Hyperbaric oxygen therapy kind of strikes me as one of those treatments that has a risk factor. Could be potentially harmful to our patients. And we ask ourselves what is the risk versus benefits ratio.
In many cases the risk is relatively low. Patients are usually cleared by their physicians prior to going into the hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
To define what that is for those who do not know when we give people oxygen under double the normal atmospheric pressure to breathe more oxygen goes into the fluids of the body and more oxygen usually helps things to heal.
We call this hyperbaric oxygen and it is usually delivered within a canister that the patient lies in like a diving canister if you will. And of course the patient breathes this pressurized oxygen and it helps them to heal.
It helps their lungs when they have smoke exposure. It is even used to treat bone infections because infections sometimes do not like too much oxygen.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is very popular because there is a very high profit margin but in my experience hyperbaric oxygen therapy is at best a minor supplemental treatment.
It is certainly not a first line treatment for people with diabetic foot ulcers. I think it is very popular because of the financial side. Do not get me wrong it does have clinical value.
However some of the other things that I have mentioned and those things are common sense things. Protecting the wound cleaning the wound and stimulating the cells by giving them proper nutrition and by giving them the right stimulatory signals. Those signals come in the form of those growth factors that things like amnion supply.
Those are the primary treatments for diabetic wounds.
I consider hyperbaric oxygen therapy to be a supplemental treatment not a primary treatment. Although I will say it one more time that does not mean it does not have a valuable use. It certainly does and I would not throw away our chambers. They are very helpful in many cases.