In our usual environment our bodies depend on the blood travelling through our arteries to deliver oxygen to our organs and body tissues. So if the blood supply to any part of our body is inadequate, that tissue will be damaged by the lack of oxygen. Some part of that tissue will die because it was starved of oxygen and the surrounding area will not function as well because the oxygen supply is inadequate.
When we treat with hyperbaric oxygen, because we are breathing 100% oxygen at increased atmospheric pressure, oxygen can be delivered to tissues without blood supply. So tissues that are deprived of oxygen because of an injury to the blood supply can now receive high levels of oxygen in spite of poor blood supply.
If we can provide oxygen to the deprived tissue, then we can hope to regain some function in that tissue. There may be some area of damage that may not respond because the oxygen deprivation was too severe or prolonged, but there will be a larger area that can recover to some degree, and with recovery we could expect to recover function of that tissue. We know that over a series of hyperbaric oxygen treatments, new blood vessels can develop to deliver oxygen to the tissue under ordinary daily conditions.
Copyright 2003 TERAPIA by Ottawa HyperBaric Oxygen Therapy
