Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT): General information and discussion of Home Units

[France]

During my visit to France, I did 25 sessions in the HBOT. Thank you for this opportunity.

What I noticed in the first 2 sessions, my ears hurt and I had to adjust the pressure. Instead of taking 10 minutes, I took 20 minutes. And the same time to lower the pressure again at the end. That helped.

After 3 days, my ears were clogged all day. This lasted about 2 weeks. I stopped for 2 days the HBOT and when I started again, my ears were fine. I could hear during the day. Ouf!

When I started again, I took the time to massage my ears, face, jaw, neck and head to relax the fascia. I did meditation and respiration. I felt much better afterwards. I continued to ear during the day.

I had different effects during the 25 HBOTs. I slept at first, then the circulation in my legs was better, my breathing during the sport was deeper without me controlling it. I feel happy in my heart and head to do HBOT.
Concentration was good. And what surprised me was that I began to understand English much better, with less stress.

when I came back, my ears were ok in the plane!

I'll try to find here (HBOT) to continues that processus. I did't find for this moment. It'll come.

 

[zak]

We found some clinics that offer Hyperbaric Chamber sessions here in Mexico and we're in the process of finding out more about those clinics and also about the treatment itself. The clinic we're looking into now offers 15 sessions for about 146.5 USD. I'm going to do some more research and see what exactly the clinic is offering and report back .

One thing I'm trying to find out is if it is OK to do 15 sessions first, then wait for a month, and then do 15 sessions again, and then wait again, until you reach the 45 mark. It shouldn't be a problem, but I just want to see if I find some information regarding the effectiveness of doing it in such a way.

Doing just a quick search brought up so many interesting articles about the treatment! It looks promising for a lot of different conditions, including difficult inflammatory illnesses. For example:



Another one that shows reduced inflammation:



About another autoimmune condition:



About aging:



That's all very interesting, I'll read more about it

The article on aging you shared said:

The researchers exposed 35 healthy individuals aged 64 or over to a series of 60 hyperbaric sessions over a period of 90 days. ...


"Today, telomere shortening is considered the 'holy grail' of the biology of aging," Professor Efrati says. "Researchers around the world are trying to develop pharmacological and environmental interventions that enable telomere elongation. Our HBOT protocol was able to achieve this, proving that the aging process can in fact be reversed at the basic cellular-molecular level."


"Until now, interventions such as lifestyle modifications and intense exercise were shown to have some inhibiting effect on telomere shortening," Dr. Hadanny adds. "But in our study, only three months of HBOT were able to elongate telomeres at rates far beyond any currently available interventions or lifestyle modifications. With this pioneering study, we have opened a door for further research on the cellular impact of HBOT and its potential for reversing the aging process."

Having not read all the links above, the following may seem off-topic, but it is nonetheless interesting in the face of the current certainty that short telomeres are linked to disease, and long ones to longevity. According to this article, things don't seem quite so simple and straightforward.

IN BRIEF
-Shorter telomeres are thought to indicate an increased risk of premature death. Longer telomeres are therefore thought to represent health and longevity.

-Studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) have revealed that long telomeres are linked to cancer and clonal haematopoiesis of undetermined potential (CHIP), a blood disease .

-A shorter telomere length is linked to degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and heart disease, while a longer telomere length is associated with increased risk of cancer.

-Cells with long telomeres accumulate mutations, favouring the development of tumours that could be prevented by normal telomere shortening processes.

-Rather than relying on telomere length to measure longevity or disease, we need to harness the power of lifestyle strategies to slow the ageing process and improve healthy life expectancy.

Long telomeres are linked to cancer and disease

The study of the NEJM looked at 17 people with the POT1 genetic mutation, known to lengthen telomeres but also to increase the risk of of cancer. The participants in the study were aged between 7 and 83 and various tumours, ranging from benign uterine fibroids to melanoma. They also had much longer telomeres than the average population population (90% longer in 13 participants and 99% longer in nine others).

While 6 of the participants showed certain signs of youth, notably the absence of grey hair even at the age of 70, many had high levels of clonal mutations linked to haematopoiesis. These mutations are linked to the development of blood and other cancers, and their rate is much higher than expected in the general population.

One of the participants had cells with 1,000 mutations per clone, which, according to the researchers started when the person was just 4 years old. "The length of allowed blood cells to spread ever since," said Mary Armanios.

The study suggests that long telomeres are at the origin of CHIP and give cancer-causing mutations more time to develop.
According to Mary Armanios:

"Our results call into the idea that long telomeres protect against ageing. Rather than protecting against ageing, long telomeres allow cells with mutations that occur with ageing to be more durable... Cells with very long telomeres accumulate mutations and appear to the development of tumours and other types of growth that would otherwise be slowed by the normal processes of telomere shortening".

It is said, for example telomere shortening is a "major measurable molecular feature of cell ageing in vitro and in vivo" that may have developed as a mechanism of protective mechanism against tumours in long-lived species.

Is DNA methylation a better measure of biological age?

It is possible to determine your biological age, as opposed to your chronological age, by measuring the methylation of your DNA and, in direct comparisons, DNA methylation is significantly more correlated with the ageing process than telomeres.

The methylation is the silencing of gene transcription. Your genes have promoter sites at the beginning of the DNA strand, and
measured at these sites. The level of methylation at promoter site correlates with the level of expression of that particular gene.

Ryan Smith is the founder of TruDiagnostic, a commercial test system that measures DNA methylation.
What is measured is not your ability to methylate or not to methylate. Rather, it's measuring the actual expression of your DNA.
And, unlike conventional genetic tests such as the 23andMe, which is only carried out once, DNA methylation can be measured several times, because the actual expression of your DNA is modifiable and changes over time.
DNA methylation is a better marker of disease risk and healthy lifespan than telomere length, said Ryan Smith in our interview from 2022.

"If we ensured that telomere length never decreased in a cell, we would still see biological ageing linked to methylation.
If the age of methylation were to be reset, telomere length would still age. So there are two distinct processes.

In a recent study researchers looked at twins and tried to determine the extent to which these different markers influenced the difference in their ageing process. They found that around 2% of the variance in phenotypic ageing was due to telomere length, while about 35% of this variance was based on these epigenetic methylation clocks.
Thus, although both may be important, we believe that the DNA methylation clocks are clearly better."

DeepL.
And as you already know and practise to improve your health and quality of life,
read the rest in French here:
L'escroquerie des télomères

 

[dredger]

Having not read all the links above, the following may seem off-topic, but it is nonetheless interesting in the face of the current certainty that short telomeres are linked to disease, and long ones to longevity. According to this article, things don't seem quite so simple and straightforward.

Hello zak,
That's odd, my mother just sent me this link and i was going to post this here and ask +/- the same than you

I found this passage of one article of Mercola (posted by cinnamon in April 2022)
A lot of the work I'm proposing to do is tagging onto some of this work in regenerative medicine, where they were looking at the collagen, fibroblast and stem cell response to hyperbaric. A study came out in 2020 on telomeres, and looking at this potential, upwards of 20% increase in telomere length, especially in certain immune system cells.

Maybe the answer is that some telomeres reduce with age (naturally or not, also depending on your dna, diet, stress, ....) and that hbot ... has the capacity to restore them, re-inflate them to their original size ... or something like this (?) So this would not be an extension of the telomeres, but more a reparation of the ones which need to be fixed.

This would be a nice question to ask him (Mercola) back.

 

[Persej]

I found a very interesting article that puts some things in different perspective. As you probably know, oxygen is a prooxidant, which is usually thought of as a bad thing, but in some cases it can be a good thing. In which cases? Well, you would have to read this article in order to understand the process.

Resveratrol has gained tremendous interest owing to multiple reported health-beneficial effects. However, the underlying key mechanism of action of this natural product remained largely controversial. Here, we demonstrate that under physiologically relevant conditions major biological effects of resveratrol can be attributed to its generation of oxidation products such as reactive oxygen species (ROS). At low nontoxic concentrations (in general <50 µM), treatment with resveratrol increased viability in a set of representative cell models, whereas application of quenchers of ROS completely truncated these beneficial effects. Notably, resveratrol treatment led to mild, Nrf2-specific gene expression reprogramming. For example, in primary epidermal keratinocytes derived from human skin this coordinated process resulted in a 1.3-fold increase of endogenously generated glutathione (GSH) and subsequently in a quantitative reduction of the cellular redox environment by 2.61 mV mmol GSH per g protein. After induction of oxidative stress by using 0.78% (v/v) ethanol, endogenous generation of ROS was consequently reduced by 24% in resveratrol pre-treated cells. In contrast to the common perception that resveratrol acts mainly as a chemical antioxidant or as a target protein-specific ligand, we propose that the cellular response to resveratrol treatment is essentially based on oxidative triggering. In physiological microenvironments this molecular training can lead to hormetic shifting of cellular defense towards a more reductive state to improve physiological resilience to oxidative stress.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891584916303793

 

[Jacques]

WD40, Windex, and duct tape.

From a friend: Here's the basic for an engineering flowchart.

 

[Temperance]

Hello, I'm coming on here to give brief summary of my HBOT experience but also a warning of when things go wrong, which in my case was Sinus Squeeze, or acute Frontal Sinus Barotrauma.

I've done roughly around 40 sessions or so by now split up, with a 1.5ATA Zoy soft home chamber, and when I was using it consistently I noticed a marked improvement in healing from soft-tissue and join injuries, as well as recovering from work shifts (I work 24hrs, often physically demanding, and sometimes without enough sleep to recover properly.

Aside from that though, I recently had a concussion, and wanted to try a protocol for it which required 10 hours in five days. I did one session of an hour, which seemed to help with the brain fog and difficulty thinking and memory issues, and two days later I went to do another one (Wasn't great at sticking with the plan of 10 hours in five days...). During that second session, I didn't notice anything odd with pressurizing or depressurizing, but when I stepped out of the chamber and stood up, my sinuses began aching, getting to a 9/10 on a pain scale within minutes, and lasting about an hour. I managed to soothe it using a lymphatic drainage technique I learned years ago and needed ibuprofen to soothe the pain enough to sleep. I developed a fever over two days, and the pain was not going away. Got antibiotics on the third day, and on the 5th day (today) I went to a specialist. Luckily he didn't find any signs of tears or anything else in my sinuses (he used a fiber-optic scope which went all the way up, not fun) and wasn't sure why it took so long to heal, but said to monitor it and return if it gets worse. As of today, the pain began subsiding, so I am suspecting there was an infection secondary to the barotrauma.

I didn't feel congested going into the chamber, but a few days prior I did sneeze a few more times than usual, though it wasn't remarkable and was only that day. So, word of caution, try to avoid doing sessions if sinuses are clogged. I saw in some scuba diving pages about using decongestant sprays prior to going in to help, but haven't tried this yet. As for the concussion symptoms, I think HBOT did help significantly, unfortunately at a painful cost this time.

I am attaching photos of my setup. 1.5ATA Zoy soft chamber held up by a pvc frame and adjustable ropes.

 

[Jacques]

I have tried a couple of weeks ago an HBOT with 2 ATA which according to the dial went up to 100 kpa (if my memory of the unit is ok) for the session.

I have also tried during the same period another unit with 1.5 ATA which according to the dial went up to 50 kpa for the session.

Yesterday, I have tried another one with 1.3 ATA and according to the dial it went up to 7 kpa.

So my question, since so far I did not find anything about that, is what is the relation between the power of the HBOT in term of ATA and the kpa unit ?

 

[broken.english]

I have tried a couple of weeks ago an HBOT with 2 ATA which according to the dial went up to 100 kpa (if my memory of the unit is ok) for the session.

I have also tried during the same period another unit with 1.5 ATA which according to the dial went up to 50 kpa for the session.

Yesterday, I have tried another one with 1.3 ATA and according to the dial it went up to 7 kpa.

So my question, since so far I did not find anything about that, is what is the relation between the power of the HBOT in term of ATA and the kpa unit ?

The standard conversion is as follows:

1 ata to kpa = 101.325 kPa
1.3 ata to kpa = 131.7225
1.5 ata to kpa = 151,9875
2 ata to kpa = 202.65 kPa

However, many pressure meters that indicate kpa deduct the normal air pressure of 1 ata or atm from their reading. Hence the indication of 50 kpa for the 1.5 ata chamber.

The reading of 7kpa for the 1.3 ata chamber is crap.

 

[Jacques]

The standard conversion is as follows:

1 ata to kpa = 101.325 kPa
1.3 ata to kpa = 131.7225
1.5 ata to kpa = 151,9875
2 ata to kpa = 202.65 kPa

However, many pressure meters that indicate kpa deduct the normal air pressure of 1 ata or atm from their reading. Hence the indication of 50 kpa for the 1.5 ata chamber.

The reading of 7kpa for the 1.3 ata chamber is crap.

Thanks so much @broken.english.

 

[France]

I'll try to find here (HBOT) to continues that processus. I did't find for this moment. It'll come.

A friend's therapist gave me her name and we tried it yesterday.
We didn't feel anything during the hour-long treatment in HBOT. This HBOT can accommodate two seated people.

Yesterday, I have tried another one with 1.3 ATA and according to the dial it went up to 7 kpa. So my question, since so far I did not find anything about that, is what is the relation between the power of the HBOT in term of ATA and the kpa unit ?

If you see this, it's not normal, even if the person tells you the machine is working fine.



Thanks for the answer @broken.english

 

[Temperance]

A friend's therapist gave me her name and we tried it yesterday.
We didn't feel anything during the hour-long treatment in HBOT. This HBOT can accommodate two seated people.



If you see this, it's not normal, even if the person tells you the machine is working fine.

View attachment 77470

Thanks for the answer @broken.english

What did that dial start at? Was that an initial measurement before pressurizing or after?

 

[Jacques]

What did that dial start at? Was that an initial measurement before pressurizing or after?

The dial start at 0 and the 7 was after pressurizing the chamber.

 

[Joe]

The dial start at 0 and the 7 was after pressurizing the chamber.

Yeah, that chamber didn't pressurize properly. Perhaps the person left the release valve partly open. If you paid anything for that session, I'd ask for my money back or a new free session.

 

[Jacques]

Perhaps the person left the release valve partly open

No the release valve was closed. We did pay for that session but the person who allows us to go to her home is over 77 years old and I think that the seller of tha HBOT is not that honest. For them, knowing that their machine is not really an 1.3 ATA HBOT will be a shock.

 

[Joe]

No the release valve was closed. We did pay for that session but the person who allows us to go to her home is over 77 years old and I think that the seller of tha HBOT is not that honest. For them, knowing that their machine is not really an 1.3 ATA HBOT will be a shock.

If that's true, and they were sold a defective hbot, then the seller needs to be called out for it.