FYI :Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy repairs radiation fibrosis

macb04

Had severe fibrosis after uni mx 2014. My breast Felt like leather, thick and so, so very tight. I would stretch my arm 4 or 5 times per day, and each time the tightness and pain felt like I hadn't stretched at all. Iron bra x 10,000!!! Was reconstructing with fat grafting, only slightly sucessful, but had 100 sessions of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, which sucessfully got me through implant reconstruction August 2015 and a breast lift for symmetry 4 weeks ago.

The idiot doctor should have told me about Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy when she was frying the crap out of my poor tortured chest. I had to figure it out myself. Now my skin is nearly normal looking and feeling. I only have a little tightness, nothing like the iron bra feeling I had before.

Ladies, if you are tired of tightness, and want to finally take off that iron bra, then head to your nearest Wound care center that uses HBOT to treat soft tissue radio necrosis. That, by the way is a Medicare approved diagnosis for getting treatment.

KBeee

Thanks for the info. I hope not to need it, but am happy to know of it. How long after rads did it take for fibrosis to develop?

Hopeful82014

Karen, I had some fibrosis when I went for my 1-month, post-rad. follow up with my PT, so clearly it didn't take long to develop, in my case at least.

She's working on it and I'm doing a lot of massage of both the scars and the fibrotic areas. It seems to be helping. Mine is not as bad as the op, above, however, and my skin is fine. It's the tissues underneath that are at issue.

macb04

Happened within about 1 month for me too. I was burnt to a crisp and had numerous open sores all over my chest. I think they knew that women who get so severely burnt like me are at increased risk for fibrosis. They knew that and didn't tell me a thing.

I also read about Pentoxifylline 400mg three times per day combined with Vitamin E 400iu/tab three times per day forfibrosis. I have been using that orally as prescribed for the past 8 months with continued improvement.

Hopeful82014

I don't know that skin response has any correlation with fibrosis - my skin got pink but not red, no flaking, no burns but I still experienced fibrosis. I find myself wondering if density has anything to do with it - mine are smaller but dense? Or maybe it's all just the luck of the draw.

cider8

I've never heard of this! I've got an iron bra in spite of lots of really good PT and some cold laser on the worst parts (softened up a bit). Time for digging up more info

marijen

Hi all, can't sleep.. I'm curious. Do you need a prescription for oxygen therapy and how much does it cost? Does insurance cover it

macb04

Hi,

There are private places that do Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) , those places offer two varieties of HBOT, lower pressure soft sided chambers (1 atmosphere ) that I think don't need a prescription, then there are high pressure hard sided chambers (approx 2 atmospheres) that they have doctors on staff that prescribe treatments. Insurance will pay for treatment if it is for wound healing in certain circumstances, ie with reconstruction therapy, especially if you have had radiation fibrosis or infections. The correct term for rad fibrosis is SOFT TISSUE RADIONECROSIS. That is tthe term to use to get insurance to pay. That is a diagnosis even Medicare recognizes and pays for.

The other way is to get HBOT at a hospital based outpatient center. They are often attached to Wound Care centers. I gotmy husbands insuranceto payfor HBOT as I had bad radiation damage and bad infections twice during reconstruction. They hated to pay for it, and turned down my first requests and I had to appeal. I did suceed, I have had 100 HBOT sessions and plan to get 20 more when I get nipple reconstruction in December 2015.

There is a private HBOT place in Redmond, near Seattle. I found out they would give 20 treatment sessions for $1600 to $2000 depending on if you use the lower pressure or higher pressure chambers.

Each session takes from 90 to 120 minutes. Your ears pop like you are in an airplane as they gradually increase and then decrease the pressure. That is why it takes solong for each treatment. Also it makes you temporarily more nearsighted when you get to treatment number 20. That happened to me each set of treatments I had. It all went away, and my vision went back to normal. My skin is nearly normal. My skin was crazy tight and weirdly hard, like leather, even my PS is really surprised at how much improved and nearly normal it is. I wish I had known about it before I had those two bad infections, maybe I could have avoided them. That fool of a rad oncologist should have told me about HBOT.

marijen

Very informative, thank you for taking the time