Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

Video Overview

What is Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)?

 

HBOT therapy is a medical treatment that uses the administration of 100 percent oxygen at controlled pressure (greater than sea level) for a prescribed amount of time, usually 60 to 90 minutes.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is commonly used to treat conditions such as burns and difficult healing wounds. This therapy facilitates healing in these conditions by increasing the amount of oxygen in the blood by up to 2000 percent, depending on the treatment depth, Which in turn dramatically increases the amount of oxygen at the cellular level.

 

Effects of Increased Pressure on the Body

 

Flooding the body with oxygen forces the rapid elimination of other gases, which reduces damage caused by toxic gases such as carbon monoxide. The increased  pressures used during hyperbaric oxygen therapy accelerates the elimination process. Hyperbaric oxygen acts as an adrenergic drug. Vasoconstriction or squeezing of blood vessels, can result in reduction of edema (swelling) following burns or crush injuries. Even with a reduction in blood flow, enough extra oxygen is carried by the blood, plasma and lymphatic fluids so an increase in tissue oxygen delivery occurs with hyperbaric oxygen.

 

Anaerobic bacteria have no natural defenses to protect them from the superoxides, peroxides and other compounds formed in the presence of high oxygen levels. Many of the body’s bacterial defense mechanisms are oxygen dependent. When tissue oxygen pressure drops too low, the killing ability of phagocytic leukocytes is reduced. Re-oxygenation of those tissues allows phagocytosis and other host defense mechanisms to come back into play.

 

Hyperbaric oxygen physically dissolves extra oxygen into the plasma. Oxygen carried to damaged and oxygen starved tissue by the plasma as well as the blood. When oxygen is supplied to cells that were just idling, they wake up and begin to resume normal functions, and even cause new tissue growth, new collagen formation, and even the growth of brand new veins and arteries.  It also breaks down many toxins. The extra oxygen also helps the oxygen starved tissue meet the increased metabolic needs of the healing processes.