What is Hyperbaric Medicine?

Hyperbaric medicine (also known as hyperbaric oxygen therapy or hyperbarics) is a medical sub-specialty that delivers 100 percent oxygen under pressure to supersaturate a patient’s body tissues devoid of oxygen from injury or disease to advance the healing process, optimize clinical outcomes and improve quality of life.

To ensure delivery of true hyperbaric medicine, please make sure treatments are delivered by a medical facility following the standards set by the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine Society. Spa-like centers and medical offices are prevalent, offering what they call hyperbaric oxygen therapy, but many aren’t staffed by board-certified physicians and a credentialed multi-disciplinary clinical team, don’t follow federal guidelines or evidence-based protocols or take patients to the an acceptable depth for the oxygen to be properly administered to facilitate the healing processes.

The power of clinical hyperbaric medicine is accomplished in a chamber (multi-patient, like the chambers at HyOx, or monoplace, for one patient only in a reclined position) pressurized with compressed air to the equivalent of 45 feet below sea level.   Breathing 100 percent oxygen with time and pressure limits provides a 10 to 15-fold increase in body oxygen content than the normal air we breathe to help heal complications from cancer, infection, trauma/injuries, and wounds.

HYPER = a Greek prefix signifying over, above, great, excessive, beyond

BARIC = a physics term pertaining to the pressure of the atmosphere

OXYGEN = a colorless, tasteless, odorless, gas occurring in the free state in the atmosphere that is essential for life

Through osmosis caused by breathing oxygen under pressure, hyperbaric oxygen reaches oxygen-deprived areas with the life-giving oxygen needed to heal. Without proper oxygenation, tissues and cells starve and may die.  HyOx prescribes oxygen as a drug with time and pressure limits and evidence-based protocols to feed starved tissues and cells by creating new pathways (capillaries and blood vessels), a process called angiogenesis, to get oxygen where the body needs it the most.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can be used as the primary treatment for healing or as an adjunctive treatment to other forms of traditional treatment modalities, such as surgery, wound debridement or antibiotic therapy.

How does prescribing 100 percent oxygen as a drug work to help expedite healing? 

The air we breathe is made up of only 21 percent oxygen. The power of hyperbaric oxygen therapy is its ability to provide patients with 10 to 15 times more oxygen they are able to breathe in at sea level by administering oxygen as a drug in a true, medicinal hyperbaric chamber (to a depth equivalent to 45 feet below sea level).

The pressure reached in HyOx’s multi-patient hyperbaric chamber enables the 100 percent oxygen patients breath in to dissolve into the liquid portion of the blood (plasma) delivering the life-giving oxygen to help stimulate and accelerate the body’s natural ability to heal.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is widely recognized by the medical community as a highly effective modality of rehabilitative therapy for evidence-based conditions including complications from cancer, infection, trauma/injuries, and wounds.  The complications are covered under most major insurance plans, as well as Medicare, Tricare, Workers Compensation, State Merit, and other third-party payment programs.

What is a hyperbaric chamber?

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is delivered through treatment sessions, or “dives,” in a pressurized vessel known as a hyperbaric chamber. HyOx Medical Treatment Center features one of Georgia’s largest chambers, a 31-foot long multi-patient chamber at its flagship facility in NE Atlanta (Marietta). Designed for patient comfort and hands-on clinical care, HyOx’s chamber accommodates up to 12 patients per dive along with board-certified physicians and certified hyperbaric nurses and technicians that accompany and oversee patient care during the treatment.

Hyperbaric chambers featured in accredited medical facilities like HyOx are designed to safely create a pressurized environment (equivalent to 2-3 times the pressure of air at sea level) as the patient breathes 100 percent oxygen.

Patients may sit in “airline-style” seats or lay on a stretcher if warranted by their condition. The chamber is pressurized with compressed air and patients breathe oxygen through specially-designed hoods, face masks or endotracheal tubes. Since they are not in a confined space, like one person chambers (monoplace) commonly found in hospital and outpatient centers, patients are free to stand, move about and stretch during the treatment. In case of a medical emergency or a medication need, hands-on treatment is provided instantaneously by the HyOx clinical team accompanying patients inside the chamber, without the decompression wait time associated with monoplace single-patient chambers.

During treatment, patients can read, relax, or watch videos on the chamber’s entertainment system. Medications, beverages, snacks, and a private restroom are available at all times during treatment in HyOx’s multi-patient hyperbaric chamber. Engineered and manufactured by Gulf Coast Hyperbarics, a Florida firm whose clients include NASA’s Johnson Space Center, HyOx’s chamber are made with the same materials used in the construction of high-pressure oil pipelines.

Monoplace chambers treat one patient at a time. Patients typically must lie flat in one position during the treatment in a glass cylinder-shaped chamber.  Usually, the chamber is pressurized with 100 percent oxygen which the patient breathes directly.

What are key benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy?

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can help:

• Accelerate healing of chronic wounds by increasing the amount of oxygen carried by the blood to wounded, injured, and diseased areas.

• Help fight infection and increase the effectiveness of certain antibiotics.

• Encourage growth of new blood vessels in hypoxic (low oxygen despite adequate blood supply) tissue.

• Decrease the risk of complications prior to and following certain surgeries.

• Speed the recovery of soft tissues and bones affected by radiation therapy.

• Reduce the incidence of amputation in patients with diabetes with complications from lower extremity wounds.

Any side effects or risks of hyperbaric oxygen therapy?

As hyperbaric oxygen therapy is one of the safest treatments administered in hospitals and outpatient centers like HyOx, there are potential risks as with any medical treatment. Most patients experience no or mild side effects like lightheadedness due to pressure changes or a drop in blood sugar in patients with diabetes, but they don’t last. For patients with diabetes, the side effect can be avoided by eating before treatment. At HyOx, the clinical team inside the chamber with patients can deliver snacks to patients in need a blood sugar boost.

The most common side effect that may occur is middle ear barotrauma. Clearing the ears during the chamber compression period - taking the patients from normal pressure to up to 2.4 ATM at the beginning of a treatment session - minimizes the risk of barotrauma to the ears and sinuses. Some patient who struggle with clearing their ears may be referred to an ear, nose and throat specialist for tubes.

Although rare, other side effects may include oxygen toxicity (poisoning), claustrophobia (uncommon in HyOx’s multi-patient chamber), temporary changes in sight, and accelerated maturation of cataracts.

In addition, the following conditions and medications may not be compatible with hyperbaric oxygen therapy:

• Pregnancy

• Untreated pneumothorax – free air in the chest / outside the lung that requires aspiration of the free air and/or placement of a chest tube to evacuate the air

• Congenital spherocytosis – a genetic disorder of the red blood cell membrane characterized by anemia, jaundice (yellowing), and splenomegaly (enlargement of the spleen)

• Disulfiram (Antabuse®) – an oral tablet used to treat chronic alcoholism

• Doxorubicin (Adriamycin®) – a medication used in cancer chemotherapy

• Cis-Platinum – a chemotherapy agent most often used to treat lung cancer

• Mafenide Acetate (Sulfamylon®) – a topical cream used to prevent and treat bacterial or fungal infections (primarily from burns)

How effective is hyperbaric oxygen therapy?

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy promotes the growth of new capillaries (neovascularization), fibroblast proliferation and collagen / new tissue development.  In addition, white blood cell bactericidal activity at the wound site is elevated.

High blood oxygen levels work synergistically with antibiotics to inhibit the growth of a number of anaerobic and aerobic organisms at the wound site. The pressurized oxygen saturates hypoxic areas of the body. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases diffusion of oxygen through ischemic tissues with inadequate microcirculation by providing sufficient oxygen tensions to meet the metabolic needs and heal tissues.

Hyperbaric oxygen also causes constriction of the blood vessels, decreasing intra-cranial pressure and edema in injured tissues while still increasing the total amount of oxygen to the injured area.  Again, the elevated air pressure leads to a 10- to 15-fold increase in plasma and tissue oxygen levels.

As with all medical treatments, results of hyperbaric oxygen therapy vary from patient to patient depending on the severity and duration of the complication from cancer, infection, trauma/injuries, and wounds. Results also are highly dependent on patient compliance to the treatment protocol and if hyperbaric oxygen therapy was delivered as the primary or adjunctive treatment in a timely manner.

For more information about your specific condition and how it could benefit from hyperbaric medicine, contact HyOx at 678.303.3200, fill out the form on our Contact Us page or consult with HyOx’s board-certified physicians during your initial consultation at our accredited NE Atlanta (Marietta) location.