There is a sense of urgency we subscribe to within the medical community to focus our attention and efforts on the coronavirus phenomenon and to contribute whichever way possible to the study, promotion and further development of potentially effective treatment methodologies for COVID-19.
What we can do to win this struggle is bring all our resources to the table and be part of the “war effort” to bring COVID-19 pandemic under control in terms of prevention, treatment and after-care. The race for research, development, testing, international authorization and distribution of the much needed COVID-19 vaccine has seen a record time of deployment, much faster than anticipated, all thanks to private research centers and Big Pharma research labs.
AHA Hyperbarics company develops state of the art HBOT inflatable chamber technology.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a complementary treatment method part of the potential after-care treatment sector of medical solutions for the COVID-19 pandemic.
We try to keep track of every relevant data, research and clinical trials for the applications of HBOT for COVID-19 after care.
Following recently published studies and surveys (read more here and here), most patients who have contracted coronavirus disease (COVID-19) recover to good health within a few weeks, yet 50% to 80% of patients continue to have problematic symptoms up to 3 months after the onset of COVID-19 — even after tests no longer detect virus in their body.
The terminology used for the condition includes “long COVID,” “post-COVID syndrome” and “post-acute COVID-19 syndrome”, a syndrome which appears to affect patients with mild and moderate-to-severe disease, after their initial recovery, following the acute phase of infection. In theory, a “long hauler” could be any patient who has not returned to their pre-COVID-19 level of health and function after six months. It is still early in the game to monitor a period longer than six months.
Post-COVID-19 syndrome is an assembly of signs and symptoms, a multisystem disease
The syndrome is generally characterized by cognitive impairment, fatigue, and other neurologic symptoms. Evaluation has observed an ongoing low level of inflammation in the brain, decreased blood flow to the brain, an autoimmune condition in which the body makes antibodies that attack the brain, or several correlated problems.
According to Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School, there are “hidden long-term cognitive effects of COVID-19: more than 40% of patients with COVID showed neurologic manifestations at the outset, and more than 30% of those had impaired cognition: brain damage that occurs in many survivors, causing pervasive yet subtle cognitive, behavioral, and psychological problems”.
Patients report myalgias, headaches, encephalopathy, dizziness, dysgeusia, and anosmia. After recovering from COVID-19, many patients continue to suffer from symptoms. The most common symptoms that people with long COVID-19 experience include:
- Fatigue
- Difficulty breathing
- Joint pain
- Chest pain
- Brain fog, including an inability to concentrate and impaired memory
- Loss of taste and/or smell
- Sleep issues
COVID-19 acute infection is accompanied by blood hypercoagulability or thrombophilia, characterized by increased risk of small and large vessel occlusion, which often leads to increased mortality rates.
COVID-19 infection can induce a cytokine storm – an aggressive systemic inflammatory response characterized by the excessive release of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Cytokines are an elemental part of the inflammatory process. A good anti-viral immune response requires the activation of the inflammatory pathways of the immune system.
COVID-19 can engage a hyperactive immune response resulting in an excessive inflammatory reaction. Several studies analyzing cytokine profiles from COVID-19 patients suggested that the cytokine storm is correlated directly with lung injury, multi-organ failure, and unfavorable prognosis of severe COVID-19 (16, 20–24).
COVID-19 can cause neuro-inflammation, a cause of local hypoxia, specifically neurological hypoxia.
One of the options to reverse hypoxia, reduce neuro-inflammation and induce neuroplasticity is hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).
Lack of oxygen, t.i. hypoxia is one of the most common reasons behind the appearance of numerous illnesses, cell damage and degenerative disease. Any disease that is ischemic (lack of tissue oxygen) in nature, or has a concurring edema or inflammation (tissue or nerve swelling) will see a benefit from HBOT.
HBOT improves tissue oxygenation, so there’s reasonable hope to treat post-COVID syndrome
The combined action of hyperoxia and hyperbaric can engage the regenerative processes including stem cells proliferation and mobilization with anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory factors.
The HBOT protocol during the new HBOT clinical trials coordinated by Shamir Medical Center will be administrated in a high-pressure hyperbaric chamber. According to the clinical study paper submitted: “the protocol includes 40 daily sessions, 5 sessions per week for two months. Treatment group will subjected to 100% oxygen by mask at 2 ATA for 90 minutes…”
The Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh, near Tel Aviv, Israel) clinical studies are part of an ever-growing body of research to understand and battle Post-COVID-19 syndrome and its assembly of symptoms, following an infection with COVID-19.
We’ll keep you posted with the development and results of the clinical trials as soon as the conclusions will be issued to the public. But until then, we know what we have to do to fight COVID-19 and the effects after. We all want to get into the shape after the disease as quickly as we can. One of the best possible solutions to give the body the needed energy to recover is by means of hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
References:
- Persistent Symptoms in Patients After Acute COVID-19 (PubMed.gov)
- Symptom Duration and Risk Factors for Delayed Return to Usual Health Among Outpatients with COVID-19 in a Multistate Health Care Systems Network — United States, March–June 2020 (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- The hidden long-term cognitive effects of COVID-19 (Health Harvard Publishing)
- The COVID-19 Cytokine Storm; What We Know So Far (Frontiers in Immunology) (16, 20–24)
- Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Post-COVID-19 Syndrome (HBOTpCOVID) (ClinicalTrials.gov)
You might also be interested in reading this article The race for oxygen. Can Hyperbaric Therapy (HBOT) treat COVID-19?
