This article is an overview of Lyme disease and hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy. We acknowledge that the medical areas we explore can be complex and that any attempt to define and explain them in a way that is not overly technical can be incomplete and/or inadvertently confusing. We have attempted to be both clear and exact. Mitchell L. Hoggard is a pharmacist. He is also President and founder of the Chico Hyperbaric Center.

All three of his children have received HBO therapy for Lyme disease. Mitchell Hoggard’s son Ted was 14 years old when he took part in William Fife’s HBO research study on Lyme disease (more on the study later). L. James Johnson, formerly a broadcast journalist, is now a marketing consultant. He has received extensive HBO therapy for Lyme disease.

We have written this article to focus attention on what medical science knows and what it does not know about Lyme disease and HBO therapy. A lack of clarity in the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease has impacted both of our lives and the lives of our families. Also, this article was written to be supportive to a patient’s relationship with their physician—not to take the place of that relationship.