The question is not can you, but is it safe and effective. First of all, you cannot legally put a real hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber into your home. In addition to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA-99) regulations and the illegality of medical-grade oxygen purchase, it just would not be safe.
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What can you legally put into your home? (This is in the US; Canada does not allow even mild hyperbarics in the home.) The question about what is the difference between hard-sided medical grade hyperbaric oxygen chambers and inflatable hyperbaric chambers (mild/soft hyperbarics) is a common asked question. At The Oxford Center, we use only hard-sided Sechrist chambers. If inflatable bags were an effective treatment modality it would only make sense for us to use them, as the cost would be immensely less expensive for the chamber cost, oxygen (tank, plumbing, corral, and gas), not to mention the extensive NFPA-99 regulations for the build-out. However, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is NOT the same as the mild hyperbarics.
To compare the differences, let’s look at the oxygen in the blood. We measure the changes from arterial blood gases. Arterial oxygen at 2.4 ata 100% oxygen is 1,824 mmHg (normal air pressure is 157mmHg). This refers to how much oxygen is getting into the body, what is making the changes. Compared to using mild/soft chambers, the arterial oxygen at 1.3 ata 24% oxygen is 230 mmHg (normal air pressure is 157mmHg).Now Consider this: If you have a non-rebreather oxygen mask hooked up to an oxygen tank (the oxygen mask you see paramedics use when transporting a patient), the mask can deliver about 55% oxygen. The percentage is used by using the conversion equation (1ATA x 760mmHg x0.55=418mmHg). The moral of the story is that an oxygen mask can deliver a higher amount of oxygen than an inflatable bag so why would you expose yourself to the time and expense for such little benefit.
Let’s examine the reasons why we do NOT use inflatable bags and we do NOT call them hyperbaric oxygen chambers. For a quick comparison:
The number of medical facilities offering hyperbaric oxygen therapy jumped over the last 50 years. Back in the s, approximately 27 facilities offered HBOT nationwide. As researchers learned about the benefits of HBOT, more and more facilities began offering treatments with hyperbaric chambers. Recent reports state as many as 1,800 to 2,000 hospitals offer hyperbaric treatments in the United States. This is in addition to between 500 and 700 non-hospital-based clinics or medical practices. And this doesn’t even count the amount of soft-sided hyperbaric chambers people own in their own homes.
New research continues to show the benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in a variety of FDA-approved and off-label medical conditions. This creates a great new medical treatment option for many patients. But it also creates an opening for large profits at the expense of patients. Soft-sided hyperbaric chambers offer patients the ability to purchase a chamber for use at home. Unfortunately, not all chambers are equal. Soft-sided chambers do not offer the same benefits and can, in some cases, make things worse.
In hospitals and clinics, physicians use hard-shell hyperbaric oxygen chambers. These chambers are medical-grade devices and FDA-approved for the treatment of 14 conditions. In addition, they show positive results in studies for many, many more conditions. Hard-shell chambers are steel-enclosed chambers that deliver 100 percent oxygen at atmospheric pressures above 2.0 ATA. Installation of these chambers in a medical facility requires meeting various building regulations, including NFPA-99 from the National Fire Protection Association.
Soft-sided chambers, known as mild HBOT or mHBOT, are portable chambers that seal with a zipper. They can reach pressure levels around 1.3 ATA and typically deliver 24 percent oxygen levels. Originally designed for divers and mountain climbers to use until they could transport to a hard-sided chamber, the intention was never to use soft-sided chambers for treatment.
The big difference between hard and soft chambers comes when we talk about oxygen concentration into the body. To get a better understanding of this, as you read this, you are breathing in room air with a concentration of 21 percent oxygen. A soft-sided chamber utilizes 24 percent oxygen. In contrast, when you see people transported in an ambulance and hooked up to an oxygen mask, they are receiving 55 percent oxygen. Hard-shell hyperbaric chambers deliver 100 percent oxygen. These numbers don’t even consider the pressure level differences.
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To go more in-depth, let’s look at arterial blood gas levels that show oxygen in the blood. In normal air conditions and at normal pressure, your blood oxygen is going to read 157 mmHg. However, in a soft-sided chamber at 1.3 ATA and 24 percent oxygen, your number rises to 230 mmHg. An oxygen mask, like those used in ambulance transport, delivers 55 percent oxygen at normal pressure and gives you 418 mmHg. Of course, the real difference occurs in a hard-shell chamber. With a hard-shell chamber at 2.4 ATA and 100 percent oxygen, your arterial oxygen levels reach 1,824 mmHg.
The idea behind hyperbaric oxygen therapy and its success as a treatment option depend on flooding the body with higher levels of oxygen. Unfortunately, you see that soft-sided chambers don’t really offer much more than the air you naturally breathe. In all honesty, you receive more benefit from a simple oxygen mask.
While hyperbaric oxygen therapy is FDA-approved for the treatment of 14 conditions currently, many conditions have been treated off-label with great success both in medical clinic environments as well as in numerous clinical studies, showing that flooding the body with high levels of oxygen can heal and, in many cases, return quality of life to many patients. However, in all these studies the administration of oxygen has been at 100 percent and at pressure levels of 2.0 ATA or higher.
To date, no real studies have looked at the benefit of mild hyperbaric, or low oxygen therapy. And given the numbers, the oxygen levels they provide aren’t much different than what you breathe in normally. Soft-sided chambers are not FDA-approved as a medical device for the use in hyperbaric oxygen therapy, except for the use by climbers and divers with altitude sickness during transport to a medical facility with a hyperbaric chamber.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy treats non-healing wounds as well as bacterial, viral, and fungal infections. Scientific research shows that oxygen becomes bacteriostatic at 1.5 ATA. This means that at levels above 1.5 ATA, the oxygen prevents bacterial and fungal growth. With hard-shell hyperbaric oxygen therapy, pressure levels are typically over 2.0 ATA, making it successful in the suppression of bacterial growth. Unfortunately, with average levels of 1.3 ATA, soft-sided chambers cannot suppress bacterial growth. On the contrary, they enhance the growth of bacteria, mold, and fungus. Exposure to bacteria, mold, and fungus make conditions worse or lead to additional medical complications.
Here, Dr. Spiegel and his team treat patients with the top-quality hard-shell chambers. Sechrist Industries is an industry leader in hyperbaric chambers, making them for over 35 years. Our chambers, Sechrist , is a pneumatically controlled system offering a 32-inch inside diameter, making it spacious and comfortable for our patients. This chamber allows for full patient monitoring during oxygen treatments and features a patient entertainment system. In addition, our system offers a two-way intercom system, making communication easy during the procedure.
If you would like more information on our chambers, what they offer, and how hyperbaric oxygen therapy can help treat your medical condition, please give us a call today to set up an initial consultation with Dr. Spiegel and his team or click HERE to fill out our online information request form.
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