Recovery of Repressed Memories in Fibromyalgia Patients Treated With Hyperbaric Oxygen, 2018, Lev-Wiesel et al

Open access at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00848/full

 

Very strange. I wonder if there are instances of this occurring in people treated with hyperbaric oxygen for any condition. I couldn't find any other reports. The finding seems more likely to be relevant to the therapy rather than fibromyalgia - if it amounts to anything at all - since fibromyalgia is not much (if at all) more associated with sexual abuse than many other diseases (right?).

Good thing nobody would dare use this as a reason to suggest that repression of emotional trauma should be suspected as the cause of illness in all patients with unexplained diseases, regardless of what the patient says.

 

I may have missed it but do we not need to know the total number treated, the effects of treatment on those for whom there are no claims of "repressed memory", and no doubt many other things.

 

The thing I don’t get about this supposed repressed memory is the contradictions that abound

On one hand having a repressed memory of a traumatic event is worse than actually recalling the said memory and getting it out in the open can lead to “recovery”

On the other hand dwelling on things (like false illness beliefs) is also bad and repressing these thoughts leads to “recovery”

At first I thought these were different schools of psychiatry but it seems they can use either depending upon the philosophical argument they are trying to prove?

So when neither of these work is that when they give you a lobotomy?

 

They say this happened to 9 of about 200 treated in their clinic from 2013-2016. The article doesn't actually discuss the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen treatment for fibromyalgia other than to say that the first mentioned patient reported complete recovery.

 

Yes, we're lucky everyone in the field has too much integrity for that.

This is kind of intriguing, though, isn't it. As others have said, it would be interesting to know if this happens regardless of why the person is in the HBOT. It doesn't seem too farfetched that being locked in a steel box while absorbing highly elevated levels of oxygen might alter consciousness in some way. Ayahuasca's probably cheaper, though.

 

Another way of presenting the findings might have been to say that 95.5% of those undergoing treatment gave no indication of having been sexually abused as a child, which, according to some statistics, is probably well below the norm. Though one should not necessarily believe those statistics.

 

First author of the paper gives a TEDx Talk in 2015 titled "Reverse Aging," but he's basically talking about rejuvenating the body/brain with HBOT.

Says we only use 5% of our brain. Hmmm....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TEYTNI9UEo

 

Maybe the authors answer their own question:

'Two randomized controlled trials have shown that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can induce neuroplasticity...'

I see no reason why inducing neuroplasticity would bring back suppressed memories but it would of course make it much easier to generate false memories through new connections.

 

They say two of the instances were corroborated (not sure if they mean two out of three or two out of nine).

The mechanism they propose has to do with restoring normal metabolism in areas of the brain that have been triggered into 'hibernation' by the trauma - presumably these areas are sequestering the memories in question. I don't know if this holds any water...

All that said, anything regarding purported recovery of such memories should be viewed in light of the satanic ritual abuse moral panic. This study is also still at the level of anecdote, so I second @Trish 's concerns.

 

About as much as the arnica in a homeopathic wine gum I would say.

 

It says neither the researchers nor the subjects knew this event would occur so it is likely a small paper derived from a larger or different study. It is so weak, purely anecdotal and doesn't seem much use. Looking at some of the papers the primary author has participated in it appears that his team has put quite a few groups through that chamber to see if they can bring some relief to inflammation and to improve brain function and his TED talk suggests he's quite sold on the power of the treatment.

 

From a Psychology Today article: "There is 'little or no empirical support' for the concept of repressed or dissociated memories of sexual abuse."

 

They didn't say if they had asked the other participants about remembered sexual abuse, so we can't say what percent of them had experienced it.