Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment

My Daughter Before Hyperbaric Treatments

At the time of the treatments, my daughter was three years old. We have recently completed all the treatments and she recently turned four years old.

Since birth, she has had many different issues. At two months of age, she was admitted into the PCICU area of a large children’s hospital with different symptoms including respiratory distress.  The hospital was unable to find or tell us what happened. She suddenly got better. At one point, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. After that, we have gone through many different specialists. Most have not been able to give us any answers. After visiting one particular specialist, we were told a current diagnosis of: Ataxic Cerebral Palsy.

Early on, we were able to find out my daughter has Ataxia and Hypertonia. Until the Ataxic Cerebral Palsy diagnosis, we were mostly in the dark about  what was causing my child’s Ataxia and Hypertonia. Even today, we are still unaware of the cause of the other conditions my daughter is experiencing. This has led us, along with many other parents, to find alternatives for treatment and resolutions.

My daughter has different areas that are impacted by her condition. At four years of age, she is unable to stand, walk, speak, control some of her gross and fine motor skills, and more. Her Ataxia causes her to shake, at times uncontrollably, and can make simple movements more difficult. She has been through different tests, medications and therapies. She has different gait trainers, walkers and a wheelchair. Before the treatments, she was only showing marginal improvements in learning to make sounds and speak as well as minimal improvement to her gross and fine motor skills.

My Daughter After Hyperbaric Treatments

It is now a few weeks after completing a total of eight weeks of HBOT. She has recently celebrated her fourth birthday. The difference compared to before her undergoing HBOT is noticeable, not only to but also, to others including my parents and my wife’s family.

Before undergoing the treatments, we took video of my daughter doing things such as crawling, moving around and general playing. We have now taken a video in the last week for comparison.

The results between the videos are indisputable.

The way my daughter moves, crawls, reaches for objects and even tries to speak has improved. Her mannerisms, shakiness, gross and fine motor skills have improved to the point where it is noticeable to others that don’t see her on a regular basis. On her own, she has started to work on standing more, interacting more with television programs with sounds and sometimes even tries to speak words.

One of the things my wife and I have noticed was that she is doing the hand sign for “I love you”. She is able to bend her fingers enough to form this sign and do it on a regular basis.

Conclusion:

Overall, others, as well as my wife and I, have noticed the improvements in my daughter’s physical and mental condition. It is our belief that the HBOT treatments are indeed a viable treatment that any special needs parent should look into.

We are currently done with treatments for this year, but, we will be looking to doing more treatments in the future. Again, I want to personally thank the staff at the Hyperbaric Center and everyone that was instrumental in helping us administer these treatments for my daughter.

If anyone out there is looking into or would like to know more about Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments for their children, I would be happy to share my experiences with you.

Photo Courtesy of South Florida Center for H.O.P.E. (Hyperbaric Oxygen Producing Environment) http://www.sfcenterforhope.com/