DR. WALKER

Hyperbaric Oxygen and Long COVID

What is it?

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is a therapy in which the patient is exposed to highly pressurized 100% pure oxygen in a controlled environment. It basically enhances the amount of oxygen absorbed in the body cells. This therapy is based on multiple sessions. Since COVID-19 patients show a decrease in oxygen perfusion, this therapy presents a potential solution for rectifying the body’s oxygen levels as well as possibly reversing the damage caused by inadequate supply of oxygen to the body tissues.

Therapeutic health benefits of HBOT:

The list of medical conditions HBOT is used for includes (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, n.d.):

• Carbon monoxide poisoning
• Gas gangrene
• Decompression sickness
• Cyanide poisoning
• Reverses damage induced by acute or traumatic
disruption of blood flow in arteries
• Compromised skin grafts
• Bone infections (osteomyelitis)
• Crush injuries
• Flesh-eating disease
• Gas embolism
• Chronic infection of actinomycosis
• Diabetic wounds that are unable to heal properly
• Delayed radiation injury
• Recent study concerning COVID-19 cases subjected to HBOT resulted in positive findings with respect to treatment of long-term COVID symptoms induced by hypoxia. The patient after undergoing HBOT showed improvement in his cardiopulmonary and cognitive functions (Aisha M. Bhaiyat, 2022).

Why does it work?

One aspect of COVID-19 particularly compromises the patient’s health at multiple levels, and that is the condition of hypoxia. Hypoxia simply means shortage of oxygen in the body or the body not being able to take up oxygen adequately because of which tissue damage in different organs occurs because of those tissues not receiving oxygen. With inadequate supply of oxygen in the body tissues, the tissues undergo damage, and the cells begin to die which leads to development of long-term COVID symptoms, that include impaired cognitive and cardiopulmonary function. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, therefore, comes forth as a highly potential treatment option for long COVID symptoms by enhancing the oxygen amount taken up in body tissues as was observed in a case study (Aisha M. Bhaiyat, 2022).

References

Aisha M. Bhaiyat, E. S. (2022). Hyperbaric oxygen treatment for long coronavirus disease-19: a case report. Journal of Medical Case Reports, 1-5.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. (n.d.). Retrieved from Johns Hopkins Medicine: