What to Expect Before, During, and After Your Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

Perhaps you have a slow-healing diabetic foot ulcer, or maybe you’re a diving enthusiast who’s developed decompression sickness, commonly known as the bends. Whatever has brought you to our practice, you need to avail yourself of beneficial and important hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Well, you're in excellent hands here at Clover Oxygen Hyperbarics and Wound Center. Dr. Leon Tio and physician assistant Angela Moccia have extensive experience helping our patients to comfortably and safely receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy using the most advanced technology available.

If you’re in need of oxygen therapy, you’ve come to the right place. Here, we explain this helpful therapy and give you an idea about what to expect before, during, and after your treatment.

What is hyperbaric oxygen therapy?

Let’s first quickly review what we accomplish when we deliver hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The primary goal of this treatment is to deliver more oxygen to your body. As you know, your body requires oxygen to function — you get it from the air you breathe, which contains 21% oxygen.

While this amount is enough for people to receive the necessary oxygen for each and every one of their body’s cells, it falls short for certain situations, such as:

• Diabetic wounds, such as foot ulcers, which are diagnosed in 1.6 million Americans annually
• Infections
• Decompression sickness, or the bends
• Carbon monoxide poisoning
• Burns
• Anemia
• Chronic fatigue syndrome

In these cases, getting more oxygen into your body can help fight bad bacteria and significantly boost your body’s ability to heal. To do this, we need to place you in a specialized chamber in which we’re able to increase the air pressure 2-3 times higher than normal, which helps your lungs absorb the extra oxygen and get it into your bloodstream.

Your step-by-step guide to hyperbaric oxygen therapy

When you come in for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, we typically have you change into a comfortable gown or some scrubs. You can shower at home  beforehand, but we ask that you don’t apply any petroleum-based products, such as a Vaseline®, to your skin. It’s also a good idea to leave all of your valuables (jewelry, for example) at home.

Once you’re ready, we place you inside the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which is designed with comfort in mind. You lie on top of a comfortable cushion, and we can supply you with a blanket so you’re not cold.

Then, you simply lie back and relax while we seal the chamber and allow the oxygen to get to work and enter your body. While this happens, you can pass the time enjoyably with our built-in entertainment system that offers both TV programming and music.

The amount of time you spend in the chamber depends upon what problem we’re addressing. During your treatment, you may feel a heaviness in your ears, like you do when a plane climbs up into the air. You can relieve this pressure by yawning or working your jaw around. Other than this, you shouldn’t feel much else.

Once your session is finished, we unseal the chamber and you can get dressed and return home, though we suggest that you get someone to drive you.

When it comes to potential after effects, there aren’t many. You may have issues with your middle ear, or you might have a headache or feel fatigued afterward. Even though complications aren’t common, rest assured that we monitor you very closely for any issues during and after your hyperbaric oxygen therapy with us.

As you can see, you have everything to gain and very little to lose if you’re undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy. If you have more questions about what to expect during these treatments, please don’t hesitate to contact Clover Oxygen Hyperbarics and Wound Center in Aledo, Texas.