Women suffering from fibromyalgia benefit from hyperbaric oxygen treatment, a new study says.

Fibromyalgia is a difficult to treat chronic syndrome that afflicts mostly women, causing muscle pain, joint stiffness, fatigue, and, in some cases, cognitive impairment, irritable bowel syndrome, and poor sleep.

A clinical trial held in Israel involved the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) during which a patient lays in a hyperbaric chamber while their body is flooded with oxygen.

The study involved 60 female fibromyalgia patients who were divided into two groups. Half the women received 40 treatments five days a week over two months, during which they were exposed them to pure oxygen at two times the atmospheric pressure. The other half served as a control group.

All the women getting HBOT experienced improvement, so, after two months the women in the control group also were given the treatment. They experienced the same degree of relief, the researchers said.

Because of the treatment, all of the women were able to drastically reduce or even eliminate use of pain medication, the researchers said.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.