Oxygen ?Dives? Kill Germs, Increase Wound Healing

At 66 feet below sea level, the human body gets enough oxygen to kill many harmful anaerobic bacteria. On top of that, the additional oxygen helps build new blood vessels.

That’s part of the theory behind hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy, which can help heal everything from brown recluse spider bites to wounds that otherwise might have required the amputation of a limb.

The Wound Care Clinic at Fayetteville’s Washington Regional Medical Center is the only facility in Northwest Arkansas that offers HBO therapy. The clinic recently added its second Sechrist 3200 oxygen chamber (at a cost of about $250,000 per chamber). Those two chambers each measure 32 inches across. The clinic also has a third chamber that measures 28 inches across.

Diana Gallagher, manager of the clinic, said the facility is one of the largest of its kind in the United States. The clinic, which opened seven years ago, sees an average of 55 patients per day, with 12 of those needing HBO therapy. Gallagher said the clinic got its first HBO chamber four years ago. The clinic is housed in the old WRMC building at the corner of College Avenue and North Street.

“We’re able to heal 85 percent of the patients we see,” she said of the entire Wound Care Clinic. “I’m very proud of that.”

Although the tabloids reported that pop star Michael Jackson sleeps in an HBO chamber because he thinks it keeps him young, Gallagher said the real benefits of HBO therapy for wound healing can’t be denied.

During the treatment, the patient breathes 100 percent oxygen, usually for two hours per session, while the pressure in the chamber is increased to a point higher than sea level pressure (greater than 1 atmosphere absolute). The sensation is much like that of deep-sea diving, 66 feet below the surface. So Gallagher and her staff refer to the treatments as “dives.”

Hyperbaric chambers have been used for more than 50 years to treat deep-sea divers who are suffering from decompression sickness. In the past few years, it was discovered that some healing applications could be greatly increased by breathing 100 percent oxygen, so HBO chambers suddenly became common in clinics across the country.

HBO therapy increases the amount of oxygen that is being circulated to all body tissues. “Oxygen-enriched blood offers distinct benefits in treating some illnesses,” according to WRMC’s “Hyperbaric Hotline” brochure.

The most common uses for HBO therapy include wound healing, preservation of damaged or injured tissue, infection control, increased growth of new blood vessels and treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning.

For a diabetes-related leg wound that doesn’t heal after a month, the standard treatment would require 40 two-hour dives at a cost of about $1,000 per dive, but Medicare usually pays for the treatments. Without HBO therapy, the alternative is often amputation.

“We are truly a limb-salvage clinic,” Gallagher said. “Statistics are that if a patient has an amputation, they’ll have a second amputation within five years, and they’ll suffer an early death.”

Many of the problems after an amputation are due to excess stress on the heart, she said.

The clinic offers the HBO treatments on weekdays, but the staff is on call on weekends in case of emergencies.