Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Wounds

Wondering whether hyperbaric oxygen therapy is the right treatment for you? Read on to learn about it so you can make a better decision.

It is natural for people to see a doctor or use a band-aid in the case of an injury. Normally, it takes around a few days or weeks before a wound heals. However, there are also a few wounds that don’t heal as quickly as they should. Other times, some wounds only heal partially.

If you or someone you know is suffering from wounds that just won’t heal, you might look into a treatment like Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy or HBOT. This treatment method has been shown to enhance healing and recovery from wounds that don’t respond to standard medications and treatments.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves exposing the body to 100% oxygen under a high-pressure condition. This pressure should be greater than what humans experience normally.

Oxygen is an essential component that helps in wound healing. This is the reason why exposing your body to 100-percent oxygen can speed up the healing process for your wounds.

This type of wound therapy is an effective way of speeding up wound healing through safe, natural, and efficient methods. There are several ways of carrying out hyperbaric oxygen therapy. One of the most common methods is to completely immerse the person in a special room known as the hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Wounds do not easily heal when your body’s wound-healing capabilities are disturbed. So, taking over-the-counter medicines does not really help in this case. According to the stats, around 6.7 million people in the US alone suffer from chronic wounds. Not to mention, predictions suggest that this number will only continue to rise by two percent every year.

Red blood cells present in your blood are responsible for carrying oxygen to tissues and organs. After an injury, it is possible for the RBCs not to provide sufficient oxygen to the affected tissues.

But since oxygen profoundly influences wound healing, getting enough oxygen becomes extremely necessary for recovery. In case injured or damaged tissues are oxygen-deprived, the body becomes unable to heal them.

This is because cells can only produce the energy necessary for important reparative processes such as collagen synthesis, bacterial defense, and regeneration with the presence of oxygen. As a result, the healing process slows down and eventually stops completely.

Simply inhaling oxygen is never enough, and a concentrated flow of oxygen is necessary for the performance of necessary functions. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy resumes and speeds wound healing by delivering sufficient amounts of concentrated oxygen to affected tissues.

This becomes possible when the special hyperbaric chamber successfully helps the oxygen to dissolve in body fluids. Oxygen can permeate to areas where oxygen circulation may be blocked or even just reduced.

It is especially effective for chronic wounds as HBOT essentially supports and helps maintain the overall healing process. Sufficient oxygen deliverance to white blood cells ensures successful reduction of bacteria while it also supports rapid reproduction of blood vessels. Furthermore, hyperbaric oxygen therapy also helps the cells in your body to create new tissue for improved function of the organs.

As mentioned above, hyperbaric oxygen therapy impacts wound healing by making changes at the cellular level. This suggests that it can also treat various wounds, injuries, and other conditions.

Your body easily becomes prone to serious infections when you suffer from open wounds that do not heal in a timely manner. This wound can either be a result of surgery or a traumatic incident.

Nonetheless, timely recovery from such injuries is important to prevent other health-related consequences. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can effectively speed up the healing process of conditions like flaps, surgical sounds, and grafts.

Chronic high blood glucose levels caused by diabetes can impair the proper white cells from functioning. An inability to fight bacteria means that the body takes a lot of time for the successful and complete healing of wounds.

Fortunately, diabetic patients can opt for hyperbaric oxygen therapy that can stimulate the proper function of white blood cells. It is especially effective for diabetes-related foot injuries.

Some other types of wounds that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can treat include:

• Radiation wounds (caused as a result of radiation therapy for cancer)
• Bone infections
• Sudden hearing loss
• Carbon monoxide poisoning
• Gangrene
• Abscesses

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves exposing the body to oxygen at high pressures so that it successfully reaches the tissues where oxygen circulation may previously or formerly be reduced or blocked. Simply put, when white blood cells receive sufficient oxygen, then they can better fight off bacteria.

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?contenttypeid=135&contentid=44

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/hyperbaric-oxygen-therapy-for-wound-healing#:~:text=Hyperbaric%20oxygen%20therapy%20involves%20exposing,in%20a%20number%20of%20ways.

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/wound-center/hyperbaric-oxygen-therapy.aspx

https://www.osfhealthcare.org/blog/hyperbaric-oxygen-therapy-another-option-in-treating-wounds/