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Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Spinal Cord Injury

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By Tommy Articles & Studies

16 Feb: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) Improves Recovery Outcomes After Spinal Cord Injury

This study was published this month talking about the benefits of oxygenating the body with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) after…

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I realized I needed some support. My neck has been

I realized I needed some support. My neck has been hurting quite a bit for a while now and I've just been sucking it up. I realized that's sort of not OK and I needed to take action to help fix it. I couldn't do it alone though, and I needed help.

Thankfully I met Scott, the owner of @northaustinpt during the pandemic. He was super cool & nice and it made an impression that I remembered. 2yrs later, just a few weeks ago, I gave him a call and scheduled to get on their calendar.

@dr.kelseytardif is here helping me today to work on my shoulder blades and back muscles around the scapula. She's got the @neufitrfp , a really advanced EMS unit that was recommended by @drterrywahls on my back (Thanks Dr. Wahls, thank you Jackie!) and it's surprisingly helpful. Dr. Wahls knows her stuff!

I'm going to continue along this path. For a while I always thought I had to do everything myself. A bit of ego was holding me back. In some way my inner dialog told me I would be weak if I couldn't handle this 100% myself. PT in the beginning of my injury also wasn't as readily available as it is today and I think maybe that had a subliminal play on it as well.

Luckily, I have found my way to PT and I am a grateful for it. The whole team at North Austin Physical Therapy is super helpful and knowledgeable. The social support/community is a huge aspect to getting better as well I'm realizing.

I'll be here until my neck pain is gone and the spasticity bleeding that tension into my facial expressions at times goes away. 🙌🙏

One love PT fam. I hope everyone is feeling great today. This is your sign to make that next step, too. 🙌🙏🌎❤️

Took a second for Austin to get clear skies this y

Took a second for Austin to get clear skies this year. It's been hot for a while but it was super cloudy. It's officially tanning time and back to the pool for swim PT. 🙌🙏🏊‍♂️🏊‍♂️

I hope the PT fam is feeling good today. Love you guys. 🙌🙏🌎❤️

Grateful for the support from everybody in my life

Grateful for the support from everybody in my life that have helped me rebuild the belief system in myself that I've needed. Austin, the people I've met, and the mentorship it has provided is exactly what I needed. There's still a long road ahead, but I'm ready.

One love PT fam. 🙌🙏🌎❤️

It isn't always easy, but trying my best to push f

It isn't always easy, but trying my best to push forward. I hope you are too! One love PT fam. 🙌🙏🌍❤️

Staying grateful. 🙌🙏 I had a big breakthroug

Staying grateful. 🙌🙏 I had a big breakthrough with this muscle in my back and the spasticity around it. It catches my neck and creates a lot of tension and that will travel into my brows and contort my facial expressions, like eyebrows go mega down if they're just meant to seem slightly down, contemplative or in a pondering state, or super duper up and seem too concerned or even judgemental if I'm just in a slightly concerned or unsure state.

All cause that back muscle grabs on and squeezes it super hard. I learned that the only thing that stops our muscles from snapping our bones is the signal being limited by our brains. So imagine if that signal gets messed up (like with a damaged Spinal Cord) and it attempts to clamp down much harder than it should. That is spasticity post neurological trauma. It's powerful and painful. 😯

Anywho wow am I glad. I got this super weird hard to get muscle around my lat area (just below it) to get larger and fill this little pocket that was just not gaining muscle for whatever reason. Now it's putting a halt on those neck strains and facial tensions. I can feel the spasms just clamping down on those back shoulder blade muscles instead and not hitting my neck/face. Thank friggin God cause that was annoying.

So...if you're feeling like that yourself, maybe it's from a weak pocket in the back/shoulder blades area and all that tension is following the path of least resistance to the neck/face. I bet a lot of people have strained necks from this very reason (my neck also hurt from it, big time.)

Sending love to my PT, disability and chronic illness fam. Lets keep pushing forward! 🙌🙏🌍❤️

Back to it. 🙌🙏🌍❤️

Back to it. 🙌🙏🌍❤️

How far we've all come. Looking to the past after

How far we've all come. Looking to the past after a disability, injury or chronic illness usually looks worse than our current state. Sometimes, though, we can actually be doing better! We don't think about that too often but it's the reality of sliding up and down a scale of constant & consistent effort to combat some negatively effecting element in our lives after injury.

It's interesting because my upper body muscle health was good here, I am struggling to maintain balance, but you'd sort of think besides my step/gate struggling a little bit, that I was pretty much good. Little do most know how bad my legs would sting every night with fibromyalgia pain. Or how heavy the spasms were clenching down on my muscles. There were a lot of wet pillows at night during this time I remember in 2018.

I finally learned how to limit hormone-producing foods & excess sodium to help my legs stay thinner and calm that pain. It seemed the bigger my legs got, the more surface area it gave the nerve endings to malfunction and cause outrageously mind numbing debilitating pain. I still eat those foods, but if I feel the buzzing go past the slightly uncomfortable state (that's always there) to the "whoa!" stage, is when I dial back all salt and avoid hormone producing foods like Mushrooms (Except Reishi, those lowers hormones), Cinnamon, Ashwaganda, Tumeric, Maca, Sage, etc. Super high fat foods pump hormones too so I reduce that until things normalize.

Salt holds onto water, bloating our bodies. Hormones create more Red Blood Cells creating higher blood volume.. Both of these things make our bodies expand and put extra pressure on our skin, which is problematic for Fibro. For me, pain-wise, it's like a light switch. ON/OFF. I used to cry into my pillow a lot of nights because of it for a few years.

Foods that helped me lower hormones were Peppermint, Tomatoes, Nettle, Parsley, Onions, Carrots, Apples, Cilantro, and Rosmary. I have yet to find a great recipe for a perfect balance like a Tumeric+Rosemary or something. It seems hormones will go up easier than they will come down so the ratio is still something I'm experimenting with.

I hope this is helpful for someone. 🙌🙏❤️

Lake Travis is looking amazing today 🙌🙏

Lake Travis is looking amazing today 🙌🙏

Happy 35th bday to meee! 🎂🎉 Just swimming, d

Happy 35th bday to meee! 🎂🎉 Just swimming, doing what I do. Sending love out to all the PT warriors out there. Let's get this! 🙌🙏🌎❤️

PS - the audio was removed from this clip and it took my voice track with it!

I want to thank NFL Steeler's Pro Bowler Ryan @sha

I want to thank NFL Steeler's Pro Bowler Ryan @shazier and the @ryanshazierfund for inviting me to be a part of the Shazier Foundation family and to share my Shalieve Story. I'm hoping that in some way my story may resonate with someone else going through a difficult time, and may bridge the gap to a more peaceful and happier time after Spinal Cord Injury.

This process is so difficult but with people like Ryan putting awareness to these types of injuries, we can help one another to rise above the ashes and improve much faster than without that help. 🙌🙏🌎❤️

Ryan Shazier was drafted in the 1st round in the 2014 NFL Draft, a two time Pro Bowler. In 2017 he sustained a SCI in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals tackling wide reciever Michael Thomas. Since then he started his 501(c)(3) Nonprofit organization to help others with SCI to get back to their lives as quickly as possible, to provide emotional support and financial support with physical therapy for those who need it.

I was watching that game in 2017 on ESPN's Monday Night Football. I had just started Tommy Walks Again a few months before (then, Tommy Paralyzed). I remember being glued to the screen as he was carted off, hoping for a quick update that he was back up in the locker room and ok. That didn't happen that night. Not until we learned the next day that he had sustained a Spinal Cord Injury. It wasn't until April of 2018 was he up on his feet again, but like most of us, he had neurological side effects and weakness.

My heart went out to Ryan as I had just begun to truly emotionally process my injury after years of stuffing it under the rug. I know I'm destined to do some great things in this arena of Spinal Cord Injury and this recognition is inspiring me more. Thank you Ryan, the Fund, as well as to the Fund's writer whom I've come to know very well, @cuffcoffman. I appreciate you all so much. If you guys ever need a volunteer in the Austin, TX area, I'm just a phone call, text or DM away. ❤️

One love. 🙌🙏🌎❤️

https://ryanshazierfund.org/losing-yourself-to-find-yourself-tommy-swarts/

It felt beyond good to swim under the sun today vs

It felt beyond good to swim under the sun today vs swimming in the gym pool. I forgot how this feels! 🏊‍♂️🏊‍♂️

In 2019 before the world changed, I was swimming a lot with my 74yr old neighbor out in the sun. We always had great conversations and it was a good time.

The world really has been on pause for 2 years and it's like the tracking on the VCR is just starting to work properly again.

I have to remember that when I want to be hard on myself for losing some progress here and there. I was thisssss close to being where I am now with my diet, stretching, everything in late 2019 and then this whole thing came crashing down on us.

So perhaps I lost two years, but you know, that's ok if I did or I didn't. None of us have time machines, so the only thing we can truly do is be grateful for the moment and embrace forgiveness where we need to and continue moving forward.

One love. 🙌🙏🌎❤️

I made it to the outdoor pool today. 🏊‍♂️

I made it to the outdoor pool today. 🏊‍♂️ It felt really good, muuch better than the indoor gym pool. Definitely gonna be back here 🙌🙏

I made it back to the pool! 🏊‍♂️ When I s

I made it back to the pool! 🏊‍♂️ When I slipped on the ice a few months back, every time I swam, my hands would sting down into my forearm where I hurt the tendons. It's interesting how sometimes we get torn away from things that we love or need to do because of things happening and then we forget or create new routines and lose the previous one. It is sooo frustrating when this happens!

I saw a post in one of my surfing groups on Facebook. Someone had posted a picture of a note they wrote their Mom. It was a chore list and they had crossed it out and wrote:

"Mom, I'm not doing these chores today. I love surfing but I realized I hate it lately. I hate it because I suck at it. I suck at it because I never get to go surfing anymore. So today, Mom, I'm not doing these chores. I'm going surfing. I know you'll understand because this is my passion. I love you."

It made me think, just like physical therapy when things happen and we feel like we lose progress due to things happening, it can really set us back. There's this concept with ADD/ADHD brains called "Object Permenance" where it states that if things are hidden away from our vision (like things put in a drawer,) they cease to exist to us. In a very similar way, if our routines get put on pause for XYZ reason that we cannot control, it feels like that routine ceased to ever exist to begin with. It takes so much effort just to maintain it in the present, let alone manage it during a period where we cannot access it due to it being "drawered."

Thankfully my brother asked me to go to the gym so he could sit in the hottub. I've been working that new job for a couple months now and my body is aching during this acclimation period. I hope it passes soon. Needless to say I was exhausted but I made myself get up since my brother wanted to go so bad. Luckily I feel like I just opened up that drawer again. I'm excited to get back! 🏊‍♂️🏊‍♂️🙏🙌

Does this resonate with anyone with physical therapy and goals? We go up and up yet it only takes one setback for us to lose our traction, it feels. We gotta stay strong and maintain that perspective. We can do it!

One love. 🙏🙌🌍❤️

At 23 days gluten-free, the veggies/fruits that re

At 23 days gluten-free, the veggies/fruits that replaced it gave me enough relief in my hamstrings to commit to taking a job again. It's been a long time! This is BIG news! ❤️

I've been Vegan for a while now and I take my herbs and supplementation very seriously. This is a huge change and it's been a few years of dedicated work to get here. I would have never thought removing gluten to force me to consume more whole foods could have this effect. But it's pretty suprising, what is has done! 🙌🙏

After Spinal Cord Injury my hamstrings have spasms so tight it can pop my knee joints, it is very powerful and painful. Did you know the only thing that stops our muscles from snapping our bones is our brain regulating our movements? Now imagine the spinal cord is damaged and the brain's messages are being interrupted and altered in not so great ways. Welcome to spasticity and nerve damage! Not so fun, but I thought that would give a good image for people who may not understand fully what it's like.

Software/IT is my home field for work, but I'm finding it mentally difficult to endure the spasticity pain without being distracted by other things happening in front of me. So I figure as this new diet is making such a great change, I'd take some new jobs aside from computers for a bit so I can coax my way back into the mix of things. When I'm loosened up enough, I can head back to computers. Or maybe something else is on the horizon that I am unaware of at this time, who knows! We will see! I am open to many things currently. 🙌🙏

If you have a chronic issue going on, really consider what I'm mentioning here. This is a crazy good result. Food absolutely matters! 🌱 DM me any time. ❤️

This video was taken 2 months ago. Things are going well! Difficult and filled with anxiety, but it's forcing me to work exponentially hard to keep things rocking and rolling. Cheers to the future. 🍻 Updates soon! 🙌🙏

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DISCLAIMER: Not medical advice. Always seek your physician before changing your diet.

I was having spasms so bad I couldn't tell if I wa

I was having spasms so bad I couldn't tell if I was having heart palpitations or if it was just the muscle clenching down hard in my chest. So, here we are getting an EKG to make sure things are OK.

It has always made me curious how I could have muscle problems all over. I felt like as an L1 paraplegic I could only have issues down from that lumbar point like how they usually say. But that definitely doesn't seem to be the case. It appears we can definitely have issues above our point of injury as well.

I can get an itchy or unbearable sensation of needing to move my muscles in my upper body (as well as the legs, too.) Unfortunately this usually happens at night and for the longest time I would just drink coffee and do pushups to get it to go away. The alternative was to stay up all night dealing with the sensations, squirming around, but not having the energy or strength to do the pushups or movements to get the muscle to stop feeling that pain or "itchy" feeling.

I really hate that sensation stuff. It drives me crazy. But also in combination with that I get the muscles clamping down really hard randomly in my body. So when my left chest muscle clamped down I kinda got worried. It's happened before but I've never checked to see what was really happening since I just really had no idea.

Luckily the EKG came back perfect and from what I described the doctor said I'm likely having chest wall and muscle complications from the spasticity. To confirm everything is OK and the valves are OK, the doctor scheduled an Ecocardiogram.

I've had the feeling before it's just the muscle having spasms, but damn does it hurt and it makes it so when I breathe it stings, so, it's definitely a wild chest wall thing. I know you have had that happen before, right? Like those random stingy breaths? Apparently that is normal-ish and just a chest wall thing. I guess we'll see with the Ecocardiogram, but yeah, better to finally check it out and see definitively what's up on this one so my anxiety can chill a bit.

I hope me sharing my little bits and pieces of my story here on the socials are helpful for some out there. This is definitely a wild ride. 🙌🙏

I learned from @drmarkhyman that there are 100 Tri

I learned from @drmarkhyman that there are 100 Trillion cells in the body. 90 Trillion (90%) of those cells are the make up of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microorganisms. Only 10 Trillion (10%) of those cells are the makeup of skin, bones, teeth, hair, organs, etc. Digest that for a second. That's nuts right?? 🤯

One day it clicked after realizing that plants contain prebiotics and probiotics that benefit our bodies in a huge way. After all, we are 90% biologic and only 10% the makeup of our physical bodies.

Plants are very biologic and complimentary to our human system. Interestingly if you take an Electrition's Multimeter and plug it into a Potato for instance, it will produce 0.8 watts. What would happen if we plugged it into a peice of bread? Nothing.

It's interesting because not only can foods from the garden compliment our healthy bacterias, but they can compliment our body's electrical system, or our energy as well.

A lot of people might say, what energy? I'd say, well, if we have our routine doctor's visit and have an Electrocardiogram or an EKG done, we'd see the electrical system powering our heart via the chart that gets printed out after, right? The very thing that we believe is a little woo-woo in some instances, is very clear to see. Or how about an Electromyography or an EMG like I got a few months back that measures the electrical activity of our muscles and nerves. All the suddon it becomes a little clearer. 🙌🙏

At the end of the day, plants are super important. Not only are they healing but they provide us something to look forward to as they grow. It has personally helped my depression and anxiety in a huge way. I wake up every morning in the spring and summer excited to go outside and check on my babies.

There may not always be growth in my personal life, but there's always growth in the garden. When depression is a lack of something to look forward to, this can be paramount.

Just thought I'd share this. Was this cool to read? Helpful? Comment below and tell me! Thx. 😊

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DISCLAIMER: As always, I have to write, I am not a doctor. Always check with your physician on matters related to your health.

It is day 21 of no Gluten! Last year I did 45 days

It is day 21 of no Gluten! Last year I did 45 days and fell back to Gluten. I've learned so much since then. It's now time to really do this. 🙌🙏

Why you might ask? Because breads with added synthetic nutrients take away opportunities to fill the body up with whole plant chemistry compounds from real whole foods. 🙌🙏 I've been eating potatoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, dates, and brown rice for my carbs lately and I've had to get fairly creative with meals.

Last year I learned a lot. I don't think a lot of people will get this on their first try, it's absolutely a learning process. 🙌🙏 I'm super hopeful I can keep it this time with new recipes in the bag, as well as the foundation I built last year on how to do this and how not to get into that stubborn mode of "No, I won't eat that!" yet not have the foundation built to be able to properly sustain the diet and then fall into crazy fatigue and depression and give up after stuffing a nice soft ooy gooey pastery in my mouth out of sheer desperation. Lol 😂

I've realized ruits are fantastically healthy and amazing alternative source of carbohydrates and I've been loving Guavas. I decided to extract some seeds out and begin the germination process so I can get some growing in the garden this summer! Aww yeeahh, cant wait. 👨‍🌾🌱😊

Some Guava factoids:

1.) Boosts Immune System

Loaded with vitamin C, nutrients, and minerals, guava is an easy way to lend a helping hand to your immune system. Guava contains four times the amount of vitamin C of oranges, making this fruit an amazing source of vitamin C.

2.) Cardiovascular Health

Guavas help to keep heart disease at bay by decreasing the levels of bad LDL cholesterol and triglycerides while boosting the levels of good HDL cholesterol.

3.) Improves Cognition

The potassium content of guava helps to improve memory and cognition while the rich antioxidant content of this super fruit helps to nourish the brain.

So much more that won't fit! Love ya. 🙌🙏🌎❤

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DISCLAIMER: Not medical advice. Always seek your physician before making changes to your diet.

My 5am SCI modified swim routine, a week before I

My 5am SCI modified swim routine, a week before I hurt my hands slipping on the ice. Learning to rock the speedo as I swim like back in my swim team days. Finally feeling normal with it. Wearing swim trunks is like having a parachute dragging behind you. Huge difference.

In the end of the video I talk about hurting my neck, the ice closing things up, our car getting hit and not being able to get to the gym, and a few other things that all happened that dampened my motivation.

Of course I would slip on the ice and get sidelined for another month after that, right? Oy veyy. 🤷‍♂️

I can feel and tell clearly that swimming is tying up the loose ends I have with my body, strengthening my glutes, helping to alleviate my hamstrings that cause me pain and create the inability for me to sit for 8 hrs, sidelining me from working my computer programming / IT job full time.

That is all a huge bummer, but I'm trying to see the message in this. Interestingly when I feel really really back to normal on some days, my ego turns on. It's associative to the brain I believe, just like the seasons bring us associative memories and feelings, the states of our body can do the same.

I feel like the Universe is reminding me to stay humble. And also to not believe I can attain this goal so easily as to take it foregranted.

Grateful I will be when I can sit without pain, I got the message, Universe. 🙌🙏🌎❤

Until then I'm not losing hope here. Both my hands still sting a lot but they stopped throbbing with the swelling pressure & 10/10 pain so that's good at least.

Be back soon! 🙌🙏

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DISCLAIMER: Not medical advice. Always seek your doctor.

Slipped on the Austin ice during this last freeze.

Slipped on the Austin ice during this last freeze. Almost broke my hand, but turns out it's just really badly sprained and swollen. This will put my workouts on hold for a second. But that's okay in a way...it's teaching me to be more patient.

I've had a lot of things interrupt my schedule and routine this last month or two with the snow, car doors being frozen shut, places being fully shut down, hurting my neck and being sidelined and a few other things.

It seems like I made this commitment to swim every day and workout hard and everything isn't going as smoothly as I would have hoped. I thought all I needed was my motivation and determination, but low and behold there's other unexpected circumstances that before would have made me just hop in bed for a week. This time I said no, I have to keep at it.

To me when I want to do well for myself, keep a schedule, hit PT hard, and I get stopped, it feels like running out to the living room on Christmas morning to see there's no presents under the tree. It's devastating. The amount of inner strength I already had to build to get there is tough, let alone having to wait longer to begin to feel better.

Ultimately I think it's patience that is the lesson that the Universe is delivering to me on this one. I have to remain calm while maintaining motivation and confidence versus becoming sad and reclucing to my bed. It's very hard when things on the daily are already hard as it is, but I can get through the next barrier if I remain patient through these moments and remember my goal. Thinking forwardly to allow me to remain steady and confident in the present.

Patience.

Love you guys. 🙌🙏🌎❤

Had a temperature, likely it was you know what, fe

Had a temperature, likely it was you know what, feel better now. Lost a week of gains, but luckily I had taken a ton of Oregano oil and ate organic and it never hit my GI Tract thank God, didn't lose my appetite. Just had a headache and felt sore. Even though I felt gross I hit up pushups the best I could. Time to blend the upper body with the glute training. I'm gonna get a little thick for a while. I like to be lean, but to get these gains I'mgonna be a thick boi for a bit 😂

Love this sound by the way. Like @jimkwik says, we are Limitless. We put these boundaries on ourselves. I do it to myself for sure. When I'm stuck in the ego I can't really see it. But when step back for a second and think from the third person perspective, I can recognize what I'm doing to myself. These needless reasons for not pushing forward, because X, Y or Z has to be done first, or I'm not good enough, or won't be accepted maybe. Whatever the reason...it seems to find a way to be there, ya know? What if we could recognize that silliness and sidestep it? Perhaps that is manipulating energy. 🙌🙏

The Buddhists say we get what we feel we deserve. So if we have a low self esteem, then we are likely to believe we deserve less. Working out absolutely helps my confidence and I can see how I will become a different person with a strong upper body again. For me, I've been super strong before and I did it for vanity and I felt like and didn't pay attention to my legs. That made me feel guilty for not doing what I should have been doing with legs.

As I look back, I did it in part in vanity but also because I wanted to feel confident and accepted. I lost that perspective for a moment and really felt I was being vain and should have been focusing on my legs instead. So for a while, I've been doing bare minimum upper body workouts cause I felt that shame & guilt pattern for neglecting what I should really be focussing on, the legs. They are just so difficult to make gains with, it's hard. I will get there, though. I can achieve anything I want if I believe it. Lots of things are coming together in this new year. I feel like we are all going to grow so much.

Love ya have a great night. 🙌🙏🌎❤

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© 2021 Tommy Walks Again.
This website is intended as an informational guide. The described approaches and suggested therapies are meant to complement, not replace, professional medical advice and treatment. You are encouraged to seek advice from your doctor on matters related to Spinal Cord Injury.