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WisconsinChristianNews.com
Volume 25, Issue 8
Benefits of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
By Dr. David Lange, Genesis Primary Care January 2025 Happy New Year! Speaking of new, at least in world of cliche’s: Every- thing Old is New Again. So what old are we talking about
jority of us will encounter, that lower pressure achieves just about every- thing the higher pressures do. Most of us live at an elevation where the atmospheric pressure is 1 (1 ATA). The higher the elevation, the lower the ATA. Diving under water in- creases the pressure that is placed on
could probably find a study that sup- ports its use in any condition you have. A great resource to read more about all the exciting advantages of HBOT is “The Oxygen Revolution,” by Paul G. Harch, MD and Virginia McCul- lough.
HBOT. The closer the treatment is to the head trauma the better, but there are studies looking at improvements even years after the trauma, the re- sults just aren’t as complete as treat- ment closer to the event. There are studies ongoing for autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, anxiety, de- pression and PTSD to name a few. This may also be helpful with chronic fatigue, long COVID and vac- cine injured patients. An area that is well established in medicine for the use of HBOT is for chronic wounds. Patients who will be going through surgery can benefit from sessions before and after sur- gery in terms of an easier time with surgery as well as having better re- covery after surgery. Vascular disease can be benefited by HBOT as it stim- ulates the production of new blood vessels that will get oxygen to the de- prived tissues. Recovery after injury is sped up by HBOT. This is why a number of pro- fessional athletes have their own chambers. Muscle strains, tendon in- juries and even broken bones heal faster with the extra oxygen stimulat- ing stem cell production. Inflamma- tion in general can be improved by this same mechanism. One disclaimer that I feel obligated to include: Low pressure chambers are used strictly off label. Off label isn’t bad or dangerous, it just hasn’t received approval for use in these many conditions that it is being used for. There is little risk as long as you can pop your ears. Finding someone that has a cham- ber for use shouldn’t be too hard, but these providers are going to typically be in the alternate to allopathic physician category. So, old is new and exciting. I am looking forward to see just what this can do for my patients. GenesisPrimaryCare.com Please see the display ad on Page 20 of this issue of Wisconsin Christian News).
now? Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). How old? Only 362 years old. So why is it new? The advent of af- fordable soft sided chambers. No longer does treatment require a dive master watching over the controls of high pressure, hard sided systems using pure oxygen. Probably not sur- prising is that these safer systems are proving to be nearly as effective as the more familiar HBOT chamber, bringing them more into the main- stream of alternative medical prac- tices. It doesn’t hurt that this was also recently mentioned by a high profile individual. I think this is poised to take off as a preventive and therapeutic option in treating many health conditions. In my discussions with patients about HBOT, the comment about this treatment being like pre-flood condi- tions comes up with some regularity. Maybe, maybe not. I have no idea what it was like atmospherically pre- flood, or for that matter, before inter- ested individuals started taking detailed notes on the environment. If it helps to believe that, then I won’t try to change your mind. I don’t think it matters that much, as we have to live in today rather than yesterday. With that off my mind, let’s dive into HBOT a bit more. Soft sided cham- bers have been around for 20 years or thereabouts, while hard sided cham- bers have been pretty standard, espe- cially in the diving community, for more than 150 years. Hard sided chambers can achieve enormous pressure and have needed to do that for deep sea diving accidents to pre- vent the “bends.” Soft sided chambers work at a much lower pressure, but for medical conditions that the ma-
our bodies. Soft sided chambers gen- erally run at 1.3 ATA (about 9 feet under water) but some can go as high as 2. Medical hard sided chambers are typically 2-2.5 ATA. Soft cham- bers often simply use an air compres- sor to pump normal air into the chamber, but supplemental oxygen can be added if needed. Because of how hard sided chambers are used, supplemental oxygen is the norm. One quick note, oxygen doesn’t burn. Oxygen is required for fuel to burn and with enough oxygen, virtu- ally everything is fuel. Some care needs to be exercised, but in the soft chamber environment, there is never enough added oxygen to make for a more flammable environment. There are 14 accepted medical con- ditions that insurance will cover for HBOT (hard sided chambers). Soft chambers could be used for these, but if you have severe smoke inhala- tion or carbon monoxide poisoning you should be at the hospital and in a hard chamber for your best treat- ment. Soft chambers are ideal for many conditions that are not on the accepted indications list. In fact, you
Normally, oxygen is carried around the body attached to hemoglobin. When you go to the doctor’s office or are in the hospital, your oxygen level is measured by that finger probe with the red light in it. This measures how full of oxygen the hemoglobin is. For most folks it is 97-99%. Under pres- sure, the extra oxygen is dissolved in the water of the body and blood stream. This can then stimulate the various tissues that are sensitive to the extra oxygen to do their thing. This extra oxygen really only lasts for as long as you are under pressure, but treatment times of 60-120 min- utes, 3-5 days a week will force the body into healing mode and improve one’s health. The normal prescription for HBOT is 40 hours under pressure which is about 60 hours of treatment time as it takes some additional time to pressurize and depressurize the chamber. Prescriptions can be as short as 5 sessions for the right situ- ation though. The conditions that I am most ex- cited about treating with HBOT are brain related. Head trauma is one of the leading indicators for the use of
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