Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is an extremely useful regenerative medicine treatment for healing injuries and accelerating recovery of the body. It works by enclosing a person a chamber, increasing pressure in the chamber, and then delivering  supplemental oxygen through an oxygen mask. The combination of increased pressure and supplemental oxygen saturates the entire body with oxygen, including the brain, nerves, muscles, heart, spinal cord, abdominal organs, and other tissues. This oxygen-rich environment allows accelerated healing of the body. At Aspen Integrative Medical Center, we are one of the only clinics in Northern Arizona with a hyperbaric oxygen chamber bringing this remarkable medicine to our patients.

Well the air we breath at sea level, or 1 atmosphere of pressure, is only 21% oxygen. This small amount of oxygen is enough to saturate 98% of the oxygen carrying proteins in our blood called hemoglobin. With hyperbaric oxygen therapy, the body is exposed to 1 to 3 atmospheres of pure oxygen or 100%-300% oxygen, which is nearly 15 times the amount of oxygen in our air. At the pressure is increased in the chamber, the last 2% of hemoglobin is saturated with oxygen. As the pressure is further increased, all of the remaining oxygen is dissolved into the “liquid” portion of the blood which can deliver very high amounts of oxygen to all the tissue of the body.

Because hyperbaric oxygen therapy accelerates your body’s own healing mechanisms by saturating your body with oxygen, it is broadly beneficial for a variety of acute and chronic concerns.

Our physicians frequently recommend hyperbaric oxygen therapy for the following conditions:

• Traumatic brain injuries including concussions and post-concussion syndrome
• Long covid-19
• Neurodegenerative disorders
• Stroke
• Lyme disease
• Mold toxicity
• Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS)
• Chronic Epstein Barr Virus
• Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)
• Dysautonomia
• Cancer
  • Including healing injuries related to radiation and chemotherapy
• Non-healing wounds
• Post-surgical healing
• Injury recovery
• Post-workout recovery

HBOT has numerous health benefits:

• Oxygen reperfusion of tissues
• Reduces cellular apoptosis (cell death)
• Reduces inflammation by normalizing VEFG, decreasing TNFalpha levels, and reducing other inflammatory cytokines
• Stimulates stem cells
• Suppressive effects on tumor growth
• Promotes cellular regeneration after injury
• Improves glucose control
• Delivers increased amounts of oxygen to wounds in the body that have poor blood supply or injured tissue that is swollen.

A hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment is about 1.5 hours long from the beginning to end of your visit. When you arrive for treatment, our medical assistant provides you with a walkie talkie and helps you get into the chamber. You are provided a oxygen mask connected to an oxygen concentrator at 10 LPM of oxygen. The chamber is then zipped closed and outside air is pumped into the chamber to slowly increase the pressure up to 1.3 ATA. Once you reach 1.3 ATA your treatment officially starts and a timer is set for 60 minutes. During your whole treatment our medical assistant is contact with you using the walkie talkie to make sure you are tolerating treatment well. Many patients find the treatment relaxing and calming as they lay down to take a nap, meditate, read a book, or be on their cell phone.

Based on the research and our clinical experience, HBOT:

• Is an excellent adjunctive therapy to support cancer treatment as it is synergistic with ANY oncology therapy especially high dose vitamin C IVs.
• Decreases tumor cell survival, metastasis, angiogenesis, and other key promoting factors. This is primarily through oxygen perfusion and stimulating apoptosis (cell death) via reactive oxygen species production and inactivating antioxidant defense mechanisms of the tumors.
• Has been shown to be associated with increased survival in humans with cancer.
• Alters gene expression to switch to a lesser tumorigenic metabolism.
• Increases rate of recovery and healing from radiation burns.

Despite its many benefits, we do not promote that hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a “cure” for cancer. Instead it is a powerful and synergistic therapy that works beautifully alongside a comprehensive integrative plan.

Many therapies are synergistic with hyperbaric oxygen therapy including:

• High dose vitamin C IVs are ESPECIALLY synergistic with HBOT. In order to maximize benefit, the IV should be done right before or within three hours after HBOT. This maximizes the delivery of nutrients and oxygen to the cells.
  • In general our experience is that the addition of HBOT to any IV protocol improves efficacy. This is due to known mechanisms of HBOT and increased pressure gradient flowing from the plasma to the cell and mitochondria
• Ozone therapy
• Ketogenic diet
• Photobiomodulation therapies such as deep tissue laser therapy
• Craniosacral therapy
• Oncology therapies such as general chemotherapy, radiation, 5-FU, platinums, taxanes, Artemisinin
• Melatonin

There are many myths and misconceptions about hyperbaric oxygen therapy including:

• Only “high” pressure hard chambers are effective. FALSE! At Aspen our hyperbaric chamber reaches a pressure of 1.3 ATA which is classified as “mild” or “low” pressure HBOT. The research and our clinical experience clearly supports that mild HBOT to be just as effective for oncology and non-oncology settings.
• You need a hard chamber with higher ATA >1.75 to get into deeper organs. FALSE!
• Stem cell release starts at 2.0 ATA. FALSE! New research data has shown 1.27 ATA can mobilize stem cells.
• You need higher O2 to achieve any cellular benefit. FALSE!
• HBOT can fuel cancer cell growth. FALSE! Normal and wounded tissue respond differently to HBOT than cancer cells. Tumor growth and metastasis actually accelerates in hypoxic (low oxygen), not high oxygen environments, as an adaptive mechanism. A history of malignancy should not be considered a contraindication for HBOT therapy.

Our physicians meet with every patient to determine the best plan for their health concerns. To start we typically recommend doing 1-2 treatments per week for 5 weeks. To get the most health benefits and after acute injury, it’s better to front load treatments to do 2-4 treatments the first week. We offer packages to reduce the cost and make a series of 10, 20, or 40 more affordable. If a patient is doing other synergistic treatments such as high dose vitamin C IVs, we find less hyperbaric is needed.

If a patient has an autoimmune disease, a high degree of inflammation, and/or is very frail, it’s often best do at most 2-3 dives a week (or less), always start at a low dose (such as 30 minutes), and provide a high dose of oral antioxidants. It’s also helpful to use a nasal canula or just have supplement O2 into the open chamber instead of an oxygen mask.

HBOT is an extremely safe and effective treatment especially under the appropriate supervision. At Aspen we require all patients to meet with our physician first to determine it is safe for them and they don’t have any contraindications to treatment.

During a hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment our medical assistant routinely checks in with the patient via a walkie talkie to insure everything is going smoothly.

Oxygen toxicity can occur at 3.0 ATA and higher, but our chamber only goes up to 1.3 ATA.

There is currently only one absolute contraindication to hyperbaric oxygen therapy and that is untreated pneumothorax. Patients with pneumothorax should be treated and managed before initiating HBOT.

Certain conditions are considered “relative contraindications” meaning if under the right observation and management the patient could do HBOT. One must also weigh the risks versus benefits before initiating therapy. Relative contraindications include:

1. Inability to equalize ear or sinus pressure perhaps due to surgery, radiation, acute upper respiratory tract infection, or sinus infection. In addition history of certain ear conditions requiring surgery, such as otosclerosis. Acutely congested patients can be treated with phenylephrine nasal spray.
2. Eustachian tube dysfunction can increase risk of barotrauma to the tympanic membrane. This can be mitigated by pressure equalization training or receive tympanostomy before initiation of HBOT.
3. Claustrophobia depending on severity.
4. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) – due to risk of oxygen induced hypoventilation and increased ventilation/perfusion mismatch.
5. Asthma – due to risk of air trapping and the development of pulmonary barotrauma.
6. Asymptomatic pulmonary blebs and bullae
7. Implanted devices should be pressure tested to determine their safety and ability to function in a high-pressure environment.
8. Pregnancy due to unknown effects on the fetus; however, there are certain circumstances where HBOT is indicated such as carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning.
9. High fever or epilepsy can decrease the seizure threshold, making oxygen toxicity more likely. Anti-epileptics and fever can help alleviate this risk.
10. Recent eye surgery if any air or gas gets trapped in the eye.
11. History of recent thoracic surgery can increase risk of atelectasis and pneumothorax.
12. Asymptomatic pulmonary lesions on chest x-ray should be evaluated before proceeding with HBOT.
13. Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus or acute hypoglycemia due to therapy-induced hypoglycemia. However, point of care glucose monitoring and supervision is often sufficient to perform HBOT on diabetic patients safely.
14. Nicotine or caffeine use are contraindications before HBOT. The vasoconstriction caused by these agents reduces the effectiveness of therapy.
15. Perilymph fistulas, which occur from inner ear barotrauma, cause vertigo and other vestibular symptoms and can be aggravated by HBOT.
16. HBOT can trigger reactivation of tuberculosis. High risk patients should undergo tuberculin skin test or interferon-gamma release assays before HBOT.
17. Untreated glaucoma
18. Current or past cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak