Mission

TreatNOW Mission

Stop service member suicides by identifying and treating veterans and others suffering from brain wounds: TBI/PTSD/Concussion

Over a decade ago, a Coalition of veterans and specialists came together to prepare a Clinical Trial to treat brain wounded warriors and others with similar afflictions. That study, NBIRR, together with 17 other scientific studies, resulted in definitive data showing the safety and efficacy of using Hyperbaric Oxygenation in treating and helping to heal brain wounds.

The science behind hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) continues to show that brain injuries do not have to mean a lifetime of crippling pain and severely diminished quality of life, whether for soldiers, athletes or civilians.

The recent study by the TreatNOW Coalition, The National Brain-Wounded Veteran Brain Drain: Cost-Benefit Analysis of Changing the DoD and VA Standard of Care for TBI and Suicide Prevention, shows that over the 40-year lifetime of a TBI Veteran, treating and healing brain wounds will cost less than ½ of one percent of the total lifetime costs attributable to NOT treating those brain wounds. And those treatments have been able to return up to 85% of the wounded with mild to moderate brain injuries to more meaningful and healed lives. Pro bono, we have already returned over 21,000 patients to work, school and/or active duty, with a Quality of Life denied them by the current failed medical standard of care.

TreatNOW Goal

Ensure that over 800,000 Iraq and Afghanistan brain injured veterans and active duty service members, along with all citizens, get insured access to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and other proven alternative medical treatments for their Invisible Wounds

TreatNOW: Action you can take

  • Get a brain-injured service member to call: (571) 549-4268 and we will direct them to treatment clinics
  • Read how HBOT prevents suicide and reduces dependence on drugs: Here and here and here.
  • Have anyone you know with a Concussion read this and then take Action to get HBOT treatment:  Here and here and here.
  • Contact 10 friends and 10 Veterans’ organizations with this message: Ten States have passed legislation calling for the use of HBOT for TBI. Read the White Paper and become your state’s representative to get legislation passed in your state. Current laws exist in Oklahoma, Texas, Indiana, Kentucky, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Wyoming, Maryland, and Virginia; eight more states are in the process: OH, MI, MO, PA, NY, CO, ID, and UT.
  • Read the White Paper on STATE Leadership and ACTION Required on the Suicide Epidemic
  • Make a donation. America’s Mighty Warriors is accepting donations to treat and heal brain wounds among combat veterans.
  • Educate yourself and others about how Hyperbaric Oxygen is proven safe, effective, cost-reducingm and viurtually ends suicidal ideation:  https://treatnow.org/hyperbaric-oxygen-helps-stop-suicidal-ideation/

TreatNOW Message

The TreatNOW Coalition is a group of citizens, veterans, institutions and service organization working pro bono to get help to our brain injured troops and others suffering from Concussions, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We have already helped treat and heal over 21,000 brain wounded individuals.

We are in the midst of suicide and concussion-epidemics: 20 service members a day commit suicide, 8,000 a year. Another 45 a day try and fail, another 16,000+ a year. The CDC estimates between 1.6 million to 3.8 million concussions occur each year. What TreatNOW is proposing will make a significant contribution to ending those suicides and treating and helping to heal brain injuries. Our efforts are reducing risk, health care costs for the country, our wounded warriors and others with brain injuries. And what we are doing is already restoring lives, hope and productivity to a small slice of deserving veterans. This site will brief you on our work. We hope to get your support for the hundreds of thousands who haven’t even been told there is treatment and hope.

There is an effective, ethical, medically safe treatment available for TBI/PTSD-wounded personnel and Veterans, but it is not being researched or developed aggressively nor is it being made available to our injured troops or civilians. We have accumulated scientific and clinical evidence of the efficacy of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (See https://treatnow.org/knowledgebase/ ). It is the only currently available, demonstrably promising treatment for TBI/PTSD and concussions. The treatment is showing promise for anyone with brain injury, no matter how the injury is acquired. Coupled with Functional Medicine, HBOT can provide the missing ingredient to heal brain wounds: oxygen under pressure for wound healing.

Our U. S. Military Volunteers who are injured on the battlefield in the line of duty deserve the best treatment our nation can offer. Right now our soldiers suffering TBI and PTSD are prescribed symptom-reducing drugs; in essence, they warehoused and then discharged, dependent on costly anti-depressants and other anti-psychotic medicines that promote dangerous dependencies and may even result in lethal interactions. Certainly the rising incident of suicides among our veterans is a disturbing indicator that such treatments are not sufficient.

At the same time, TBI is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the U.S., accounting for approximately 2 million emergency room visits, 230,000 to 500,000 hospital admissions, and 52,000 deaths annually in the United States. Every year, there are approximately 80,000 additional casualties who will be forced to live with significant, and usually permanent disabilities as a result of their TBI, yielding a total estimation of 5.8 million survivors–a number that continues to grow. While such disabilities can be physical, they are often psychological as well. Evidence consistently indicates that survivors of TBI are at increased risk for the development of severe, long-term psychiatric disorders, particularly depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Further, the presence of any one of these psychiatric disorders frequently complicates the affected individual’s rehabilitation and recovery from TBI as these disorders may significantly disrupt the individual’s independence, interpersonal relationships and ability to work. Lack of independence and an inability to work takes a toll not only on the suffering individual, but on their family and society as well. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the direct (e.g., medical) and indirect costs (e.g., loss of productivity) of TBI in the United States totaled an estimated $60 billion annually in 2003, independent of the wounded warriors. Complicating and prolonging the problems associated with TBI are treatments for TBI that offer little more than palliative care, essentially masking the symptoms without treating the underlying injury. Thus, following the current record in treating TBI, there is little hope that the costs paid by the suffering individuals in the loss of their quality of life and costs paid by society will ever improve.

This does not mean, however, that there is no hope. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), improving diagnostics, and Functional Medicine have emerged as promising and effective treatments in healing injured brains and subsequently reducing, and in some cases completely alleviating, the symptoms associated with the TBI.