Medical Miracle?
A space-like machine is helping to change the lives of patients, one at a time.
There are hundreds of testimonials about this mobile hyperbaric chamber.
79-year-old Norm Anderberg is walking again, after being walker-dependent for four years after a stroke.
?I’m infinitely better than I was when I started,” says Anderberg. “It’s helped. I’m not using my walker anymore. I can get my arm up this far.”
He stretches his arm up, with a bit of a struggle ? a contrast to where he says he was before, when he couldn?t raise his right arm from his leg. Anderberg?s only been using the hyperbaric chamber for several months.
And that?s not all. The father of an autistic boy says he?s seen his son go from banging his head on the floor, scratching himself, making only noise ? to responding to his father?s questions.
“There’s a lot of alternative therapies out there that are very viable,” says Jesse Rooney, owner of “Pikes Peak Hyperbaric”. “It’s a wonder how it’s not more well-known now.”
Filled with pressurized air, patients normally spend one hour inside the cylindrical chamber. This version of the hyper baric chamber is mobile, and doesn?t reach the intense levels of a steel-sided chamber ? lending to it?s ?mild? categorization.
Once pressurized, it?s like being eleven feet underwater. That, according to Rooney, forces more oxygen into the body.
KRDO Newschannel 13?s Dr. John Torres says the hyperbaric chamber isn?t a one-size fits all, cure-all however.
“It has been studied, granted limitedly, and in those studies it really hasn’t been shown to cause much improvement in the majority of these people. It might improve one or two here, and it does help some people, we just don’t know,” says Dr. Torres.
Torres says the chamber is documented to help with healing injuries, but as far as the other ailments, there isn?t enough empirical data.
“For the most part, this hyperbaric treatment is not dangerous. It’s not really going to cause a problem. The question is, is it going to help any? That’s something, again, I would definitely talk to your doctor — and people who are going through successes and failures, and just make a decision whether it’s going to help or not.”
But for Rooney, he says the results cannot be ignored.
“You can’t take an autistic child that doesn’t talk, and now all of a sudden, he talks, and say, ‘Well, I guess he just did that on his own.’ At some point, something was a catalyst for his change.”
The hyperbaric procedures are not covered by any kind of insurance. The cost of each session is $50.
