When Valerie Green was only 31 she suffered two strokes within six months. “It was very devastating." she tells Newsmax Health. "I was crippled. I lost my speech. I lost my hearing in my left ear. It was a very long road back to recovery, to put it mildly,” Green says. 

 

However, she may never have recovered if not for an unconventional stroke treatment that is showing stunning results and gaining wider acceptance.   

 

Green is now a motivational speaker, author, and heads the “BCenter,” a nonprofit organization she established to help other stroke victims. She credits her recovery largely to hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).

Although mainstream U.S. scientists have largely discounted this treatment, new research is showing that HBOT may be effective not only against stroke, but for a variety of serious health problems:

• A Chinese study of 100 children with epilepsy found that HBOT treatment was effective in 82 percent. Researchers believe that in addition to reducing seizures, HBOT decreases the likelihood of mental disability and personality disorders.

• Researchers at the University of Florida announced that they were able to extend the lives of cancer-stricken mice using hyperbaric oxygen.

 

• Researchers in Washington State University found that HBOT cured chronic pain in animals.

 

• University of Pennsylvania scientists found that HBOT increases the production of stem cells eight-fold. These cells are critical for injury repair.

Such striking findings do not surprise William S. Maxfield, M.D., the radiologist who successfully treated Green. Dr. Maxfield has championed hyperbaric oxygen since he began working with it in the late 1960s.

“Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is, unfortunately, medicine’s best-kept secret,” he tells Newsmax Health.

 

 

In the U.S., oxygen chambers are commonly used to treat burn victims and decompression sickness in divers, but they are seldom utilized outside those applications. However, in other parts of the world, doctors have found it can treat many conditions.

 

“The Russians have 73 approved indications for the use of hyperbaric medicine,” notes Dr. Maxfield.

 

HBOT, which is administered in a sealed chamber, delivers 100-percent oxygen at an elevated barometric pressure, which saturates the circulatory system. It was first used clinically in the 1890s to treat infection. In the 1930s, it was catching on in popularity thanks an anesthesia professor who created a hospital devoted to it, but officials shut it down, claiming there was not enough evidence to support it.

“Since then, numerous studies showing that HBOT works for a broad variety of uses have been performed, but the medical community discounts them,” says Dr. Maxfield.

 

Besides stroke, HBOT has proved effective in treating traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, autism, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Lyme disease, asthma, emphysema, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and colitis, Dr. Maxfield said.

The therapy also heals complications of radiation therapy and chemotherapy, including “chemo brain,” a type of cloudy thinking that occurs with chemotherapy, as well as a similar condition that can accompany open-heart surgery. Dr. Maxfield hopes to start a trial using it in combination with a nutritional supplement to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

 

In most cases, HBOT is not intended to replace conventional therapies, but to be used in conjunction with them to bolster their effectiveness. The treatments are generally not covered by insurance and run $120 to $250 each. A standard course is 20 to 40 treatments, but may be more or less depending on the patient’s response.

 

Patients with ailments like COPD generally need treatment on a continuing basis, “much like a diabetic needs insulin,” said Dr. Maxfield.

 

The sessions are painless and there is little risk of side effects. During treatment, patients may feel ear discomfort as the chamber is pressurized, similar to what is felt when going up or down in a plane. 

 

Since her recovery, Green has walked a half marathon and the only reminder of her 1996 stroke is a mild speech impediment. She continues to get HBOT treatments.

 

“I try to go for a treatment once a month. It is this therapy I believe that was the catalyst and enabled all of the other rehabilitation treatments to work for me,” she says.