HBOT Conversations:
Dr. Paul Harch & The Science Behind The Practice
Dr. Paul G. Harch, M.D. has used hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat more than 100 different conditions, including stroke, dementia, autism, and traumatic brain injury. His goal is to help his patients get their lives back using hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
He is the author of The Oxygen Revolution and is considered an International expert and pioneer in the field of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). His informative, and comprehensive guide on HBOT has helped countless souls better understand what HBOT is and how it directly affects the body at the genetic level.
This episode on The Science Behind the Practice is the fourth in a nine episode series that will be released weekly with Dr. Harch.
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di Girolamo asks Dr. Harch to explain his background, and the road he had to take to get to where he is today.
In Episode 4, Dr. Harch tells a miraculous story of how his medical journey with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy fell into his lap during his surgical residency. It was during this internship when Dr, Harch was in a horrendous vehicle accident and nearly killed. This led to more than one medical leave of absence. While out on his second leave of absence after yet another surgery, his perspective changed; and he started to wonder what he wanted to do with his life.
After not finding fulfilment in an emergency medicine practice, Dr. Harch decided that he needed to follow his true passion and interest if he was going to have any chance of feeling accomplished, and changing lives.
Dr. Harch had a high level of interest in Navy divers and the extreme cases of brain decompression sickness. He started asking questions about how they were being treated for decompression sickness and why they were not getting better. Dr, Harch refers to the unbelievable cases that landed in his lap as his “Manna from Heaven”. Other doctors tossed these cases to the side, but Dr. Harch decided to try something different with these patients – he treated using lower doses of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. It totally reversed what was going on with these patients!
Even though his results were clinically astonishing, the Medical Societies were surprisingly not impressed or welcoming; forcing Dr. Harch to create more research documentation and do more clinical work to prove his success with hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat chronic brain issues. During his journey to prove the results, he was implemental in successfully being able to show brain decompression illness on imaging. The imaging results were so dramatic after hyperbaric oxygen therapy that the radiologists didn’t even know how to read it! This is about the time when Dr. Harch’s road to patient care took a straight-shot towards healing a larger variety of indications with HBOT.
His goal today is the same as it was back then…. prove to everyone that Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy WORKS! Dr. Harch has no plans to retire and stresses that he wants to see this all over the finish line.
Dr. Harch has used HBOT to change the lives of children and adults; but it was his own life that was also greatly changed by the power of hyperbarics. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy has allowed Dr. Harch to take the elements of oxygen and pressure, & implement them into healing protocols that have now saved countless lives.
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Guest
Dr. Paul G. Harch, MD
Dr. Harch initiated and continues to be a private practice that has resulted in the largest case experience in neurological hyperbaric medicine in the world. In this practice, he adapted the concepts of conventional hyperbaric oxygen therapy to wounds in the central nervous system, which spawned the subsequent academic and research practice. Harch HBOT is the best place to receive oxygen therapy treatments, and patients have traveled from more than 50 countries to be treated by Dr. Harch himself.
Harch HBOT – Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Clinic
5216 Lapalco Blvd.
Marrero, LA
504-309-4948
hbot@hbot.com
https://hbot.com/
Recent HBOT News
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy restored traumatic stress-induced dysregulation of fear memory and related neurochemical abnormalities.
Individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are characterized by fear memory problems and hypocortisolemia of which traumatic stress-induced monoaminergic disruption over infralimbic (IL) cortex is considered the key mechanism. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) has recently proven its utility in treating several mental disorders but remains unexplored for PTSD. The present study aimed to examine the effects of 5-day HBO paradigm on traumatic stress (single prolonged stress, SPS, an animal model of PTSD)-induced dysregulation of fear memory/anxiety profiles and related abnormalities in IL monoamines and plasma corticosterone.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is an effective adjunctive treatment for severe perianal Crohn’s disease
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Perianal involvement occurs in about 30% of children with Crohn's disease (CD). Treatment of perianal CD requires a multidisciplinary approach with a combination of immunomodulatory therapy, antibiotics and surgery. Hyperbaric oxygen...
Hyperbaric oxygen promotes neural stem cell proliferation by activating vascular endothelial growth factor/extracellular signal-regulated kinase signaling after traumatic brain injury.
Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy and neural stem cell (NSC) transplantation can improve traumatic brain injury (TBI) clinically. This study aimed to investigate the mechanism of HBO promoting NSC proliferation and neurological recovery after TBI. Twenty-four Sprague-Dawley rats were divided randomly into three groups: a sham group, a TBI group (constructed using Feeney’s free-fall method), and an HBO-treated TBI group. Neurological function was evaluated by Neurological Severity Scores on days 1, 3, and 7, and we found that TBI-induced poor neurological function was improved by HBO. On day 7 after TBI, we observed that TBI promoted NSC proliferation, migration to the lesion area, and the levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), VEGFR2, Raf-1, MEK1/2, and phospho-extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) 1/2 protein, which were further boosted by HBO, from immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, and Western blot experiments. In vitro, cell injury was applied to NSCs isolated from neonatal Sprague-Dawley rats by the Cell Injury Controller II system. Moreover, data from the BrdU Kit and Western blot showed that in-vitro HBO significantly accelerated NSC proliferation and the levels of proteins related to cell cycle and the VEGF/ERK pathway after cell injury, which was suppressed by the VEGFR2 inhibitor. Taken together, this study indicated that HBO may promote NSC proliferation by activating VEGF/ERK signaling and play a crucial role in neuroprotection after TBI.

