Lyme disease is a serious bacterial infection caused by a spirochete (like syphilis) and transmitted by a tick bite. Most people respond well to early treatment with antibiotics, but if the infection is under treated or misdiagnosed, it can become chronic and disabling. Antibiotic therapy alone, even IV therapy, does not always result in a cure. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has shown impressive efficacy in helping treat Lyme disease. Patients breathe in 100% oxygen at an atmospheric pressure of 2.4, the level required to weaken and kill the Lyme spirochete. A 1997 study by William Fife, Ph.D. at the Texas A&M Hyperbaric Laboratory, and approved by the Texas A & M University Review Board, found that approximately 85 percent of the 66 patients treated improved markedly. All of the study’s participants were veterans of antibiotic therapy.