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What Is Hyperbaric Medicine Used For?

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is best known for its use in treating decompression sickness in deep-sea divers. It has great benefits for other conditions as well, mainly in the area of wound care and for treating carbon monoxide poisoning. Some practitioners prescribe hyperbaric medicine for a wide range of other disorders, although mainstream medicine has generally not accepted its use for such conditions.

  1. Decompression Sickness

    • Decompression sickness, called "the bends," occurs when deep-sea divers surface too quickly and develop nitrogen bubbles in their blood. Hyperbaric medicine resolves this problem. In this therapy, the patient breathes 100 percent oxygen in a hyperbaric chamber, while the pressure surrounding his body is slowly increased, usually up to three times higher than normal atmospheric pressure. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy for decompression patients is commonly used by hospitals, navies and diving organizations.

    Wound Care

    • The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society has approved hyperbaric oxygen therapy for wound care issues such as necrotizing soft tissue infections, tissue damage from radiation, gas gangrene, crushing injuries, burns, refractory bone infections, brain abscesses, skin grafts and chronic non-healing wounds. Additional uses approved by the UHMS include treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning, cyanide poisoning and anemia resulting from sudden blood loss.

    Experimental Uses

    • United States physicians are allowed by law to prescribe hyperbaric oxygen therapy for other conditions, even if not approved by the UHMS. Generally viewed as experimental by the mainstream medical community, these conditions include bites from the brown recluse spider, Lyme Disease, Hansen's disease (leprosy), intestinal obstructions, severe head injury and heart attack or stroke.

    Additional Potential

    • Further hyperbaric medicine treatment possibilities tend to be viewed as questionable at best by the mainstream medical community. The online Hyperbaric Medicine Today journal, whose publishers' mission is to secure mainstream acceptance of a wider range of treatment, notes that they publish research on hyperbaric medicine treatment for autism, multiple sclerosis, headaches, neuropathy and sports injuries.

    Controversy

    • Treatment of conditions not approved by the UHMS is a source of continuing controversy among physicians and other medical professionals. A 2005 article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons discusses the intense "emotionalism and political maneuvering" involving claims and counterclaims for hyberbaric oxygen therapy in treating multiple sclerosis. Another controversy involves using hyperbaric medicine for treating late-stage acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

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