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Alternative Hyperbaric Chamber Use 41

Posted by timothy from the parents-cautioned-not-a-toy dept.
jtkooch writes "Most people associate the use of hyperbaric chambers with treatment of 'the Bends,' an affliction usually caused by the rapid depressurization of the body when SCUBA divers return to the surface too quickly. Masslive.com has an article showing that hyperbaric chambers along with oxygen can be used to treat other medical issues like the loss of a limb, gangrene, and tissue injuries suffered during radiation treatments for cancer."
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Alternative Hyperbaric Chamber Use More

Alternative Hyperbaric Chamber Use

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  • ...that's what they were ORIGINALLY for! (Score:3, Informative)

    by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @04:51PM (#5321663)
    Hyperbaric chambers were originally used to treat various random illnesses. I don't remember if they were O2 regulated, or just compressed air, but the concept has been around for a long time... ...everything old is new again.

  • Another use for hyperbaric (Score:3, Funny)

    by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Monday February 17, 2003 @04:56PM (#5321692) Homepage Journal
    If you're inside a hyperbaric chamber, it's difficult to watch the latest Michael Jackson special on Fox.
    • I was going to raise the question of wether hyberbaric chambers might cure, or maybe even promote, pedophelia. Glad someone else kinda beat me to the punch, so I don't have to post it cold, can just add it to the thread.

    • Re:Another use for hyperbaric (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's funny you mention Michael Jackson. He's been in these chambers a few times. [hcrc.org]

      Michael Jackson and HBO

      HBO appeared in a tabloid report showing a picture of Michael Jackson in a monoplace HBO chamber alleging that he slept in it to retard the aging process. The real story was that it was a publicity stunt. Jackson was about to embark upon a concert tour, and his publicist was looking for a good visual. Knowing Jackson had been treated with HBO therapy after the accidental burns he suffered while filming a Pepsi Cola commercial, the agent suggested that Jackson be wheeled out onto the stage in a hyperbaric chamber. Jackson subsequently either had his picture taken in such a chamber, or had a composite photo prepared for publicity purposes. There was no truth to the claim that he slept in such a device. Experts say that breathing 100% oxygen would cause severe toxicity to the lungs. (2)

      • I think the real story was that he was in a hospital or some kind of medical research place for a visit, to promote medical research or whatnot. He looks over and sees the hyperbaric chamber, and thinks "Hey, that's pretty cool." So he climbs inside to see what it was like, and somebody snapped a picture and concocted a story purely through speculation.

        So instead of actually seeking treatment, he climbed inside because he thought it would be cool (regardless whether or not he'd received treatment for burns in the past)...
    • As if its not already difficult to watch.

  • Duh... (Score:2)

    by GypC ( 7592 )

    Many hospitals have had HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) units for years... they are particularly popular for treating non-healing wounds in diabetics.

  • I have heard of this procedure being used in Russia from at least 10 years ago. And it wasn't relatively new then, I'm assuming. They used it for post-surgery healing and as well for the reasons mentioned in the posted article.
    They also used ice-cooling procedures to almost freeze patients undergoing intense heart surgeries, and that was around the same time.
  • Although this seems kinda new I've heard of this kind of treatment being used by pro footbal franchises for several years now.
    It pays to quickly fix up that bruise or contusion on your star player...
    rather than paying him $10,000/second to sit on his ass.

    ahh pro sports!

  • Used for Lyme too. (Score:5, Informative)

    by cornice ( 9801 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @05:56PM (#5322011)
    My mother suffers from chronic Lyme and has tried most of the latest experimental treatments for Lyme - bar one - hyperbaric chamber. She does have a friend, a young woman who suffers severely from the effects of Lyme, who has undergone hyperbaric treatment. It seems to be the only treatment that works for her. It's usually combined with potent IV antibiotics. Google can help you find more on this [google.com].

    Also, I was surprised by the folowing statement from the article:


    While the chambers are useful, they aren't cheap. One of the chambers at Baystate cost $130,000. The only other medical facility in Massachusetts with a chamber is Massachusetts General Hospital. Norwalk (Conn.) Hospital also has one.

    $130,000 is cheap for a medical device.

  • I thought it was metabolism rate, not oxygen (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MeerCat ( 5914 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @06:19PM (#5322126) Homepage
    The deeper you dive, the quicker you use your air - I thought (note, not claiming I'm right, just asking really) that a part of this was because as the pressure increases your metabolism speeds up, your body effectively ticks over at a much faster rate (I know I'm always hungry after a deep dive, much more so than after a shallow dive).

    Hence the (ahem, very dangerous...) practice of diving deep to clear a hangover - you shouldn't dive with a hangover for lots of reasons, but I know dive-masters who go deep with a hangover. 5 or 10 minutes at 30 metres and they're just taken the equivalent of an hour or two's recovery (or they're in such deep shit that the hangover is no longer a major concern).

    If true, this would explain quicker healing at pressure - whereas the explanation about "dissolving more oxygen" sounds rather dubious to me...

    Anyone with a proper understanding in a position to confirm/refute/discuss ??

    --
    T
    • Nope. The regulator gives you more air the deeper you go because you need the pressure to displace the weight of the water squeezing your lungs. Your body does not take advantage of the extra oxygen to any significant degree. Or at least that is what my diving instructor said.

      You DO get additional dissolved gasses in your bloodstream. The additional nitrogen can bubble up in your blood like soda fizz if you ascend too quickly. That is bad.

      Your heart rate and breathing increase underwater, but that may be due to increased exertion, nervousness or just the sheer joy of it.

      Any diving instructors please feel free to correct or refine this.

      -j
      • OK, I will ;) You are correct in the most common case: a "recreational diver" defined as: breathing air, not exceeding 130 fsw, etc. etc.
        However, mixed gas (Nitrox) and technical diving (well beyond 200 fsw) are pretty common nowadays, even amongst divers who would traditionally been considered recreational divers (esp. Nitrox).
        You mentioned the problems that occur when inert gasses dissolve in the tissues (e.g. nitrogen, helium, etc). But there are, in fact, problems associated with O2.
        Commonly called "Oxygen toxicity", it has 2 forms: pulmonary and CNS. Pulmonary affects the lining of the lungs, and is only relevant to chamber divers, commercial divers, etc. due to the very long exposure required to get it. CNS toxicity is a problem for rec. divers

        here is how it works: you can calculate the partial pressures (remember Dalton's Law?) of each of the gasses in your bloodstream by multiplying your ambient pressure by the fraction of the gas in your breathing mix. So at sea level (14.7 psi/1 atm) your body is under about .2 pp O2. so, at 99 fsw (4 atm), your body is under .8 atm pp O2.

        Now imagine that you are breathing a gas mix other than air, say, 32% O2/balance N2. at 99 fsw, your pp O2 would then be 1.28.

        Exceed 1.2 pp O2, you are at risk. Exceed 1.6, you are at high risk. Exceed 2.0, you are most likely dead. (Grand Mal seizures tend to interfere with your breathing from a regulator)
    • I don't instruct anymore, but...

      You use more air from your tank because of the depth/pressure. Your oxygen consumption speeds up because you use more air. Each breath takes more exertion; the air is denser and is more viscous, so it takes a lot more effort to breathe. Ever notice how, on those 30m+ dives your chest hurts afterwards? That's the intracostal muscles; you normally hardly use them, but the density of the air at 30m gives them a workout.

      This is not, of course the only reason. Increased O2 use is also often due to apprehnsion over the depth, darness, etc. You also use more because a 30m dive is usually colder than a 10m dive. Cold dives are always more strenuous.

      Hyperbaric treatments are based on increased O2 dissolved. Burn victims suffer from hemolysis, and can't trasnsport O2 in the normal way. Increased pressure helps this. Infection with gangrene & similar bugs is dependent on an anoxic environment.

      Diving deep to cure a hangover? I have no comment......but I've (ahem) heard it works. I have no idea why though. Cold dives have the same effect.

      • I don't instruct anymore, but... ... you sound more convincing than me. Makes sense now I think about it this morning...

        Diving deep to cure a hangover? I have no comment......but I've (ahem) heard it works. I have no idea why though.

        Never tried it myself - I use N-Acetyl Cysteine and rehydration drinks like IsoStar to avoid a hangover (seems easier and more repeatable), but maybe it's just dive-master machismo...

        Thanks for the reply

        --
        T

    • that a part of this was because as the pressure increases your metabolism speeds up

      Primarily, you use up your air at depth faster because at higher pressure, there are fewer lungfulls of air in your tank. If it were just for the oxygen, you could hold each breath longer, but you also need to eliminate carbon dioxide. So, overall, you use the oxygen that's in your tank less efficiently at depth. The way to fix that is with rebreathers, which remove the CO2.

      Hence the (ahem, very dangerous...) practice of diving deep to clear a hangover - you shouldn't dive with a hangover for lots of reasons, but I know dive-masters who go deep with a hangover. 5 or 10 minutes at 30 metres and they're just taken the equivalent of an hour or two's recovery (or they're in such deep shit that the hangover is no longer a major concern).

      Hangover is caused by acetaldehyde. I suspect that if diving helps it, it may be because it's exhaled faster. Higher oxygen concentrations don't seem like a very plausible way of speeding up its normal elimination (which is via oxidation through ALDH).

      If true, this would explain quicker healing at pressure - whereas the explanation about "dissolving more oxygen" sounds rather dubious to me...

      Increased O2 availability is the correct reason for the benefits of hyperbaric treatment for many diseases (for "the bends", it is elimination of bubbles).

      If you want to speed up your metabolism, the best way is to exercise. However, the benefits of that are more long term.

      • Seems to me it's only on the slower stories like these that we seem to get back to the intelligent posts from people who know what they're talking about - does this make me an old fart or what ??

        Cheers for the info, I offer my hangover knowledge in return. A hangover is (for me) a mixture of the acetaldehyde/formic-acid poisoning from breaking down alcohol, general dehydration, and the dehydration effects on the nerve endings in the head. Following the advice such as this [newscientist.com] , following a big night I try to remember to drink a sports rehydration drink like IsoStar, a bit of ibuprofen to reduce swelling and the "blocked nose" effect, and some n-acetyl cysteine to help the liver break down what's there. If I take all these BEFORE going to bed, I'll sleep right thru, but without it I'll be up for a wee and feeling-like-shite around 4am, in which case I can try and take it then.

        Done properly it's very strange as you wake up in the morning with all the "ohmigod did I really do/say that" memories, but without the punishing headache, nausea and general hangover, but possibly still feeling slightly drunk (the latter part I think always happens, but is normally masked by the other sensations).

        YMMV, but as I get older I'm finding rehydration a miracle cure for all sorts of ills... and no, drinking plain water doesn't do it.

        If you want to speed up your metabolism, the best way is to exercise. However, the benefits of that are more long term.

        Very true, too...

        Cheers

        --
        T

  • I hate to be the bearer of bad news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by heldlikesound ( 132717 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @06:25PM (#5322161) Homepage
    But if you lose a limb, ain't no chamber gonna bring it back...

  • Oddly enough, I've got one just down the street from me. I thought it odd that there would be a private hyperbaric clinic -- Vancouver (Canada) has lots of divers, but how many come up with the bends?

    To be honest, I can't claim to know which hospitals around town have them, but to have (at least) one in a little clinic just down the street is pretty cool.


  • So if the air is denser, then it should have more thermal mass, and should provide better cooling.
    Anybody tried OC'ing in one of those chambers?
    • So if the air is denser, then it should have more thermal mass, and should provide better cooling. Anybody tried OC'ing in one of those chambers?

      With all that extra oxygen, won't your Pentium just catch fire quicker?
  • I hear that you can use the Hyperbolic Time Chamber whenever somebody is about to destroy the earth and you need to get all trained up to fight them!

    Oh, wait...

  • I worked in the world's largest chamber (Score:5, Informative)

    by young-earth ( 560521 ) <slash-young-earth&bjmoose,com> on Monday February 17, 2003 @11:06PM (#5323381)
    In 1971-73, I worked at Saint Barnabas [sbhcs.com] which had the world's largest hyperbaric facility, made by Linde. They had two 12 foot in diameter, 45 foot long chambers side by side. Each cylinder had three sub-chambers. The front of each could go to 100 PSI relative (about 225 feet of salt water equivalent). The other two chambers in each could do IIRC 60 PSI relative, but were usually only cranked to 60 feet or about 33.7 PSI relative.

    Then patients had an Oxygen mask put on, and by Henry's Law [ohiou.edu] the amount of gas dissolving in the bloodstream is proportional to the amount of gas in the air in the lungs. So they had 100% oxygen at 3x surface pressure, or about 15x the usual amount of oxygen in the lungs. This meant that hemoglobin was temporarily unnecessary, as the dissolved oxygen in the blood was more significant than the amount carried by hemoglobin.

    This led to some amazing things. Carbon Monoxide poisoning was cured nearly instantly. Stroke victims, paralyzed on one side of their body, were wheeled in to the chamber and walked out 90 minutes later. Once an entire kidney transplant under hyperbaric conditions was done (donor and recipient each in one cylinder), the amount of surgical shock incurred was vastly reduced.

    Burn victims were helped immensely, as the hypoxia/edema cycle was eliminated. Gas Gangrene, an anaerobic infection (claustridium welchi I think), was rapidly treated using this with no drugs.

    But the hospital eventually tore it out - it was unused by the doctors. There were over 600 doctors on staff, but only a couple ever used it. We guessed part of the problem was it wasn't advertised in JAMA, nor was it covered in med school as a topic. Whatever the reason, it is sadly not there any more.

  • Been in a couple of these. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Neck_of_the_Woods ( 305788 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @11:13PM (#5323425) Journal


    I did some network and server work for one the the largest chamber makers in the US. They sent them all over the world and let me tell you it is very interesting just to see how they work and how they are put together.

    These things are not cheap either. The last one I saw being made they where telling me it had already been sold for over 800,000 bucks and took about 4 months to make from the ground up.

  • Once again, /. isn't keeping up with the times. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    While I realize this site ain't exactly a medical journal, this is really old news. It fails to gain acceptance in the wider medical community because physicians cling to their orthodoxy the same way a priest might. Sad really, but we're only human after all.

  • Hyperbaric chambers (Score:3, Informative)

    by DrBobcf ( 632403 ) <bobcf@yahoo.com> on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @08:34AM (#5325169)
    Problem is, a lot of the chambers have been dismantled. They are large, expensive, and not that common. Most hospitals don't have them. They don't regrow limbs as heldlikesound (132717)seems to think, they promote faster healing with less pain. They DO reverse some of the effects of gangrene and diabetic necrosis. They are also usefull in preventing bone necrosis in cancer radiation therapy patients. As for overclocking - Rememeber the Apollo fire? I'm dating myself. The computer would need to be sheilded. The temp is not cold, just cool.
    • funny, being a dive instructor I always thought that elevated pressures caused bone necrosis. In fact, I am sure they named a condition for it, dybaric osteonecrosis.

      brandon
  • If you used something like this too frequently, wouldn't it increase the amount of free-oxygen radicals wandering around your bloodstream causing damage?
  • are some of the reasons that hyperbaric chambers are not widely used.

    Another reason is that their usefulness is quite limited.

    People who work in pressurised environments risk the bone in their hip joints dying, probably due to the formation of small bubbles blocking the blood vessels. It is bad enough news if you are building a bridge, but to work as a surgeon for a prolonged period of a creer there would have to be vry clear evidence of effectiveness. Which is lacking.

    In particular, it doesn't matter what pressure of Oxygen you apply to the outside of a solid organ (someone mentioned kidneys) unless there is a blood flow through it the transfer of Oxygen to the cells is going to be negligibly affected.

    And until the oran is removed, the ordinary blood flow is quite adequate.

    • Nope (Score:3, Informative)

      by Breakerofthings ( 321914 )
      You are referring to dysbaric osteonecrosis ... and it is a form of decompression sickness (Caisson's Disease). Problem is, it is caused my nitrogen, not strictly pressure. So those working under pressure, or being treated, who are breathing oxygen, are at no risk for this malady.

      Furthermore, it takes *years* of significant exposure to cause this

      (Significant == depth and long duration)

      Fire is a risk, but not a HUGE one, because multi-seat chambers are filled with air, not oxygen; the person receiving treatment breathes O2; the tenders? depends on who operates the chamber ...

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