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

[syldan]

We are looking into purchasing one also! I haven't had time to truly research the subject thoroughly so I will read this thread, and thank you all for bringing this wonderful possibility to mind. As a side note, I am 62 now, unvaxed, and I power walk 2 hours, 4 times a week, and it has given me great benefits. I guess what I am trying to say is that by combining better exercise and health choices, the Hyperbaric Chamber comes as a supplement. Thank you all for this precious input of information!

 

[Thor]

Thanks very much for putting this together. That's close to what I had figured I needed to do.

Yes, it is lengthy, but it is certainly painless and you don't have to swallow a lot of pills and I don't know of anything else that does what this therapy does.

I agree it looks very promising and am waiting for a 1.5 ATA chamber to be delivered.

Both Dr. Scott Scherr and Dr. Jason Sonners, who was interviewed by Dr. Mercola, point out that there's currently no published research that looks into how many of the effects and to what degree the effects of Dr. Shai Efrati's treatments at 2 ATA are carried over into an adjusted protocol with greater number of treatments at lower pressures.

However, in the US, the soft shell chambers only go up to 1.3 ATA and as most people on the Forum are getting 1.5 ATA we're still somewhat in between the current 2 ATA research and upcoming 1.3 ATA research.

Would it be an idea to do our own research/documentation of progress? We could have a Google Doc where we enter how many sessions we've had, at what pressure and the development in our symptoms. That could serve as a help for people who find this thread at a later time.

 

[Pierre]

Would it be an idea to do our own research/documentation of progress?

Why not? Keep in mind that in several cases people follow several therapies at the same time. So it might sometimes be difficult to isolate the specific effects of the HBOT.

 

[Jenn]

I had a little experience with HBOT and a lower back injury that I wanted to share. After a short break from the gym in June, I returned a few weeks ago and tried to make up for my lack of activity in the previous weeks but I was a little over-ambitious . I was doing my normal exercises but I didn't focus on my form as much as I could have and after one particular exercise as soon as I got up I knew I had done something to my lower back.

By the evening time I couldn't sit down on a chair for very long and the only comfortable position was in bed/ walking around slowly. I couldn't bend forward very far without a jarring feeling across my lower back, backward bending and twisting were also uncomfortable. After self-treating with DMSO, Vitamin C, and some other supplements/ remedies for two-ish days I bit the bullet and had a HBOT session. I say bit the bullet because I was a little apprehensive about the machine and how it would affect my ears (sometimes my left ear gets blocked and I don't like the popping sensation you get on planes).

Anyway, after my first session, there wasn't much immediate difference but by the evening time, I was feeling a little better and I had an increased range of motion. I had another session the following day and again there was a significant improvement, so much so that I skipped the session the next day. In retrospect, I probably should've had that session as it flared up when I tried to return to normal activities. So the day after that I had another session (I think that was my last one) and applied kinesiology tape and it basically resolved the issue. I tend to think that it may have been a muscular tightening and spasm with some joint/ disc involvement, but I may be wrong. I can't say for sure that the HBOT cured me, but it seemed to speed up the healing considerably, given that I couldn't really do much when I had my first session, compared to my third session.

The pressure thing wasn't really a problem for me as long as the pressuring down was nice and slow. Even though I can clear my ears myself I was still a little anxious so I took lots of chewing gum in with me and chewed on that when the HBOT was pressuring up and down and it was fine. If I did the session earlier on in the day I noticed I was a little tired, but if I did it later on in the afternoon/ evening I felt "wired but tired" which was interesting.

 

[anartist]

In this interview (at around 29 minutes), Scott Scherr, MD, who is one of the leading HBOT researchers and practitioners in the US, talks about Shai Efrati's protocol in Israel. According to Dr. Scherr, the protocol involves 60 sessions of 2 ATA pressure, where they take off the mask after 20 minutes and leave it off for 5 minutes and repeat. Each session is 90 minutes at pressure, which corresponds to 90 "pressure minutes" per session. I define a "pressure minute" as one minute at 2 atmosphere's pressure, equivalent of being at 10 meters (33 ft.) depth in water. The entire protocol gives a user 90 "pressure hours"

For those who have a 1.5 ATA system, they get only 0.5 "pressure minutes" per minute in the pressurised chamber. If we do a session of 60 minutes at 1.5 ATA (plus 10-15 minutes to reach full pressurisation), the sessions gives us 0.5 "presssure hours". So in order to get the equivalent "presssure time" as Dr. Efrati's protocol, we need to do 180 sessions at 60 minutes of pressure. Alternatively, we can increase the duration of each session to do 90 sessions with 2 hours at pressure or 127 sessions of 1.5 hours at pressure.

As I understand it, it's not necessary to get the same pressure exposure as Dr. Efrati to get some the benefits from HBOT. Dr. Scherr says that the "minium viable product" approach of estimating the minimum number of treatments to get sustainable benefits is 30 sessions. However, that does depend on age, general health conditions, diet, etc. For most people looking to get reverse ageing benefits Dr. Scherr refers to a study that has found that maximum senescent cell downregulation and telomere length contribution takes place at 30 sessions. He doesn't specify at what pressure and duration but as I understand it, it is implied that it's a similar setup as Dr. Efrati from Israel.

If these benefits follow a normal distribution, then half of the total benefits take place before the peak value and the remaining half take place after. So if you stop at the number of sessions when you reach peak effect, it means that you're only getting half the potential benefit.

All in all, that's a pretty lengthy protocol...

That is sort of what I have been doing. I have been adding up my 'pressure hours' as I have been completing sessions. If I do a 1.5 hours session at 1.5 ATA, I add 0.75 to my cumulating total. Right now I am at 10.75 'pressure hours' after 26 sessions, but that is because I started at 1.1 ATA the first week, adding 0.10 ATA per week until I reached 1.5 ATA. If I had set the pressure for 1.5 ATA for one hour from the start, then I would be at 13.0 pressure hours by now.
In order to get 60 'pressure hours' at 2.0ATA, I need to do 120 hour long sessions at 1,5ATA, so need to do 109.25 'pressure hours' more on top of the 10.75 I have done.
I am not sure where you get the 180 sessions from? If we want to reach 60 hours at one Atmosphere extra (1sea level + 1pressurized = 2 ATA) and the HBOT we have only gives us 0.5 extra pressure, then I would think we need to do (twice the time at half the pressure) 120 hours at 0.5 pressure to get an equivalent of 60 hours at 1.0 pressure. I find it easier to deal with the pressure we are adding, rather than including our atmospheric pressure.
Have I missed something @Thor ?

 

[Thor]

That is sort of what I have been doing. I have been adding up my 'pressure hours' as I have been completing sessions. If I do a 1.5 hours session at 1.5 ATA, I add 0.75 to my cumulating total. Right now I am at 10.75 'pressure hours' after 26 sessions, but that is because I started at 1.1 ATA the first week, adding 0.10 ATA per week until I reached 1.5 ATA. If I had set the pressure for 1.5 ATA for one hour from the start, then I would be at 13.0 pressure hours by now.
In order to get 60 'pressure hours' at 2.0ATA, I need to do 120 hour long sessions at 1,5ATA, so need to do 109.25 'pressure hours' more on top of the 10.75 I have done.
I am not sure where you get the 180 sessions from? If we want to reach 60 hours at one Atmosphere extra (1sea level + 1pressurized = 2 ATA) and the HBOT we have only gives us 0.5 extra pressure, then I would think we need to do (twice the time at half the pressure) 120 hours at 0.5 pressure to get an equivalent of 60 hours at 1.0 pressure. I find it easier to deal with the pressure we are adding, rather than including our atmospheric pressure.
Have I missed something @Thor ?

I entirely agree with your calculations of "pressure hours". The way I arrived at the 180 sessions is based on the difference between their protocols, that are 90 minutes at 2.0 ATA pressure which gives 1.5 ATA per session compared to the sessions we have been talking about on the Forum, that are 60 minutes at 1.5 ATA pressure (plus pressurisation time), which gives 0.5 ATA per session. Therefore, we need to do three times as many sessions to get the equivalent number of "pressure hours".

I hope it makes sense.

 

[dredger]

I entirely agree with your calculations of "pressure hours". The way I arrived at the 180 sessions is based on the difference between their protocols, that are 90 minutes at 2.0 ATA pressure which gives 1.5 ATA per session compared to the sessions we have been talking about on the Forum, that are 60 minutes at 1.5 ATA pressure (plus pressurisation time), which gives 0.5 ATA per session. Therefore, we need to do three times as many sessions to get the equivalent number of "pressure hours".

I hope it makes sense.

I would have calculated differently on my side, taking into consideration the 1 ATA. I would consider that if i do 60h at 2 ATA, i would take the image of driving a car at 200km/h (or miles, or mph ^^), this means a distance of 12000km. If i want to reach the same distance at 1,5 ATA, meaning 150km/h i will need 90 hours, not 120. Reason is that under 1 ATA, your body already heals itself, visibly not as well as it does with higher ATA (and more oxygen, but it's not the topic here), but it does, so i think it's more logical to take this into account.
This remains a detail anyway, what is important is to feel inside oneself once you can stop the treatment or to wait for the (positive) results of a medical check up.

But, the topic of which minimal pressure you need to be exposed to in order to allow your body to "fight" the maximum of pathologies HBOT can help to still remains uncomplete, at least this is what i have in mind.

As far as I understood, the lone number i read so far is from this article :
Difference Hard Soft Hyperbaric Chambers - National Hyperbaric
which states :
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

and from this excerpt from this book, already posted here more than 1, which states :
Soft inflatable bag chambers can only reach a maximum depth of 1.3 ATA internally, while the lowest protocol for hyperbaric medicine used by Physicians in the USA is 1.5 and above. You will never find an inflatable chamber in a hospital. In fact, studies show that oxygen cannot kill bacterial in pressures below 1.4 ATA and can in fact enhance the growth of some molds, bacteria and fungus.(Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine, page 143,4th Revised Edition, K.K. Jain, et al.)

But what about if, for instance, reaching 1,8 ATA renders/triggers another "effect" which then can heal a certain type of "wound" or pathology that couldn't be done with lower pressure, whatever the number of hours you spend ? Then another step at 2,2 ATA for instance, etc ... There are maybe a series of ... kind of steps to discover, ... or not ? I do not know in fact and i'm just wondering.

I already thought a lot of time on how to well formulate the question to the C's, and if i had just 1 question to ask, here's how i would formulate it :
Is there a minimal ATA pressure to reach for HBOT in order to obtain the maximum health benefits, or close to the maximum, of such type of treatment ?

 

[Thor]

I would have calculated differently on my side, taking into consideration the 1 ATA. I would consider that if i do 60h at 2 ATA, i would take the image of driving a car at 200km/h (or miles, or mph ^^), this means a distance of 12000km. If i want to reach the same distance at 1,5 ATA, meaning 150km/h i will need 90 hours, not 120. Reason is that under 1 ATA, your body already heals itself, visibly not as well as it does with higher ATA (and more oxygen, but it's not the topic here), but it does, so i think it's more logical to take this into account.
This remains a detail anyway, what is important is to feel inside oneself once you can stop the treatment or to wait for the (positive) results of a medical check up.

But, the topic of which minimal pressure you need to be exposed to in order to allow your body to "fight" the maximum of pathologies HBOT can help to still remains uncomplete, at least this is what i have in mind.

As far as I understood, the lone number i read so far is from this article :
Difference Hard Soft Hyperbaric Chambers - National Hyperbaric
which states :
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

and from this excerpt from this book, already posted here more than 1, which states :
Soft inflatable bag chambers can only reach a maximum depth of 1.3 ATA internally, while the lowest protocol for hyperbaric medicine used by Physicians in the USA is 1.5 and above. You will never find an inflatable chamber in a hospital. In fact, studies show that oxygen cannot kill bacterial in pressures below 1.4 ATA and can in fact enhance the growth of some molds, bacteria and fungus.(Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine, page 143,4th Revised Edition, K.K. Jain, et al.)

But what about if, for instance, reaching 1,8 ATA renders/triggers another "effect" which then can heal a certain type of "wound" or pathology that couldn't be done with lower pressure, whatever the number of hours you spend ? Then another step at 2,2 ATA for instance, etc ... There are maybe a series of ... kind of steps to discover, ... or not ? I do not know in fact and i'm just wondering.

I already thought a lot of time on how to well formulate the question to the C's, and if i had just 1 question to ask, here's how i would formulate it :
Is there a minimal ATA pressure to reach for HBOT in order to obtain the maximum health benefits, or close to the maximum, of such type of treatment ?

The quote from the Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine states that the soft chambers can’t go higher than 1.3 ATA is due to legal restriction in the US rather than the physical limitations of the soft chambers. Many here are getting 1.5 ATA chambers and I read that when they do production tests of 1.5 ATA chambers, they do it at 2 ATA. However, I think that was a comment on the Dr. Mercola YouTube interview, so it may not be correct.

You are entirely right, that there’s a grey area concerning what happens between 1.3 ATA and 2.0 ATA. And as 1.3 ATA is the legal limit in the US, it doesn’t seem likely, that there will be any US research done at 1.5 ATA (or between 1.3 ATA and 2.0 ATA, which, as I understand, is where the medical grade chambers start). However, what happens at levels above 1.5 ATA is almost irrelevant as hard shell chambers are economically out of reach for ordinary people. So the only things that we can influence is the duration of each session (it could be that some effects start after a certain time under continuous pressure) and the number of sessions.

 

[thorbiorn]

Thank you to the researchers of this interesting topic.

 

[Thor]

I would have calculated differently on my side, taking into consideration the 1 ATA. I would consider that if i do 60h at 2 ATA, i would take the image of driving a car at 200km/h (or miles, or mph ^^), this means a distance of 12000km. If i want to reach the same distance at 1,5 ATA, meaning 150km/h i will need 90 hours, not 120. Reason is that under 1 ATA, your body already heals itself, visibly not as well as it does with higher ATA (and more oxygen, but it's not the topic here), but it does, so i think it's more logical to take this into account.
This remains a detail anyway, what is important is to feel inside oneself once you can stop the treatment or to wait for the (positive) results of a medical check up.

...

I understand things a bit differently. If we use your example of driving a car at different speeds, then the pressure (ATA) would be the equivalent of speed (km/h). And the duration of the session would be equivalent of the duration of the drive. So we can say that normal 1 ATA is the same as 100 km/h. Then the Efrati protocol would be 200 km/h (2 ATA) and the soft chamber protocol would be 150 km/h (1.5 ATA).

In the Efrati protocol each session is 90 minutes (1.5 hours) at 200 km/h. So each session covers a distance of 300 kilometers. In the normal 1 ATA world, you’d have covered 150 km during the session, so the additional distance covered is 150 km/session kilometers. In the soft chamber protocol each session is 60 minutes (1 hour) at 150 km/h. So here the total distance covered in one session is 150. In the normal 1 ATA world you would have covered 100 kilometers during the session, so the additional distance covered is 50 kilometers per session.

So each Efrati session give you an additional 150 kilometers covered and each soft chamber sessions gives you an additional 50 kilometers covered. It follows, that if the Efrati protocol requires x sessions, then the soft chamber protocol requires 3x sessions to cover the same distance.

That being said, I only think these numbers should be taken as ball park estimates. As Dr. Scherr points out, many other things come into play such as general health level, detox, diet, age, etc.

 

[anartist]

The quote from the Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine states that the soft chambers can’t go higher than 1.3 ATA is due to legal restriction in the US rather than the physical limitations of the soft chambers. Many here are getting 1.5 ATA chambers and I read that when they do production tests of 1.5 ATA chambers, they do it at 2 ATA. However, I think that was a comment on the Dr. Mercola YouTube interview, so it may not be correct.

You are entirely right, that there’s a grey area concerning what happens between 1.3 ATA and 2.0 ATA. And as 1.3 ATA is the legal limit in the US, it doesn’t seem likely, that there will be any US research done at 1.5 ATA (or between 1.3 ATA and 2.0 ATA, which, as I understand, is where the medical grade chambers start). However, what happens at levels above 1.5 ATA is almost irrelevant as hard shell chambers are economically out of reach for ordinary people. So the only things that we can influence is the duration of each session (it could be that some effects start after a certain time under continuous pressure) and the number of sessions.

We actually were looking at a soft inflatable chamber from Austria, that can provide a pressure of 1.8 ATA or 2.0 ATA, but we thought they were too expensive. AHA Hyperbarics GmbH I didn't write down the cost, but it was about twice the Macy-pan cost I think.

 

[A Jay]

I entirely agree with your calculations of "pressure hours". The way I arrived at the 180 sessions is based on the difference between their protocols, that are 90 minutes at 2.0 ATA pressure which gives 1.5 pressure hours per session compared to the sessions we have been talking about on the Forum, that are 60 minutes at 1.5 ATA pressure (plus pressurisation time), which gives 0.5 pressure hours per session. Therefore, we need to do three times as many sessions to get the equivalent number of "pressure hours".

I hope it makes sense.

I've bolded the portion of your post that I changed to hopefully clear up some confusion.

Efrati uses twice the pressure for 1.5 times as long compared to us. Since 2 x 1.5 = 3 then we must do 3 times as many sessions to reach the same results.

I would have calculated differently on my side, taking into consideration the 1 ATA. I would consider that if i do 60h at 2 ATA, i would take the image of driving a car at 200km/h (or miles, or mph ^^), this means a distance of 12000km. If i want to reach the same distance at 1,5 ATA, meaning 150km/h i will need 90 hours, not 120.

To improve your analogy, 1.5 ATA should actually be 100 km/h as 1.5 ATA is half the pressure and would therefore go half as fast as a 2 ATA car that goes 200 km/h. We'll also need to ignore normal pressure since that has no bearing on what we're trying to figure out. Also, it's 60 sessions of 90 minutes (or 1.5 hours), not 60 hours of total time.

So, 60 driving sessions of 1.5 hours duration at 200 km/h would take you a distance of 18,000 km. To drive the same distance going 100 km/h would take you 180 hours. Which would mean 180 driving sessions of 1 hour duration at 100 km/h, 120 driving sessions of 1.5 hours duration at 100 km/h, or 90 driving sessions of 2 hours duration at 100 km/h.

Hope this helps you understand where Thor got his 180 sessions number from.

 

[stellar]

I am happy to say that I managed to pull together funds and for AU$6.5K should be receiving my Zoy chamber in about three weeks.

I have taken on board all of your advice and recommendations and experiences and have decided to jump in. It will probably be an interesting adventure.

As we all have different and unique combinations and health issues, I don't have any expectations except to 'wait and see' how my health changes and share what I experience. For now, I just pray the delivery goes well, with all the craziness around us.

 

[anartist]

I entirely agree with your calculations of "pressure hours". The way I arrived at the 180 sessions is based on the difference between their protocols, that are 90 minutes at 2.0 ATA pressure which gives 1.5 ATA per session compared to the sessions we have been talking about on the Forum, that are 60 minutes at 1.5 ATA pressure (plus pressurisation time), which gives 0.5 ATA per session. Therefore, we need to do three times as many sessions to get the equivalent number of "pressure hours".

I hope it makes sense.

Yes.
His protocol is 60 sessions of 1.5 hours each at 1.0 ATA extra is 90 pressure hours(60x1.5x1.0=90). So if we are doing 1 hour session at 0.5 ATA extra that means twice as many sessions, so 180 sessions, to get the 90 pressure hours.(180x1.0x0.5=90)
For my part I did a one hour session yesterday and a 1.5 hour session today, so it would be difficult for me to go by the number of sessions, especially as I often do 1.5 hour sessions now, depending on the time available. It is easier for me to add to my cumulative total. 0.5 pressure hours for a 1 hour session, or 0.75 pressure hours for a 1.5 hour session, or 1.0 pressure hours if I ever do a 2 hour session. I am aiming to do 90 pressure hours, and I'm at 12 pressure hours now. I was aiming for 120 pressure hours, but I think I got the math mixed up!

 

[88LS]

I am happy to say that I managed to pull together funds and for AU$6.5K should be receiving my Zoy chamber in about three weeks.

I have taken on board all of your advice and recommendations and experiences and have decided to jump in. It will probably be an interesting adventure.

As we all have different and unique combinations and health issues, I don't have any expectations except to 'wait and see' how my health changes and share what I experience. For now, I just pray the delivery goes well, with all the craziness around us.

Good on you! I also got the Zoy chamber, being shipped to SA 7 August, can’t wait to do some sessions at home!