Everyone knows that oxygen is crucial for life. The oxygen content in the air you breathe produces energy through a respiration process at the cellular level.
Yet, oxygen makes up only about 21% of the air surrounding you. What happens if you breathe higher concentrations? And what if these concentrations are at higher-than-normal atmospheric pressures?
It’s a recipe for a process called hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). Dr. James A. Nassiri and our team at Westside Pain Specialists in Beverly Hills and Rancho Cucamonga, California, use HBOT for a wide range of conditions and illnesses.
Let’s take a look at how HBOT works inside the body, so you can better understand the process and how it fits into your own wellness picture.
The principle behind HBOT is to deliver more oxygen to the body in times when healing requires an accelerated pace. This happens for a wide range of reasons that lead to hypoxic tissue, body components that aren’t receiving enough oxygen through the blood to heal or recover.
HBOT provides both increased oxygen concentrations and increased atmospheric pressure. When combined, these two factors boost oxygen in the blood for delivery to hypoxic tissue.
If you’ve heard about hyperbaric chambers before, it’s likely in connection with deep-sea diver decompression. One of the effects of HBOT reduces the size of air bubbles in your bloodstream, a problem for divers who return from deep waters too quickly.
Boosting oxygen concentration to 100% and increasing the pressure surrounding you by two to three times higher than normal outside air increases the amount of gas (oxygen) that your blood can keep dissolved.
Gas under pressure is easy to see when you open a bottle of a carbonated beverage. Under pressure inside the bottle, there’s little sign of gas bubbles, but the instant the cap comes off, dissolved gas (carbon dioxide in this case) immediately escapes.
Inside a hyperbaric chamber, your lungs absorb oxygen at a much higher rate than in the normal environment. As well as dissolving more oxygen into your blood, HBOT aids the formation of new blood vessels, which in turn speeds up new tissue growth.
In addition to treating decompression sickness, HBOT has been traditionally used for carbon monoxide poisoning, burn injuries, and gangrene. At Westside Pain Specialists, we also use HBOT to treat conditions like:
HBOT is showing promise as an emerging pain-relieving treatment for fibromyalgia.
Find out more about HBOT as a treatment for your conditions by contacting Westside Pain Specialists. Call our nearest office directly to schedule an appointment today.
