The healing art of hyperbaric oxygen therapy

The healing art of hyperbaric oxygen therapy


Among the high-tech means of treating wounds in people and animals alike is hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Here’s how it works.

The patient is comfortably situated in a large chamber containing 100% oxygen at 1.5 to 3 times normal atmospheric pressure. The resulting increased oxygen delivered to the blood helps reduce swelling and stimulates the growth of new blood vessels, thereby accelerating wound healing.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is used to treat swelling caused by surgical procedures, burns or snake bites. Traumatic or other internal injuries may benefit, too, along with diverse conditions like carbon monoxide poisoning and intervertebral disc disease.

Treatments are repeated as often as daily. And how do the animals fare throughout? Most are so relaxed they may even fall asleep during the process.

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