|
All she wanted to do was sleep all day long. When she was awake, Jean Lord,
84, had anxiety attacks, a laundry list of aches and pains and a foggy brain.
Diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and sleep apnea, Jean was beginning
to feel hopeless when she read an article about the hyperbaric oxygen therapy
available at Oxygen8 Wellness Center in Ponte Vedra Beach.
“I’ve tried to avoid medication my whole life unless it is absolutely
necessary,”says the feisty octogenarian. “This hyperbaric oxygen therapy
(HBOT) sounded like something holistic that really might help me.” And
help her, it did, plus! Not only has Jean Lord regained her energy, lessened
her aches and pains and regulated her sleep patterns, but the fogginess in her
brain is gone. “I got out of the chamber that first day and I had better
mental focus immediately!” declares Jean. “At the moment, I’m
going twice a week! I can’t speak highly enough about the staff there and
the great benefits I’ve received.”
Just breathe.
That simple prescription for wellness truly works wonders when the breathing
is done in the pressurized atmosphere of a Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy chamber.
Life-giving oxygen — the eighth element on the periodic table — is
essential. Oxygen is vital for healthy function of the cells, tissues, glands,
organs, brain and fluids in the human body. Did you know that the body can survive
without food for three weeks, without water for three days, but for only three
minutes without oxygen? While only ten percent of our body’s energy comes
from food and water, ninety percent comes from oxygen.
Study after study has proven that the human body is capable of healing itself
when it has what it needs, and there is absolutely nothing the human body needs
more than oxygen.
While a normal deep breath takes in about 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen, .1% argon,
.04% carbon dioxide, 1% water vapor and trace amounts of other gases, mild hyperbaric
oxygen therapy is a safe method of delivering more than twice the normal amount
of oxygen to the body at a cellular level. Utilizing filtered ambient (room
temperature) air to dissolve oxygen directly into the plasma, cerebral and spinal
fluids, the HBOT floods tissues and vital organs, thus increasing the body’s
natural capacity for self-healing.
Mild Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (“hyper” — increased “baric”
— pressure) is delivered in a soft-sided, windowed chamber that is eight
feet long and three feet wide. Holistic, non-invasive and, best of all, non-pharmaceutical,
mild HBOT has had no dangerous side-effects reported. The therapy has been shown
to improve the healing process of wounds and surgical incisions, and the outcomes
of many maladies including autism, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, stroke,
lyme disease, cerebral palsy and cancer.
Hospitals and clinics have long used hard-shelled, pressurized HBOT chambers
that deliver 100% enriched oxygen to patients for ailments ranging from burns,
diabetic wounds, decompression sickness and carbon monoxide poisoning. In more
recent years, Mild Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (mHBOT) chambers that deliver about
95% oxygen have been FDA approved for in-home use. However, at a cost of approximately
$25,000 per chamber, the mild HBOT treatments have rarely been found outside
of medical facilities and, until now, have been out of reach eonomically for
the general population.
Oxygen8 Wellness Center in Ponte Vedra Beach is the first walk-in HBOT center
of its kind in Northeast Florida, and if the amazing results it has garnered
for a wide diversity of clients is any predictor, it will not be the last.
“Our clientele is growing daily,” says Oxygen8 founder Tiffany Watts.
“HBOT has been around for a long time, but it is still considered “out
of the box” by lots of people who have heard about it but are not yet believers
in its benefits.”
It took the worst migraine headache of her life to make Amy Lane-Rosoff a believer.
“It was phenomenal! One hour in the chamber and my headache was gone!”
declares Amy, an account executive with a Jacksonville radio station, and now
a regular client of Oxygen8 Wellness Center.
A lifelong victim of migraine headaches, Amy had her doubts about the effectiveness
of the innovative oxygen therapy until the day she forgot to take her migraine
medication. In unbearable pain at the same time that she was in the vicinity
of the Center, Amy walked in on her lunch hour and gave it a try.
“I thought I’d go stir-crazy in one of those chambers, but it was
so comfortable, I fell right asleep,” she says. “When I woke up, I
was amazed. My headache was completely gone and I had this feeling of total
well-being, like I’d just had a good night’s sleep!”
It was that restful feeling of having a good night’s sleep after spending
a few sessions in a Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber with her son, Max, that convinced
Tiffany Watts to found Oxygen8 Wellness Center.
Regularly cuddling with Max (then age five) in the HBOT chamber that his pediatrician
used as treatment of his autism, Tiffany noticed that they would both wake up
refreshed and feeling great after an hour in the chamber. And, while Max (now
seven) began showing dramatic improvement, it was Tiffany’s own healthy
advances in response to the hyperbaric oxygen therapy that put her on the path
of wellness she walks today.
Active parents of three young children, Tiffany and her husband, Randy, often
took turns going into the chamber with Max at the pediatrician’s office.
Randy soon noticed that his headaches were less frequent the more time he spent
in the Chamber. Tiffany’s energy levels improved immensely. Both of them
experienced a new, ongoing sense of health directly attributable to their sessions.
“Why shouldn’t HBOT be available to everyone?” she reasoned as
she researched the many applications of the oxygen therapy. The simple answer
was that HBOT was available only in doctor’s offices, hospitals, or clinics
– and in some rare cases, in the locker rooms of professional sports teams
— but there was extremely limited accessibility to the chambers by the
general public. Tiffany decided it was time to change all that.
Partnering with dynamic business woman Maureen O’Loughlin, Tiffany Watts
opened Oxygen8 Wellness Center in September of 2007 and hired two caring and
professional staff members. Dr. Kim Sanders, BCAO, came on board as Director
of Patient Care, overseeing the treatment of all clients and serving as a liaison
with doctors of those with severe medical issues. And, although Oxygen8 does
not claim to be a medical facility and walk-ins are always welcome, a growing
number of the Center’s clients are under a doctor’s care and are there
at their doctor’s behest.
“We want to be taken seriously by mainstream medicine and insurance companies.
We hope that the positive results being experienced by our clients will be used
as evidence in the many medical studies on HBOT currently underway,” says
O’Loughlin.
Maureen O’Loughlin’s seventy-year-old mother was actually the Center’s
first client. She has earned the nickname “Miracle Woman” from her
doctors. A dedicated horse woman who enjoys a daily ride on her mare, Alana,
Marjorie “Margie” O’Loughlin had reached a point where the pain
in her left arm and shoulder was severely limiting her normal activity.
“It bothered me that I couldn’t brush Alana anymore,” she recalls.
“It’s been said the outside of a horse is good for the inside of man.”
Just getting on the horse was a huge challenge. Margie unhappily accepted the
fact that she was facing a total shoulder replacement, with a normal recovery
time of at least twelve weeks.
That much down time was not acceptable for this active senior.
“I did what Dr. Sanders prescribed and took four sessions in the chamber
prior to surgery,” said Margie. “I came home from St. Vincent’s
after surgery and within 24 hours, I was back in the chamber. I healed completely
in just eight weeks and I have full range of motion back, which doctors did
not expect. It’s better than my original equipment on the other shoulder!”
Calling herself “a new spring chicken,” Margie O’Loughlin is
back to her daily horseback rides, and more active than ever: “I mow my
own lawn with a riding lawn mower, haul my own horse trailers and do water aerobics
for health and well-being and, just for good measure, I still do a couple of
HBOT sessions every month.”
Vowing that she will incorporate the oxygen therapy into any future surgery
or physical trauma she may face, Margie calls it a triple preventive benefit:
heal better, feel better, live better, and is spreading the word to others.
Debbie Simpson has fibromyalgia and epstein barr and, prior to beginning HBOT
sessions at Oxygen8 Wellness Center, was down to about twenty percent of normal
activity. “Just walking across a room was an effort,” she recalls.
In the meantime, Debbie’s 77-year-old mother, Sally Erskine, suffered from
chronic sinusitis (late onset asthma) and had undergone five surgeries in the
past ten years, all of which resulted in recurring infections that would not
clear up.
“Both mother and I read and heard about oxygen therapy at about the same
time,” says Debbie, “but until we heard about Oxygen8, we thought
it was only available for wound care at hospitals.” Debbie and her mother
(who spends only a portion of the year in Florida) signed up for the unlimited
monthly package offered by Oxygen8, and began doing sessions six days a week.
“I started feeling better quickly,” reports Debbie, and for the first
time in three years, I’ve had the energy to pursue my passion of gardening
this spring. “Before I got sick, I landscaped my entire yard myself, planting
rosebushes and an English garden, but I was thrilled this year to be doing my
own spring weeding and mulching,” she said.
Now undergoing one two-hour session a week, Debbie Simpson says that HBOT has
given her back her life. “It’s a cost that my insurance does not pay,
but I’m now able to take care of my house and my yard and be pain-free
more than eighty percent of the time,” she notes, adding that her mother
had zero infections or asthma attacks this past year and made no appointments
with her pulmonologist at Mayo Clinic.
Amazing results — they are the daily fare at Oxygen8 Wellness Center, and
the word is spreading fast.
“When Amy Lane-Rosoff’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Stetson, sprained
her ankle, her mother immediately brought her to the Center. “Stetson is
a year-round swimmer at the Bolles School and she needed to go to practice even
though she was on crutches,” says Amy. “Three HBOT treatments in three
days took the swelling right out of her ankle.” Stetson even recommended
the hyperbaric chamber to her best friend when she suffered a similar injury.
Now, they both want to come back. “We love it when the “younger”
clientele are in the chambers” says Jennifer McManus of Oxygen8. “They
call or text their friends from inside and think it’s so cool” We
just laugh but know they are receiving great benefits from the oxygen therapy.
When radio personality Jack O’Brien, the “Voice of the Gators”
heard from Amy Lane-Rosoff about the benefits of HBOT, particularly its positive
effects on inflammation and swelling, he decided it might help heal the arthritis
in his eye. “Jack’s eye was so swollen, he couldn’t see out of
it. All you could see was red. He was wearing a patch,” recalls Amy. “After
three weeks of HBOT treatments, his eye was cleared up and he was back on the
golf course. The doctors who had been treating him all along could attribute
it to nothing else but the hyperbaric oxygen therapy.”
In the course of researching this cover story and the many benefits of mild
hyperbaric oxygen therapy, this writer climbed into one of the big blue chambers
to experience the phenomenon firsthand. The process was totally painless, enjoyable
and refreshing. In fact, with the holidays right around the corner, I’ve
already informed my family to forget the gift certificates for massage, manicure
or pedicure.
This year I told them, “Make mine Oxygen8!”
Maureen O’Loughlin regularly goes “diving” into one of the three
hyperbaric oxygen chambers at Oxygen8 Wellness Center (www.oxyeight.com)
in Ponte Vedra Beach. The term “diving” invoked because oxygen is
delivered to the chamber’s occupant at a pressure equal to 1.3 ATA, that
of being approximately eleven feet below sea level. Diving is a benefit of ownership
for Maureen, who actively seeks healthy alternatives to pharmaceuticals.
Partnering with Tiffany Watts of Ponte Vedra Beach to open the first Oxygen8
Wellness Center was a very smart business move for Maureen, who is known throughout
the First Coast for being a particularly astute business woman. In fact, it
was because of her reputation as a successful business owner that she first
came into contact with Tiffany. “I was asked by a mutual friend to help
Tiffany prepare a business plan,” said Maureen. She had suffered a tragic
setback and really needed a caring business mentor.”
Tragic setback, indeed... rewind to March of 2006.
After seeing amazing advances in the cognitive abilities of her autistic son,
Max, brought on by regular Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) in the office of
pediatrician Julie Buckley, Tiffany Watts began noticing her own positive physical
responses resulting from accompanying Max in the chamber. Other parents who
joined their children in the therapy chamber also noticed positive changes.
One of those parents was Steele Gudal, who, with his wife, Amy, founded the
Little Star Center for children with autism.
“Steele was excited about investing in an HBOT wellness center. We began
making plans in August of 2005, talk of buying chambers and offering them in
a spa-like setting to the general public for overall wellness and healing,”
recalls Tiffany. “We found the perfect location in March. I had my letter
of resignation from my corporate job written but not mailed yet when I dropped
the lease off at Steele’s house one Wednesday night. The next day (March
23, 2006) he and his father-in-law died in a plane crash.”
When Steele Gudal died, Tiffany lost a dear friend, a business partner, the
funding and the impetus necessary to launch a start-up business. Still grieving
nine months later, Tiffany discovered that the location they had nearly leased
in Ponte Vedra Square Plaza on Solana Road was still vacant. “It was almost
like a sign from Steele to go ahead and do this thing,” says Tiffany.
That was when she met Maureen, owner of All American Communication Services,
Inc. in St. Augustine for more than a decade and a woman who thoroughly enjoys
mentoring new business owners. Daughter of Margie Parrish O'Loughlin and former
St. Johns County Sheriff Francis O'Loughlin, and granddaughter of legendary
land owner and cattleman Lewis Parrish, Maureen’s roots are deep in Northeast
Florida, and her family history is rich with the courage and vision that form
the all American entrepreneurial spirit.
“I saw what the hyperbaric oxygen chamber did for Max and other children
with autism, and then I saw what it did for my own mother after her shoulder
replacement,” says Maureen. “I knew this was something I could put
my heart and soul into.”
Today, as if to confirm the far-flung dreams first conceived by Tiffany Watts
and Steele Gudal in 2005 and perpetuated by Maureen O’Loughlin, new HBOT
believers are literally diving in daily. “Our great team at Oxygen8, Tiffany
Watts, Jennifer McManus and Sarah Algee, are busy six days a week,” reports
Maureen. “Smart investors like Chris Verlander of Jacksonville are becoming
involved in this exciting new enterprise. Every time I walk into this Center
and take a dive or talk to a happy client, I’m reenergized — re-oxygenated!
This place will someday be known as the original location of the widely recognized
Oxygen8 Wellness Centers!”