TAMPA, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) —
There’s no cure for autism and treatments are experimental at best; but one new treatment is bringing hope to families desperate for any improvement they can get. Carman Inclan’s son Michael is four.
Just like any other child, he reads, plays with toys and loves to use the computer; but Michael isn’t like other four-year-olds. “The greatest struggle is not knowing if he will be able to say when he’s older that he’s happy,” Carmen told Ivanhoe. “It’s devastation — fear.” Everything he’s able to do now is a miracle to his mom because he wasn’t always as high functioning. “[He was] nonverbal and [had] no interest in social interaction of any kind,” Carmen recalled. Michael has made huge strides thanks, in part, to what he calls his “submarine” — where he receives hyperbaric oxygen therapy or HBOT. The experimental treatment was originally used to cure scuba divers of the bends. Inside the chamber, Michael breathes 37-percent oxygen. The air we breathe is only 22 percent.
