Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy has been around for year. The Navy uses their recompression chambers to treat mostly diving injuries that require recompression therapy. On occassion, we will see a request for HBOT for numerous issues. Bone problems, Head Trauma from IED's. Infections, post surgery treatment, eye disorders, etc. Have good succes in some cases. The DOD Medical is seriously looking into this issue for post traumatic brain injuries.
HBOT increases the partial pressure of oxygen when compressed, thus increasing the percentage of O2. Thus the O2 will increase in the body and saturate the tissue with O2, The motto is: green gas is good gas. It is becoming a little more common to see HBOT at local Navy Dive Lockers that have Hyperbaric systems. Our talented Diving Medical Officers that move into a different field of work, ortho seems to be the big on, know the benefits of HBOT.
A related effect is the increased oxygen transport capacity of the blood. Under normal atmospheric pressure, oxygen transport is limited by the oxygen binding capacity of hemoglobin in
red blood cells and very little oxygen is transported by
blood plasma. Because the hemoglobin of the red blood cells is almost saturated with oxygen under atmospheric pressure, this route of transport cannot be exploited any further. Oxygen transport by plasma, however is significantly increased using HBOT as the stimulus
commom treatments:
Air or gas embolism. carbon monoxide poisining
gas gangrene
crush injuries, compartment syndrome or other accute traumatic ischemias
Decompression Sickness
enhancement of healing in selected problem wounds
diabetic foot, diabetic retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy
Exceptional blood loss (anemia)
intercranial abscess
necrotizing soft tissue infections (necrotizing fasciitis)
Osteomyelitis
delayed radiation injury (soft tissue and bony necrosis)
Skin grafts and flaps
Thermal burns
Other reported treatments are:
Autism
Epidural abscesses
certain kinds of hearing loss
infammatory bowel disease
off label treatments included:
lyme disease, stroke and migraines
I have heard promising results from various treatments, have even seen documented video results that were amazing.