Hyperbaric Oxygen Chambers

Hyperbaric oxygen chambers can be very useful tools in treating difficult-to-heal wounds. Ever wonder how they work?

In order to really understand what is happening in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, you’ll have to understand a little bit of how oxygen is transported through the body.

All of the tissues in your body, from your skin to your muscles and bones, require oxygen. It’s easy to think of it as your body needing to breathe. In order to get oxygen to every tissue in your body, we must breathe in oxygen from the outside air into our lungs. This oxygen gets bound to hemoglobin, a protein found in the red blood cells. The red blood cells, now carrying oxygen, can transport that oxygen through the blood and to all of the tissues in your body.

Normal atmospheric pressure at sea level is measured as 1 atm. If we go up to the top of a mountain, the atmospheric pressure decreases; at the bottom of the ocean, the pressure will increase. At normal atmospheric pressure, it is only possible to transport a certain amount of oxygen through the body attached to hemoglobin.

If we increase the pressure at which we are breathing, however, it is possible to increase the amount of oxygen transported through the blood. In a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, the pressure is increased to 2 atm, or double the pressure at sea level. This allows for us to actually breathe in more oxygen than we would in the outside environment. The extra oxygen is actually dissolved into the plasma of the blood, making it possible to transport even more oxygen through the body. Before, we could only transport as much as the red blood cells could hold with hemoglobin.

Once there is an increase in oxygen in the blood due to it being dissolved into solution at higher pressures, the extra oxygen can drive the biochemical processes of wound healing. Different proteins in the body rely on oxygen to regenerate – if we increase the amount of oxygen available, we can increase the time it takes for the wounds to heal.

This idea of increased healing is especially important in patients with diabetes or peripheral vascular disease, two conditions that will slow the healing process.

Keep in mind that the only way to use hyperbaric oxygen is to breathe it in through the air. There are some products that are marketed as devices that will surround a wound with high-pressure oxygen, such as something that is wrapped around the leg. These products do not work in the same way, as none of the oxygen is actually being breathed in. In a true hyperbaric oxygen chamber, the patient will lie down completely enclosed in a tube.

Central Florida Foot & Ankle Center, LLC
101 6th Street N.W.
Winter Haven, FL 33881
Phone: 863-299-4551
http://www.FLFootandAnkle.com