Alternative Hyperbaric Chamber Use

jtkooch writes "Most people associate the use of hyperbaric chambers with treatment of 'the Bends,' an affliction usually caused by the rapid depressurization of the body when SCUBA divers return to the surface too quickly. Masslive.com has an article showing that hyperbaric chambers along with oxygen can be used to treat other medical issues like the loss of a limb, gangrene, and tissue injuries suffered during radiation treatments for cancer."

Comments

...that's what they were ORIGINALLY for!

[aaarrrgggh]

Hyperbaric chambers were originally used to treat various random illnesses. I don't remember if they were O2 regulated, or just compressed air, but the concept has been around for a long time... ...everything old is new again.

Another use for hyperbaric

[PD]

If you're inside a hyperbaric chamber, it's difficult to watch the latest Michael Jackson special on Fox.

Re:Another use for hyperbaric

[silvaran]

I think the real story was that he was in a hospital or some kind of medical research place for a visit, to promote medical research or whatnot. He looks over and sees the hyperbaric chamber, and thinks "Hey, that's pretty cool." So he climbs inside to see what it was like, and somebody snapped a picture and concocted a story purely through speculation.

So instead of actually seeking treatment, he climbed inside because he thought it would be cool (regardless whether or not he'd received treatment for burns in the past)...

The Benefits of Professional Sport

[redwood2]

Although this seems kinda new I've heard of this kind of treatment being used by pro footbal franchises for several years now.
It pays to quickly fix up that bruise or contusion on your star player...
rather than paying him $10,000/second to sit on his ass.

ahh pro sports!

Used for Lyme too.

[cornice]

My mother suffers from chronic Lyme and has tried most of the latest experimental treatments for Lyme - bar one - hyperbaric chamber. She does have a friend, a young woman who suffers severely from the effects of Lyme, who has undergone hyperbaric treatment. It seems to be the only treatment that works for her. It's usually combined with potent IV antibiotics. Google can help you find more on this.

Also, I was surprised by the folowing statement from the article:


While the chambers are useful, they aren't cheap. One of the chambers at Baystate cost $130,000. The only other medical facility in Massachusetts with a chamber is Massachusetts General Hospital. Norwalk (Conn.) Hospital also has one.


$130,000 is cheap for a medical device.

I thought it was metabolism rate, not oxygen

[MeerCat]

The deeper you dive, the quicker you use your air - I thought (note, not claiming I'm right, just asking really) that a part of this was because as the pressure increases your metabolism speeds up, your body effectively ticks over at a much faster rate (I know I'm always hungry after a deep dive, much more so than after a shallow dive).

Hence the (ahem, very dangerous...) practice of diving deep to clear a hangover - you shouldn't dive with a hangover for lots of reasons, but I know dive-masters who go deep with a hangover. 5 or 10 minutes at 30 metres and they're just taken the equivalent of an hour or two's recovery (or they're in such deep shit that the hangover is no longer a major concern).

If true, this would explain quicker healing at pressure - whereas the explanation about "dissolving more oxygen" sounds rather dubious to me...

Anyone with a proper understanding in a position to confirm/refute/discuss ??

--
T

Re:I thought it was metabolism rate, not oxygen

[jakedata]

Nope. The regulator gives you more air the deeper you go because you need the pressure to displace the weight of the water squeezing your lungs. Your body does not take advantage of the extra oxygen to any significant degree. Or at least that is what my diving instructor said.

You DO get additional dissolved gasses in your bloodstream. The additional nitrogen can bubble up in your blood like soda fizz if you ascend too quickly. That is bad.

Your heart rate and breathing increase underwater, but that may be due to increased exertion, nervousness or just the sheer joy of it.

Any diving instructors please feel free to correct or refine this.

-j

Re:I thought it was metabolism rate, not oxygen

[Sgt York]

I don't instruct anymore, but...

You use more air from your tank because of the depth/pressure. Your oxygen consumption speeds up because you use more air. Each breath takes more exertion; the air is denser and is more viscous, so it takes a lot more effort to breathe. Ever notice how, on those 30m+ dives your chest hurts afterwards? That's the intracostal muscles; you normally hardly use them, but the density of the air at 30m gives them a workout.

This is not, of course the only reason. Increased O2 use is also often due to apprehnsion over the depth, darness, etc. You also use more because a 30m dive is usually colder than a 10m dive. Cold dives are always more strenuous.

Hyperbaric treatments are based on increased O2 dissolved. Burn victims suffer from hemolysis, and can't trasnsport O2 in the normal way. Increased pressure helps this. Infection with gangrene & similar bugs is dependent on an anoxic environment.

Diving deep to cure a hangover? I have no comment......but I've (ahem) heard it works. I have no idea why though. Cold dives have the same effect.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news...

[heldlikesound]

But if you lose a limb, ain't no chamber gonna bring it back...

Overclocking ?

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

So if the air is denser, then it should have more thermal mass, and should provide better cooling.
Anybody tried OC'ing in one of those chambers?

I worked in the world's largest chamber

[young-earth]

In 1971-73, I worked at Saint Barnabas which had the world's largest hyperbaric facility, made by Linde. They had two 12 foot in diameter, 45 foot long chambers side by side. Each cylinder had three sub-chambers. The front of each could go to 100 PSI relative (about 225 feet of salt water equivalent). The other two chambers in each could do IIRC 60 PSI relative, but were usually only cranked to 60 feet or about 33.7 PSI relative.

Then patients had an Oxygen mask put on, and by Henry's Law the amount of gas dissolving in the bloodstream is proportional to the amount of gas in the air in the lungs. So they had 100% oxygen at 3x surface pressure, or about 15x the usual amount of oxygen in the lungs. This meant that hemoglobin was temporarily unnecessary, as the dissolved oxygen in the blood was more significant than the amount carried by hemoglobin.

This led to some amazing things. Carbon Monoxide poisoning was cured nearly instantly. Stroke victims, paralyzed on one side of their body, were wheeled in to the chamber and walked out 90 minutes later. Once an entire kidney transplant under hyperbaric conditions was done (donor and recipient each in one cylinder), the amount of surgical shock incurred was vastly reduced.

Burn victims were helped immensely, as the hypoxia/edema cycle was eliminated. Gas Gangrene, an anaerobic infection (claustridium welchi I think), was rapidly treated using this with no drugs.

But the hospital eventually tore it out - it was unused by the doctors. There were over 600 doctors on staff, but only a couple ever used it. We guessed part of the problem was it wasn't advertised in JAMA, nor was it covered in med school as a topic. Whatever the reason, it is sadly not there any more.

Been in a couple of these.

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

I did some network and server work for one the the largest chamber makers in the US. They sent them all over the world and let me tell you it is very interesting just to see how they work and how they are put together.

These things are not cheap either. The last one I saw being made they where telling me it had already been sold for over 800,000 bucks and took about 4 months to make from the ground up.

Hyperbaric chambers

[DrBobcf]

Problem is, a lot of the chambers have been dismantled. They are large, expensive, and not that common. Most hospitals don't have them. They don't regrow limbs as heldlikesound (132717)seems to think, they promote faster healing with less pain. They DO reverse some of the effects of gangrene and diabetic necrosis. They are also usefull in preventing bone necrosis in cancer radiation therapy patients. As for overclocking - Rememeber the Apollo fire? I'm dating myself. The computer would need to be sheilded. The temp is not cold, just cool.

Caisson disease, fires and fragmentation

[midgley]

are some of the reasons that hyperbaric chambers are not widely used.

Another reason is that their usefulness is quite limited.

People who work in pressurised environments risk the bone in their hip joints dying, probably due to the formation of small bubbles blocking the blood vessels. It is bad enough news if you are building a bridge, but to work as a surgeon for a prolonged period of a creer there would have to be vry clear evidence of effectiveness. Which is lacking.

In particular, it doesn't matter what pressure of Oxygen you apply to the outside of a solid organ (someone mentioned kidneys) unless there is a blood flow through it the transfer of Oxygen to the cells is going to be negligibly affected.

And until the oran is removed, the ordinary blood flow is quite adequate.

Nope

[Breakerofthings]

You are referring to dysbaric osteonecrosis ... and it is a form of decompression sickness (Caisson's Disease). Problem is, it is caused my nitrogen, not strictly pressure. So those working under pressure, or being treated, who are breathing oxygen, are at no risk for this malady.

Furthermore, it takes *years* of significant exposure to cause this

(Significant == depth and long duration)

Fire is a risk, but not a HUGE one, because multi-seat chambers are filled with air, not oxygen; the person receiving treatment breathes O2; the tenders? depends on who operates the chamber ...