Altitude sickness and hyperbaric oxygen therapy?
I’m from the Northeast part of America. Fairly close to sea level. So, before we moved to Colorado, I never really knew about something called altitude sickness. But a lot of people use that term for how they feel when they come from sea level to the Rocky Mountains. And it’s fairly common for visitors to experience headaches and nausea when they fly into Denver. And even more when they cruise on up into the mountains to ski or sightsee.
So, can hyperbaric oxygen therapy really help with altitude sickness?
Before we go any further, we need to say this. Because there are only certain conditions approved by the FDA for the purpose of insurance reimbursement. And these include:
- Aerobic and anaerobic soft tissue infections (only certain ones)
- CO and Cyanide poisoning
- Crush injury
- Decompression sickness
- Exceptional blood loss/anemia
- Fungal disease management
- Gas gangrene and gas embolism
- Healing in certain wounds
- Intracranial abscess
- Ischemia reperfusion injuries
- Osteomyelitis
- Radiation injury to tissue
- Skin grafts and flaps, and
- Thermal burns treatment
But, we’re not doctors. And we don’t play doctors on TV. So, we don’t even know what all those conditions are. We just want to give you a little more info when you contact insurance about hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
AND those conditions are typically best suited for the high pressure chambers seen in hospitals. But we lease the mild, pressurized air chambers. Also know as m-HBOT.
But a “mild” chamber is not weak. Far from it. Because it’s not just a matter of how much oxygen a chamber has. hyperbaric oxygen therapy, even m-HBOT works because of pressure. So, guess what treatment the FDA approves as treatable with m-HBOT?
Altitude Sickness
Pretty cool, right? And a couple of our customers told us how our chambers really helped them overcome it and feel better. We also heard and read how m-HBOT can help with other conditions.
- Autism
- AutoImmune (like Multiple Sclerosis)
- Bacterial Overgrowth
- Cerebral Palsy
- Concussion
- Lyme
- Performance Enhancement
- Neurological Conditions, and
- Stroke
So, bottom line is…in certain cases full blown hyperbaric oxygen therapy is recommended. But in other cases mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy is more appropriate. Sometimes 100% oxygen is recommended. (We have oxygen concentrators, too…by the way.)
If you’re in the Colorado front range area, call or text today to talk to us about getting started.
Here’s to breathin’ easier,
Brian & Jeremiah