Posted on August 9, 2021
If you have been wondering, “How can oxygen therapy help me?”, it means that you are interested in the treatment.
A well-known non-invasive treatment, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) offers many benefits to help boost your health and well-being. From speeding up surgical recovery to tissue regeneration, are these claims worth believing in?
In this article, I will talk about the treatment, how it works, and whether it can help you or not. I will also answer frequently asked questions.
Oxygen is a gas abundantly present in the air we breathe. It is necessary for humans to live and thrive.
However, some people cannot get enough of it. Certain infections, wounds that do not heal, and bubbles containing air in the blood vessels can cause this. Decompression sickness, a risk linked to scuba diving, can also cause this deficiency. As a result, patients need to find a way to get enough oxygen.
This is where treatment helps. As its name suggests, it involves oxygen, the crucial substance humans need for many bodily functions.
HBOT involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurised area also known as the hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber. In this area, the air pressure is raised two or three times higher than regular air pressure.
Inside this chamber, you can get more oxygen than you would breathing in an environment with normal air pressure.
When your blood carries extra oxygen that circulates throughout your body, you can fight diseases, since it triggers the release of growth factors and stem cells that promote healing.
In addition, HBOT can fight many signs of aging. If you want to combat aging and enhance your appearance, HBOT can help. Specifically, hyperbaric oxygen therapy helps protect your skin through antioxidants. It also helps you age gracefully and regenerate swelling or damaged skin.
As pure oxygen enters your body, the cells responsible for collagen production get activated. As a result, your collagen levels increase. When this happens, your skin becomes smoother and tighter― two qualities needed for a youthful appearance.
Hence, medical practitioners can use HBOT to treat a wide range of medical and cosmetic conditions.
At my Harley Street clinic, we use oxygen therapy to help patients quickly heal from surgery. My patients’ skin and hair also benefit from the treatment.
I highly recommend oxygen therapy for patients suffering from post-surgical issues and skin issues. It is also included in our signature facials package.
Hyperbaric oxygenation therapy is a non-surgical, painless therapy that gives the body more oxygen.
The therapy involves a pressure vessel called the hyperbaric chamber. The medical practitioner steadily gives pressure on the patients in the chamber.
This must be done through the patient’s normal process of breathing. In addition, the dose varies according to the pressure, so the higher the pressure, the higher the oxygen dosage. Hence, operating the machine requires skills and experience.
In addition, the frequency of the delivery plays a crucial role in hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The delivery of oxygen must be timed. The pressure must also be closely monitored and based on the patient’s symptoms.
Due to its nature, you must consider working with the top skin clinics in London for oxygen therapy. By doing this, you can ensure your safety and well-being.
It takes time for oxygen to reach certain areas of the body with blocked circulation. During this time, the percentage in the patient’s body goes higher than his or her normal levels.
By doing this, HBOT helps improve energy levels, regenerate tissue, improve immunity, and decrease irritation, inflammation, & pain.
A session takes approximately 60 to 90 minutes. Your time at the clinic can be longer if other procedures are needed.
Depending on your goals, it can be done with other procedures to heal you faster after surgery and in combination with non-surgical procedures such as laser resurfacing and non-surgical facelift.
Oxygen therapy is a world-renowned, FDA-approved treatment that has attracted many people. If you are wondering, “How can oxygen therapy help me?”, you are in the right section.
Here are the benefits of HBOT:
1. Improved Tissue Regeneration
Healing wounds require oxygen. Without it, wounds won’t most likely heal and result in severe complications.
Moreover, it plays a vital role in cell proliferation, a process resulting in the increase of cells. It also helps with protein synthesis, a process required for tissue restoration and strength.
When your body has adequate oxygen, your healing response becomes better. However, not everyone can get enough of it.
HBOT helps these patients. By supplying pure oxygen inside a pressurised chamber, this quickly increases oxygen levels in the bloodstream. The body areas that need to heal then receive enough oxygen.
The consequences of enhanced tissue healing are of key importance such as serious medical conditions such as skin necrosis or cellulitis, however may also be used to benefit normal patients heal faster after surgery.
Furthermore, hyperbaric oxygen therapy helps generate blood vessels. It activates fibroblasts, cells responsible for blood vessel formation. The new blood vessels generated with the help of oxygen therapy then helps with certain chronic diseases such as diabetes.
In a gist, HBOT helps heal wounds from the inside out. If you have wounds that have not healed yet, consider getting HBOT. Before doing so, make sure to consult a doctor first. Remember, you must get professional advice before having any treatment.
2. Higher Energy Levels
As you may well know, your body needs oxygen to function properly. It is vital to many bodily processes, including making energy.
For every cell in your body to function properly, it needs oxygen. Cells make energy for your body, so you need oxygen to have energy.
In particular, your cells use the oxygen you breathe to extract energy from the food you eat. Your body does this through a process called cellular respiration.
During cellular respiration, your cells use oxygen to break down sugar. This sugar then gives the energy your body needs throughout the day. This explains why you feel weak when you cannot breathe properly.
But then again, not everyone gets enough oxygen. If you participate in intense activities such as sports, your levels can get depleted. As a result, you need higher energy levels so you can keep going.
By providing you with more oxygen, HBOT increases your energy. Your cells get pure oxygen, enabling them to produce more energy. This gives you the energy you need, so you won’t feel weak all the time.
3. Stronger Protection Against Aging
Aging is a natural process that will continue to happen unless you take action. As you age, your skin becomes weaker and vulnerable to various issues.
HBOT helps you fight many signs of aging. These include fine lines, wrinkles, and loose skin.
In particular, treatment activates fibroblasts, which are cells responsible for collagen production.
Collagen is a protein naturally produced by your body responsible for healthy skin. It also maintains your youthful appearance. You can find collagen in your bones, blood, and muscles.
Interestingly, collagen composes one-third of the protein in your body and three-quarters of your skin. However, as you grow older, your collagen breaks down. Your body also finds it hard to produce more collagen.
Since HBOT activates fibroblasts, your body produces more collagen. As your collagen levels increase, your skin becomes healthier as well. You get a youthful glow and fight the signs of aging. In addition, your skin becomes smoother and tighter.
Hence, oxygen therapy does not just help you manage medical issues. It helps solve cosmetic issues as well.
4. Reduced Inflammation
When your body detects a trespasser, it releases a biological response to fight it. The intruder can be an irritant or pathogens like bacteria and viruses.
However, the body sometimes mistakenly sees its own cells or tissues as dangerous. This leads to autoimmune diseases like diabetes.
Experts believe that inflammation can contribute to various chronic diseases. These include metabolic syndrome, obesity, and heart disease. Furthermore, patients with these problems frequently have higher levels of inflammatory markers in their bodies.
In addition, inflammation often comes with pain. People who suffer from short- or long-term inflammation often hurt when it happens.
HBOT can help with this. Specifically, it helps reduce the inflammatory response. It also helps reduce the pain that often comes with inflammation.
5. Enhanced Immunity
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy helps boost your immune system. HBOT does this in several ways.
For one, it helps block the action of harmful bacteria by disabling the toxins of certain bacteria. Due to this, the bacteria that enter your body weaken.
It also increases your tissues’ oxygen concentration. By doing this, HBOT helps your tissues resist infection.
In addition, hyperbaric oxygen therapy helps strengthen your white blood cells’ ability to detect and fight foreign bodies.
Taking all of these effects combined, it helps boost your immune system. As a result, your body has better protection against foreign bodies that might harm it.
1. What is it?
Oxygen is needed by everybody. It plays a vital role in many bodily functions such as cell proliferation and tissue regeneration. (HBOT) involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurised area also known as the hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber. Inside this chamber, you can get more intake than you would be breathing in an environment with normal air pressure.
In addition, HBOT is a non-invasive procedure trusted by patients and organizations including the FDA. It offers many benefits including improved tissue regeneration, higher energy levels, stronger protection against ageing, reduced inflammation, and enhanced immunity.
2. How does it work?
HBOT works by providing your body with pure oxygen in a pressurised environment. Since the oxygen you get from a normal environment is not pure, HBOT efficiently increases the oxygen in your body.
By increasing your body’s oxygen levels, your cells receive more oxygen. This helps them create more energy, regenerate faster, and strengthen themselves. As a result, you get many benefits that you cannot readily have in a normal environment.
Specifically, HBOT helps speed up healing by bringing oxygen-rich plasma to tissues starving for oxygen. It also reduces swelling as it delivers oxygen to tissues.
3. What conditions are treated?
HBOT can treat many conditions including diabetic wounds in the lower extremities, bone infection, compromised skin grafts & flaps, delayed radiation injuries, and other chronic wounds that do not heal.
Oxygen therapy also helps those who recover from surgery. In addition, people with signs of ageing can be treated using oxygen therapy, as it can tighten and smoothen the skin. These signs of ageing include fine lines, wrinkles, and loose skin.
4. How long does it take?
During hyperbaric oxygen therapy, you have to lie on a table in an enclosed, pressurised chamber. Then, you have to breathe oxygen as the medical practitioner increases the pressure inside the chamber.
At a minimum, a single session may last for three minutes. It may last up to two hours, depending on the duration prescribed by the doctor.
The amount given during the session varies per person. Your doctor will consider any health problems you have and your current condition. This helps decrease the risk of complications.
5. How often should I have therapy?
There is no universal answer to this. Every patient has unique goals and needs. Some need frequent oxygen sessions, while others do not. Thus, the frequency of the treatment depends on your doctor’s assessment.
Some patients feel better after completing one session. Others feel better after two sessions per day for five days straight. Anyone who needs therapy for severe conditions must consider getting at least three sessions per week for ideal results. Most patients feel their best after 30 to 40 sessions.
6. What risks are associated with my session?
Most patients can take hyperbaric oxygen therapy quite well. However, just like any treatment, HBOT comes with some risks. These risks include temporary visual changes, fullness in the ears, and lightheadedness during the treatment.
However, these side effects usually go away after the treatment. Your vision and head state will return to normal. The medical professional will also help you clear your ears.
7. Who are ideal candidates?
People who are of legal age or a minor with parental consent can have oxygen therapy. However, it suits people who cannot naturally get oxygen from the air they breathe. These include people who have pneumonia, asthma, heart failure, and sleep apnea.
In addition, those who want to fight signs of ageing can go under oxygen therapy to tighten and smoothen their skin. HBOT is also recommended to people who are recovering from surgery.
8. How much is hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the UK?
Again, there is no universal answer to this. How much hyperbaric oxygen therapy costs depends on many factors such as the type of clinic, doctor, symptoms, and location. For instance, hyperbaric oxygen therapy in London likely costs more than the same treatment done somewhere else in the UK.
To give you an idea, a single oxygen therapy session usually ranges between £50 and £1,000. The cost will go higher depending on the number of sessions you have. In addition, you can ask your insurance company for coverage. Some insurance companies cover HBOT for wound healing.
9. Is there hyperbaric oxygen therapy near me?
Yes, there is. The Harley Filler Specialists London offers oxygen therapy. Lead by Dr De Silva, this clinic is one of the top skin clinics in London, so you can trust it. You can expect to get nothing but the best treatment from this clinic.
10. How do I choose the right provider?
Not all providers are alike. Thus, you must carefully choose between providers offering the treatment. Make sure that the provider is certified, skilful, and experienced. If you can, check the testimonials of their former patients to see how they did.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is an innovative treatment that brings several benefits to your health, well-being, and appearance. If you are interested in this treatment, book a consultation with me now!