There is a growing interest in holistic healing modalities and this weekend you can check out some of them at the Oceanside Family Health and Wellness Fair at the Parksville Community and Conference Centre.
Oceanside Hyperbaric will have a booth on Sunday, March 29 at the health fair and director Terry Carpenter is inviting people to stop by and talk to him about the leading-edge therapy.
Hyperbaric medicine is well known for treating decompression sickness — the bends — which can strike divers who surface too quickly.
Today, people are turning to hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) to treat several conditions including chronic wounds, diabetic foot ulcers, radiation injury, bone infections, burns, autism and more.
Oceanside Hyperbaric has been helping people from all over Vancouver Island since 2010 and they say many triumphant stories of hope have unfolded at the clinic in Parksville.
Carpenter claims he has clients who can walk again after having a stroke and patients who were once immobile and bedridden are now living life to its fullest after receiving HBOT.
One of the clinic’s most prominent advocates is super volunteer Joan LeMoine of Parksville.
Known for her tireless volunteer hours and gregarious personality, LeMoine, who will be 85 years old in July, said her leg ulcers healed after several HBOT treatments at the clinic.
“I had ulcers on my legs for some time and I was going to the wound clinic twice a week. I asked Pat (Genest) about this treatment and she suggested I try it. I didn’t notice any difference until after the third treatment and then I felt a lot better,” she explained.
LeMoine said not only did her wounds heal from the 11 treatments she had, her entire wellbeing improved.
“It made my skin look younger. People stopped on the street and asked me what I was doing. When you feel good you look good and I want to stay vibrant. It made me feel better and it would keep more people out of hospitals if it was covered by health care.”
Carpenter said ignorance about the treatment, and a pharmaceutical-driven medical establishment, has resulted in the therapy being relegated to the sidelines.
He said it is unfortunate the medical community hasn’t embraced HBOT because oxygen is one of the best ‘drugs’ you can have to treat and heal a lot of ailments.
“The average doctor is not trained in hyperbaric medicine and a lot of them don’t even know that they have a chamber available at Vancouver General Hospital. They can prescribe 14 approved conditions which will be covered by MSP, but the problem with waiting for the hospital to treat you as opposed to a private clinic is that you can spend a long time waiting to get in,” he said.
Oceanside Hyperbaric is one of only eight private facilities in B.C. to offer HBOT and while it is gaining international recognition as one of the safest and most dynamic therapies available for numerous medical conditions, Carpenter said that isn’t the case in Canada.
“In China they now have 5,000 chambers there and treat over 60 conditions. We have had people referred to us from the wound clinic at the Oceanside Health Centre. (Genest) has been a great advocate of hyperbaric and she understands that it is a great healing modality for wounds that are hard to heal. We need to educate our GPs because they are front-line people,” he said.
So how does it work?
Carpenter explained that the treatment combines pressurized air with pure oxygen and that reduces inflammation, increases stem cell production and rebuilds new blood vessels.
“What hyperbaric does is cause the oxygen to be dissolved into blood plasma under pressure. In an area like your leg or on a toe where most ulcers start … it is so far from your heart and it gets less oxygen delivered to it so when it is delivered through the plasma then it diffuses into the body and gets up to 15 times the amount of oxygen at the wound site. That promotes healing.”
Carpenter said he is optimistic the non-invasive and painless treatment will soon become mainstream medical protocol.
