













The story of HBOT
We are made up of cells, these cells make up a tissue, which makes up an organ, which drives our body. Imagine legos that are little components of a larger structure that you might have played with as a child. The legos are our cells and the building, ship, etc that you built was the organ. These legos, or cells need energy to work. Delivering oxygen to these cells is what allows energy to be made at the cellular level.
Oxygen is essential for healing, regeneration and function of every cell within the human body. It is a miraculous tiny molecule that when delivered to a cell within your brain, heart, muscle, joint, skin, etc.. will allow ATP, or energy to be formed so the cells that make up your brain, heart or digestive system can heal. In the brain this is particularly exciting because it not only allows cells to heal and regenerate, but it also gives them the extra energy needed to create the extra stuff! An example of that is neuroplasticity, which is the formation of new connections and strengthening pathways in the brain that are essential for our brain’s proper and speedy signaling, communication and overall function. After a concussion, this communication slows down in many areas, and neurons become unstable, producing many of the symptoms experienced after a concussion.
The story how oxygen gets there is as follows - when pressure is applied within a hyperbaric chamber at levels greater than 1.0 ATA, we can drive more oxygen into our blood. At 2.0 ATA of pressure we can drive oxygen 400% deeper into our tissues. Under normal conditions, most oxygen in circulation is carried by red blood cells (RBC) as they are the transport vehicles necessary to take oxygen from our lungs into our blood to reach our cells. However, with HYPERBARIC PRESSURE, we no longer require RBC to transfer oxygen from our lungs to our blood stream - oxygen diffuses directly into our blood stream without any RBC help necessary. This creates supersaturated concentrations of oxygen in our blood stream that no longer requires transportation. Not only do we maximize the carrying capacity of RBC’s that still deliver oxygen to our cells, now we have much more, free-floating and smaller oxygen molecules that are forced deeper into our tissues at a much higher concentration (oxygen diffusion gradient) and can “slip through the cracks” if you will and penetrate areas that are starving for oxygen (hypoxia). This process is the application of Henry’s Law of Gases, which states that as pressure increases, so does the ability for oxygen to dissolve into a liquid, our plasma. Physics once again to save the day!
Hyperbaric pressure —> Henry’s Law—> Oxygen from lungs into Plasma—> Bypasses RBC’s—>supersaturated amounts of O2 in our blood stream —> Increased energy production at the cellular level—> healing cells, more energy, better function= Healthy
The increased pressure pushes oxygen further into our tissues, which is a major tenant of how HBOT works, but there are other incredible healing properties that are generated from HBOT as well.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy creates a variety of physiological changes that revitalizes and regenerating tissue, rebuilding the proper, healthy scaffolding that makes us feel our best. It can be used as a preventative measure, or used for healing neurocognitive issues such as concussion/TBI, post-concussion syndrome, stroke, migraine, headache, depression, anxiety, PTSD, panic attacks, lyme disease and more. It is extremely helpful in the healing of tissues from injury such as burns, cuts, post-surgical, athletic injury, whiplash, and more. There is research to support all of this and evidence is growing. Any injury (minus a few contraindications), eternal or internal can often be improved by the use of HBOT.