Transcription:
Benefits of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

Caitlin Whyte: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy or HBO can help people heal from a variety of conditions, including wounds, ulcers, and even hearing loss today, we'll dive into what HBO therapy is, how it works and what patients will experience joining us for this conversation is Diana Cuypers the program director for the center for advanced wound care and hyperbaric medicine at Emerson hospital.

This is health works here. I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte to start us off. Can you tell us what HBO or hyperbaric oxygen therapy is?

Diana Cuypers: Sure. It's a way of using a hundred percent oxygen under pressure to heal wounds. It's safe and it's pain-free.

Caitlin Whyte: So how does it all work?

Diana Cuypers: Well, patients sit in a chamber and they're breathing a hundred percent oxygen under pressure, and that causes the blood vessels to constrict and move the blood faster through the body.

It's kind of like when you put a thumb over a hose and you see the pressure, the water goes fast around your thumb. It's doing the same thing with your blood flow in your body. And then the blood is flowing faster to the wounds and it's bringing nutrients, food, and oxygen, and it helps the tissue heal faster.

Caitlin Whyte: So what are some kind of examples of people? Like what might an injury or a reason to go to HBO? Look like.

Diana Cuypers: So there are certain diagnoses that can be treated with hyperbaric oxygen. Diabetic foot ulcers can be treated skin flaps from surgery that don't heal well. People who have had radiation to certain areas of their body say if they had it around their neck or their mouth, and later need to have teeth pulled, dentists will often say you need to do get.

Some Hyperbaric oxygen therapy before you get your teeth pulled because it will help those areas heal faster. Other patients who might have something called cystitis, when you bleed from your bladder after radiation, those are internal wounds and hyperbaric oxygen can almost be the only therapy that can help stop that bleeding.

We've had a lot of success with that.

Caitlin Whyte: So tell us more about the patient experience when they're doing HBO. Are they just locked in a room or are they in like a pod? How does that work?

Diana Cuypers: Yeah, so they sit in a chamber, which is surrounded with a clear acrylic glass and they're on a stretcher with a pillow and how many blankets they want and they can watch TV or meditate or sleep.

And at all times, they're able to talk to their nurse or hyperbaric oxygen technician. The therapy takes a little over two hours and when you start therapy, you need to do it Monday through Friday for about 30 sessions. And that's the optimal healing time of treatment. And some patients will have an additional 10, depending on the doctor's evaluation after 30.

Caitlin Whyte: So it's almost every day for about a month, you're saying.

Diana Cuypers: Yep. It is. It's like a slow, steady therapy.

Caitlin Whyte: And so what happens after, you know, the two hours go by? Can they just get up and walk away and go home?

Diana Cuypers: Yeah, they can resume normal activities. It's just during that two hour period, when they're breathing a hundred percent oxygen and pressure, and then they can go home and resume their normal activities of life.

Caitlin Whyte: Does the patient feel any different when they're in there? It sounds pretty comfortable. But what about, you know, the process going on inside their body?

Diana Cuypers: Well, it's a relaxing experience, but they do feel like they've exercised because that your body is working hard when it's in the chamber, even though you're lying down on the stretcher.

So patients often say that they feel tired, kind of like they had exercised.

Caitlin Whyte: Gotcha. So what does the research tell us about HBO?

Diana Cuypers: So research finds that HBO can increase the healing rate 50% when you're doing HBO therapy. That's to say if you had a wound that would take six months to heal, and that's like a wound that it was down to bone, it might be three months.

At that point, if you're doing hyperbaric oxygen, it can increase it that much.

Caitlin Whyte: So this sounds like a really incredible, innovative way to heal. How do I sign up for HBO therapy? Do I need like a referral?

Diana Cuypers: No, you would just need to make an appointment with our clinic and have a medical clearance with one of our doctors.

The doctor would assess your wound and see if it was appropriate for hyperbaric oxygen therapy and make sure that it's safe for you to do this therapy.

Caitlin Whyte: Great. Well, Diana, is there anything else you want to say to prospective patients out there?

Diana Cuypers: I would say that, here at the Emerson wound center, the staff is incredible at making patients feel comfortable and safe in their care.

And when someone has a wound, which is scary and can be painful, I'm constantly surprised at how the staff here support patients and even make them laugh and they enjoy coming to their appointments.

Caitlin Whyte: Well, thank you so much, Diana, for giving us an idea of how this looks and how it works. We really appreciate your time.

You can call (978) 287-8550. Or visit EmersonHospital.org/hbo for more information and to schedule a consult. And thank you for listening to the Health Works here podcast. Subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast source, including Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte. We'll see you next time.