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

[anartist]

Saturated oxygen under pressure is a powerful tool so knowing how this tool can cause harm is important. I have not noticed anyone being harmed by this therapy but being aware of its potential harmful affects will keep us safe. I am sure that taking antioxidants is protecting the body from free radical cell damage, especially of the alveoli and terminal bronchi, were the magic takes place. I also suspect that exercising afterward would flush any free radicals out of the lungs and move the oxygen saturated fluid deeper into the bones.

Exercise creates free radicals. from Mercola: Antioxidants are substances that help protect the body against cell damage from free radicals. The body produces free radicals as a part of normal metabolism, after exposure to some environmental pollutants and exercise.3 At high levels they can damage cells and genetic material.
The production of free radicals is a benefit of exercise(hormesis), just as the production of free radicals from HBOT is a benefit as it upregulates our bodies own production of anti-oxidants. I am leery of taking too much Vitamin C around my Hyperbaric sessions as I am thinking I may be short-circuiting my bodies own production of anti-oxidants. At some point in the future I may not have access to Vitamin C, so having my body capable of creating anti-oxidants would be a good thing. I regard it as similar to being metabolically flexible. Before going Keto, I was in sugar burning mode. Now I can burn either sugar or fat, which is much more flexible.

 

[anartist]

Well, it sure takes awhile to pressure up, but as long as it works, that's what counts.

I'm glad ours hits operating pressure at about 9 minutes.

Yes, same here for our Macy-pan. Probably the air blower is higher powered.

 

[Seamus]

@seek10 if they're already sending replacement parts can they send whatever is needed to help it get up to pressure faster?

 

[seek10]

@seek10 if they're already sending replacement parts can they send whatever is needed to help it get up to pressure faster?

They have a new unit that is combination of compressor and cooler together that can reach the pressure in 7 or 8 minutes (Thor mentioned in his post). She mentioned that yesterday again. But I didn't ask what it involved as I want to get to the bottom of the current issue. I will pursue that option.

 

[Thor]

They have a new unit that is combination of compressor and cooler together that can reach the pressure in 7 or 8 minutes (Thor mentioned in his post). She mentioned that yesterday again. But I didn't ask what it involved as I want to get to the bottom of the current issue. I will pursue that option.

Yes, they have a fast-inflate version. The normal version has a combined compressor/oxygen concentrator in one unit. The fast-inflate unit has this split into two separate units: one compressor and one oxygen concentrator. I think the price difference is about 500 USD. Also, the unit weighs more, so the shipping costs to Europe went up by 150 USD.

Having two separate units also takes up more space and adds some power consumption. The system I ordered has a total power consumption of 550 watt for the oxygen concentrator, 480 watt for the compressor and 400 watt for the cooler. That's a total of 1430 watts. If a session is 15 minutes of warm-up and 1 hour under pressure, then each sessions uses 1.8 kilo watt hours. In Denmark that amounts to about 1.7 EUR per session just for the electricity with today's energy prices. So if you're having people come over to your house for sessions, that's an additional expense to keep in mind.

 

[Thor]

I am leery of taking too much Vitamin C around my Hyperbaric sessions as I am thinking I may be short-circuiting my bodies own production of anti-oxidants. At some point in the future I may not have access to Vitamin C, so having my body capable of creating anti-oxidants would be a good thing. I regard it as similar to being metabolically flexible. Before going Keto, I was in sugar burning mode. Now I can burn either sugar or fat, which is much more flexible.

I've been having these thoughts as well. It's fine to take higher doses vitamin C for a while while having a cold. But if I am going to do 180 sessions that's a lot of vitamin C on a continued basis.

I have been corresponding with the sales director of a company that produces high-quality liposomal vitamin C (bulk sales only). He referred to the book "Curing the incurable - Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins" by Thomas E. Levy, where it's stated:

"A much smaller oral dose of liposome encapsulated vitamin C ( 5 to 10 grams) often results in a clearly superior clinical response than a much larger dose of vitamin C given intravenously ( 25 to 100 grams)."
Chapter 5 page 442, Summary.

This means that that liposomal vitamin C is 5-10 times more efficient compared to intravenously administered vitamin C. So if I take 3 grams of liposomal vitamin C daily that would be the equivalent of 15-30 grams of vitamin C intravenously. That sound like too much to do five days a week over a 8 month period.

I'll try to find out some more on this.

 

[Thor]

We got our( mine/Seamus) Zoy-tech 1.5 unit with external pressure gauge ( for 110V) and I was testing the unit and observed some things which other people who ordered similar configuration (@Thor , @aimarok and may be more ) to be aware.

• @sid and @liam1310 has 1.5 ATA unit for ( 220V and no external pressure gauge ) and their unit reaches max pressure in 15 minutes
• Ours ( 110V and with external pressure gauge) reaches max. pressure in around 22 min's as they told before( 20-25 min). That's OK . I asked for some clarifications of the difference and hopefully we get some.
• Design Issue with CURRENT external pressure gauge configuration:
  • They put the external pressure gauge at the same port as that of internal pressure gauge. ( Vertical photo is Laims, horizontal one is ours).
  • View attachment 62710View attachment 62711
  • I don't know how these gauges work, but when I connect both the guage's (external and internal) , I need to SUM UP both the readings to get actual pressure. This is not practicable for me who is alone. They say I need to put only pressure gauge at a time after the fact.
    • If I put external pressure gauge alone, it reaches max in around 22 min. But I can't see reading as I am inside.
    • If I put internal pressure gauge alone, it reaches max in 30 minutes and can see. But they say, I need to replace the cap (without hole for external pressure guage) outside. But they didn't include cap without hole in the shipment. They say they will send separately.
• Well, I ended up testing different configurations of pressure gauges ( Internal/external) and air cooler( with or with out ) burning lot of midnight oil ( China is 12 hrs ahead of usa). It took some time to find out my air cooler is not working as intended. So I was hoping they will send a replacement for it.

@Thor , @aimarok

You may want to insist on testing, share the results before they ship. This is to avoid the mistakes they did on ours and possible disappointment for you. I These issues are not show stoppers ( given the price competitiveness) , but can be avoided.


On the other side I had 5 Approx. 40 minute sessions as I was still in Testing of the unit mode. They have default time settings of ( 60 min, 90, 120 min). It actually doing some thing

• I have some oven burns that still in wet pinkish stage when I started therapy. I was pleasantly surprised how fast they are healing.
• I observed being very calm after few sessions. I had been in anxious state with ruminations of list to do for a year, which changes all the time. Some how anxiety part dramatically reduced.
• tiredness and lots of sleep ( as every body else observed).

Seek10, thanks so much for this heads up. The post was very timely .

I just made the final payment earlier today as my unit is done and, according to Winni they have done 4 separate quality tests. I asked her to confirm that it's possible to read the actual pressure from either the internal gauge or the external one. So if the pressure is 1.5 ATA, then both gauges will show 1.5 ATA. Furthermore, I asked her to confirm that my chamber would reach 1.5 ATA in 10-12 minutes with both gauges installed, with only the internal gauges installed and with only the external gauge installed.

It does seem like they've changed their product line on the website. They've added the 1.5 ATA soft shell chamber as a separate product here. It is now standard with both internal and external pressure gauges. So you were a trailblazer with two gauges .

My chamber is the large version (225 cm x 80 cm) , so the volume to be pressurised is 55 % larger than the standard size (190 cm x 70 cm). So I really need the fast inflate version.

 

[aimarok]

Yes, they have a fast-inflate version. The normal version has a combined compressor/oxygen concentrator in one unit. The fast-inflate unit has this split into two separate units: one compressor and one oxygen concentrator. I think the price difference is about 500 USD. Also, the unit weighs more, so the shipping costs to Europe went up by 150 USD.

I got this image over email. New chambers seem to be produced from white material now.

 

[Thor]

I got this image over email. New chambers seem to be produced from white material now.
View attachment 62735

Yes, the 1.5 ATA model I ordered is white. I could have had a blue version but that would have to wait for the next production run and I'd rather have the unit sooner. I ordered it with a grey cover as I need to place it in my attic and I didn't want it to get too dirty. They sent me this picture of my unit.

 

[aimarok]

I ordered it with a grey cover as I need to place it in my attic and I didn't want it to get too dirty.

Actually white material has some benefit despite being prone to collect dirt. It should pass more light inside the chamber which is handy if you are going to read inside. Here is an image of Zoy Tech sitting chamber made from the same material.

 

[Pierre]

"A much smaller oral dose of liposome encapsulated vitamin C ( 5 to 10 grams) often results in a clearly superior clinical response than a much larger dose of vitamin C given intravenously ( 25 to 100 grams)."

I wonder why.

 

[Thor]

I wonder why.

I haven't read the book so I can only speculate. With the liposomal delivery mechanism all the vitamin C gets into the cell. So it would seem that a lot of the vitamin C in the blood never makes it into the cell. But that still doesn't explain why...

 

[NewEngland Seeker]

Exercise creates free radicals. from Mercola: Antioxidants are substances that help protect the body against cell damage from free radicals. The body produces free radicals as a part of normal metabolism, after exposure to some environmental pollutants and exercise.3 At high levels they can damage cells and genetic material.
The production of free radicals is a benefit of exercise(hormesis), just as the production of free radicals from HBOT is a benefit as it upregulates our bodies own production of anti-oxidants. I am leery of taking too much Vitamin C around my Hyperbaric sessions as I am thinking I may be short-circuiting my bodies own production of anti-oxidants. At some point in the future I may not have access to Vitamin C, so having my body capable of creating anti-oxidants would be a good thing. I regard it as similar to being metabolically flexible. Before going Keto, I was in sugar burning mode. Now I can burn either sugar or fat, which is much more flexible.

Very reasonable thinking. I did a post graduate in nutrition and noticed over the 3 decades nutritional facts come and go. After careful self observations I have come to the conclusion that what I know about the body is infinitesimal to what I do not know.

 

[Chad]

Actually white material has some benefit despite being prone to collect dirt. It should pass more light inside the chamber which is handy if you are going to read inside. Here is an image of Zoy Tech sitting chamber made from the same material.

At least in the soft shell chamber from Macy Pan, we've used a USB chargeable light with a clip for reading, and a USB fan with a clip to keep it cool. Both items can be clipped on the inner metal skeleton.

 

[seek10]

I just made the final payment earlier today as my unit is done and, according to Winni they have done 4 separate quality tests. I asked her to confirm that it's possible to read the actual pressure from either the internal gauge or the external one. So if the pressure is 1.5 ATA, then both gauges will show 1.5 ATA. Furthermore, I asked her to confirm that my chamber would reach 1.5 ATA in 10-12 minutes with both gauges installed, with only the internal gauges installed and with only the external gauge installed.

1. External and internal gauges: . In my case they put position of gauges at the same location
. Deep inside threading is for inner gauge. I am not sure how

The rep (she is not technical keep on saying engineer said so and so ). Now I am thinking they know this unit has design issue, keep on dragging me to do this or do that. Finally I have to ask does this unit work with both the gauges. she mentioned Engineer said NO. It only works with one gauge. It doesn't even work correctly with inner gauge alone. I have to tell them what their problem is for their acknowledgement.
@Thor
In your unit, see the elongated white patch port. If my guess is correct, your inner gauge is next to outer guage on the same white patch(port). Probably they fixed it. That is why I want to warn you guys.

I got this image over email. New chambers seem to be produced from white material now.
View attachment 62735

@aimarok ,
See unit on the left has a small cooler and right one is bigger one. you seems to have got the fast inflate one. From the above 2nd picture, it was not clear whether location of the pressure gauges are at the same spot or next to each other like in Thor's picture( my guess any way).

2. Pressure timing: This is another confusing situation. I keep hearing different things. When I asked her, she said this unit reduces time to 7 to 8 minutes. she said "oxygen concentrator alone and air compressor combined with air cooler." -

I am not sure whether it is same as what you said here. is cooler and combined in the compressor?. It looks like it.

Yes, they have a fast-inflate version. The normal version has a combined compressor/oxygen concentrator in one unit. The fast-inflate unit has this split into two separate units: one compressor and one oxygen concentrator. I think the price difference is about 500 USD. Also, the unit weighs more, so the shipping costs to Europe went up by 150 USD.

Added to that cooler not pumping enough to fill the chamber. there are other observations too, I will post later.

It does seem like they've changed their product line on the website. They've added the 1.5 ATA soft shell chamber as a separate product here. It is now standard with both internal and external pressure gauges. So you were a trailblazer with two gauges .

But I am not sure whether I can make 2 gauges work for my unit though. It looks I have a long battle ahead.