Hyperbaric oxygen treatment could help women with fibromyalgia: exciting new findings

Women with fibromyalgia could benefit from a spending time in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, according to research published in PLOS ONE.
A clinical trial involving women diagnosed with fibromyalgia showed the painful condition improved in every one of the 48 women who completed two months of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And brain scans of the women before and after treatment supported the theory that abnormal conditions in pain-related areas of the brain may be responsible for the syndrome.
Hyperbaric oxygen chambers that expose people to pure oxygen at higher-than-atmospheric pressures are commonly used to treat people with embolisms, burns, carbon monoxide poisoning and decompression sickness (the bends). Exposure allows more oxygen into the bloodstream, which then delivers it to the brain.
“The results are of significant importance since, unlike the current treatments offered for fibromyalgia patients, hyperbaric oxygen treatment is not aiming for just symptomatic improvement,” highlights lead author, Eshel Ben-Jacob. “Hyperbaric oxygen treatment is aiming for the actual cause – the brain pathology responsible for the syndrome. It means that brain repair, including even neuronal regeneration, is possible even for chronic, long-lasting pain syndromes, and we can and should aim for that in any future treatment development.”

Click here to read the original research.

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Image credit: Lindsey Bieda