Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and TBI

By: Deutschmann Personal Injury & Disability Law (Lawyers) | Published 12/09/2012

The San Antonia KENS5 has reported on an interesting new treatment for TBI.

Anyone who meets Jeff Brennan face-to-face probably can't tell he's struggling with the after-effects of service-related injuries suffered decades ago.

But the former Marine sergeant has endured more than a decade of agonizing physical pain, emotional distress and complications from a Traumatic Brain Injury.

"I get what's called 'night terrors,' and I can't sleep," he said. Brennan also suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Many of his injuries come from artillery barrages during combat on the border between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He also was injured during a fall from a training tower in the late 1980s and suffered complications from nose surgery.

In the years since, he lost 60 percent of his vision and relied on handfuls of daily medication to function in normal life.

"We were taking pills called nerve agent pretreatment pills and that really caused a lot of this stuff to happen," Jeff said. "What I go though would kill most people."

But Brennan's condition is improving, thanks to a new and cutting-edge treatment, with the results even surprising his doctors.

Brennan is one of the first wounded combat veterans to be selected for Hyperbaric Oxygen Theraphy as part of a national study on Traumatic Brain Injury. For an hour everyday for at least 40 days, Brennan lays in a glass chamber at Island Hospital in Anacortes and breathes 100 percent pure oxygen.

The Bellevue-based Restorix Foundation helping fund research of HBOT. It raised $15,000 to cover treatment costs for Brennan.