Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reveals promise for opioid habit medication

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy might web advantage of us being treated for opioid habit decrease their methadone dose and better handle difficulty and withdrawal signs, in maintaining with a pair of reviews led by Washington Deliver University scientists.

The study team recruited participants enrolled in a neighborhood opioid medication program to take a look at the effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a medication that entails respiratory pure oxygen in a pressurized ambiance.

Printed in the Journal of Addictions Nursing, the foremost paper describes a pilot peek of 31 participants that showed that of us that had obtained hyperbaric oxygen therapy as fragment of a planned methadone taper were ready to preserve a critically bigger dose bargain of 4.3 mg three months after the peek, as compared to 0.25 mg in participants who did no longer receive the therapy. They moreover reported half the extent of withdrawal signs skilled by preserve a watch on participants after handiest sooner or later of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. 

“Whereas methadone helps of us with opioid habit fetch stable and resume their long-established lives, or no longer it is quiet an opioid that they are taking every day,” said peek co-creator Matthew Layton, a professor in the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medication and a broken-down opioid medication program medical director. “About half of of us in medication desire to fetch off of methadone for various causes, but many who hang tried hang failed and relapsed. Our findings imply that hyperbaric oxygen therapy might perchance perchance potentially be worn as a non-pharmacological machine to study of us step down their methadone medication.”

The 2nd peek, which used to be published in Anguish Administration Nursing, used to be a miniature randomized controlled trial of eight participants that regarded more closely at withdrawal symptom relief. It found that participants in the hyperbaric oxygen therapy medication group reported decrease difficulty depth and drug cravings than preserve a watch on participants who had been given an oxygen mixture equivalent to room air delivered at long-established atmospheric stress. The researchers moreover saw improvements in diversified outcomes, such as sleep quality and mood.

“Whereas for some the project is to fetch off methadone, others fight to preserve in medication early on because discovering the staunch dose to stabilize signs can also moreover be difficult to build,” said first creator Marian Wilson, an affiliate professor in the WSU College of Nursing and an knowledgeable on difficulty administration opioid utilize disorder. “As a result, replace of us skills withdrawal signs in that adjustment interval that can also moreover be excessive satisfactory to create them resume illegal drug utilize or drop out of medication.”

Basically based completely totally on the collective findings from the two reviews, the researchers are pursuing funding for a clinical trial to substantiate their findings in a bigger sample of participants, who would be followed for loads of years.  

The premise for the two reviews came from earlier study by undoubtedly one of the necessary WSU researchers that showed that hyperbaric oxygen therapy supplied difficulty relief and diminished physical signs of opioid withdrawal in mice.

“We were anxious to peek if it might perchance work in of us,” said peek co-creator Raymond Quock, a professor in the WSU College of Arts and Sciences, who led that work.

If their findings prolong in a bigger clinical trial, hyperbaric oxygen therapy might perchance perchance change staunch into a non-pharmacological machine that services can utilize to study of us handle difficulty and potentially decrease their opioid utilize.

“Closing yr, over 100,000 of us died since the opioid epidemic at some level of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Layton. “That reveals us that opioid habit is quiet a extremely mountainous project, and we desire to hang better techniques to capability it.”