HBOT Autism Success Story at Hyperbaric Center of Alabama
Sasha Worley -- Age 5 1/2
After being diagnosed at age 20 months with classic autism, it wasn't long before we realized that traditional therapies were not helping our son gain progress with his condition. Alternative therapies and treatments caught our eye as more and more autistic children gained skills that were vital to their having a more independent life. We started taking our son to hyperbaric treatments when he turned 3, where he said his first word since his regression after just 4 hours of hbot. Over the next year he completed over 100 hours of hyperbaric oxygen therapy gaining skills such as socialization, language, appropriate typical actions when playing with other children, expressive behavior, receptive language, his ocd decreased, behavioral issues were less intense, and much more. We took a one year break from hbot and although many of the gains stayed with him, certain things were starting to regress and come back. Most specific being his OCD and anxiety/behavioral problems.
January 2008 we started seeing many negative behaviors come back as well as very high anxiety. His obsessive compulsive disorder became very severe and intense to the point that it was altering his life, our lives, and his conduct at school. For several months he was getting negative notes sent home from school everyday stating that he had 5-10 tantrums throughout the day, would bite children and teachers, was being destructive. He started obsessing over things he typically would not do such as constantly checking a certain drawer to make sure straws were in it, building fast food restaurants and car washes out of random items, being fixated with one specific child at school to be his group partner. If things were out of order or something wasn't going his way he would throw tantrums lasting up to an hour. Half of his school day was being put into the sensory room and he was being sent home from school.
We decided to take our son to the Hyperbaric Center of Alabama in March 2008 for 20 hours of treatment. We have done every type of hyperbaric that is available and the Monochamber has by far been the easiest, less stressful, and most beneficial of them all. Our son had never been into an hbot chamber by himself however he was very excited to continue each treatment after he made it through the first one. He called it the "tent" and to this day asks when he is going back. After 2 weeks of treatments he returned to school. For the next 2 months our son received great progress reports regarding negative behaviors being gone, OCD not altering his school day, and academic skills. He has since reached every single goal in his IEP where as before he was struggling to get through the day completing very few tasks and goals. The very day he went back to school he followed through with his schedule and had no tantrums. He did not show any obsessive compulsive behaviors and his teachers were very sure than the hbot chamber did "something" to his body to help relieve what was going on causing those specific issues to be as severe and intense as they were. We are eager to continue more hyperbaric oxygen treatments with the Hyperbaric Center of Alabama in the near future. The staff is incredibly nice and the facility is top of the line, professional, and clean. A very nice change of atmosphere from other facilities we have been to across the nation.