious thing.

Hence, I will report back in a month or two.

~ City Girl ~

Edited by City Girl, 10 February 2011 - 05:22 PM.

[Tetracyclone]

City Girl,

Your attitude is admirable. I suspect the therapy will have some health benefits, whether or not one of them is additional peripheral nerve growth.

Thanks for keeping us posted.

[stellaris2]

Hi City Girl,

I think I'm at a similar level to you -I am nearly 4 years post injury, and walk with a stick. I still do a weekly physiotherapy session, and have a few pieces of gym equipment at home(stepper, treadmill, thigh glider) My two weakest muscles (right side only) are my abductors and dorsiflexion. I am determined to get better than I am, and won't stop trying.

Anyway, two years or so ago, I tried a physiotherapist in my area who was known to treat footballers and other sports professionals, and got them back to peak fitness asap. Anyway, he had a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, lasers and pulsed magnetic therapy machines. He never suggested the oxygen chamber for me - he said it promoted healing of tissue, or something like that. What I did have was the laser treatment and the magnetic therapy (at a cost of £80 an hour, not sure exactly how much that is in C bucks - around $120 I guess) and after 3 treatments, I noticed absolutely no difference. He said I would need to have several treatments regularly to see any results, but wasn't prepared to guarantee it. I just felt it could be a bottomless pit and decided to pay for more conventional physio instead, although I am looking into buying the pulsed magnetic therapy machine myself. It would be much more cost effective than paying him to hook me up and go treat someone else! I totally agree with you about being willing to pay to get better (few things are more important than your health) but you need to see something for your money.

Let's make a deal - you tell me how your oxygen chamber goes, and I will tell you how my magnetic pulsed therapy goes!

Best of luck, sorry I cant be more helpful.

[KateTx]

I have done many sessions of hyperbaric oxygen for radiation plexapathy over about a two year period. It is recommended for treating radiation damage because it helps with wound healing, which is one of its primary uses (as I understand it). But the nerves are healed simply because one is providing oxygen to starved cells, so that the blood that does reach damaged area carries more oxygen, and so the tissue heals. As I know, there aren't any claims about HBOT helping peripheral nerves directly. So if you issue is not blood supply related, then I am not sure how HBOT would address it.

It is certainly not unpleasant, but it takes time. You can watch a movie while you are in there, but you can't take in papers, etc., and the sessions can be 2 hours long. But there isn't a downside except for the cost, as far as I could tell.

Find a reputable place (like in a hospital setting).

Kate

[City Girl]

I understand the science behind HBOT and I know it's a long shot but I'm still going to try it. I work in health science education (musculoskeletal) but I have a colleague who has a degree in neuroscience so I asked his opinion. He basically told me the same thing: that it works for compression injuries to bring oxygen to cells that have been cut-off. In my consultation, the director of the facility told me that they've had tremendous success with Traumatic Brain Injury but could not make any promises in regard to 'peripheral nerve cell regeneration', primarily because there have been no scientific studies on this and so there is no data to support it. Notwithstanding, my colleague (the neuro guy) said that peripheral nerve cells did, indeed, contain mitochondria which does 'theoretically' present opportunity for regeneration and that increased oxygen supply could speed up the regrowth. Again, it is, however, a long shot. I had planned to commit to 10 sessions (to the tune of $3,000.00 + tax) but my colleague recommended that I try it a few consecutive sessions and if anything was going to happen, I would see results right away. So, we shall see. All I would lose is money and I just don't care about the gamble even if there is a remote chance it could work and I don't want to look back and say, "woulda, coulda, shoulda."

In terms of magnetic therapy, that's interesting. I found a physiotherapist in my neighbourhood back in the spring of 2009 who was covered by public health and saw her twice. She was all about magnetic therapy and gave me a tons of papers to read. My first session with her, she had me lay on a physio-bed and taped rubber pads to my feet and ran cooper wires from the pads to a cooper pipe under the sink which went into the ground so that the magnetic pull of mother earth could heal me... I stopped seeing her after the second visit because I felt absolutely nothing and thought she was downright quackers. hehe.

I will report back on the HBOT and hope to hear back from you stellaris2 on the magnetic pulse therapy.

~ City Girl ~

[h.rourke]

See this site, HyperMed Australia, for information about their use of HBOT and Lokomat training to promote neuroplaticity:

http://www.hypermed....cord injury.htm

To get all of the HyperMed links google "HBOT Lokomat"

I am 16 months into my SCi. I use a portable HBOT chamber in my home. I think it helps with my neuropathy, muscle strength and flexibility.