What is HBOT?
What is Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)?
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) involves a person being in a pressurized chamber and breathing air or oxygen enriched air.
HBOT has over a 350-year history as a tool used for a variety of health and wellness goals. It gained prominence as the treatment for the bends in scuba diving. In the USA hyperbaric oxygen therapy is used for 15 FDA approved conditions. While there are over 150 internationally approved conditions that HBOT has been shown to be beneficial and effective.
Research is finding benefits of HBOT in chronic illness, injury repair and regeneration, sports performance and recovery, longevity and wellness.
Why Oxygen?
Oxygen is the most important nutrient for us to survive and thrive. You can survive weeks to months without food. Days to weeks without water. But only minutes without Oxygen. On average your body consumes six pounds of oxygen per day. Your Brain is 2% of your body weight but consumes 20% of the oxygen you consume per day.
Oxygen is an ingredient that the body requires for virtually every process that the body can do. Under normal environments you are limited to how much you can carry and provide to your cells.
HBOT helps break through those limitations and allows the body to take a tremendous amount more oxygen than what is possible under normal conditions.
Why Pressure?
There is an atmosphere that surrounds us here on earth. That atmosphere has a pressure. When we breath that atmospheric pressure is what allows us to pull oxygen out of the air and absorb it into our body.
When a person goes to altitude, like on top of a mountain, it gets harder to breath. Often it is said that there is less oxygen at altitude. Thus, making it harder to breath. In actuality there is the same percentage of oxygen in the air at altitude as there is at sea level. The difference is that there is a decrease in pressure when you go to altitude. Thus, there is a decrease in the driving force that pushes oxygen into your body.
Hyperbaric is the opposite of going above sea level and decreasing the driving force. In a hyperbaric oxygen chamber we are mimicking below sea level pressures. Thus, increasing the pressure and increasing the driving force of oxygen into your body.
Wellness tailored to you.
At Bucks County Hyperbarics, we tailor each protocol to your individual needs. Our approach combines thoughtful assessment with therapies grounded in clinical research.
From Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy to other advanced modalities, every service we offer is chosen with purpose—designed to support your health goals through science-based care.
10 Primary Benefits of HBOT
Anti-microbial/microbiome balancing (reduction in anaerobic pathogens and increase in aerobic probiotics)
Anti-inflammatory (reduction of inflammatory cytokines, increase in anti-inflammatory cytokines)
Mitochondrial healing (increase in size, shape and number of mitochondria)
Vasoconstriction (decrease edema and swelling from damaged tissues)
Stem cell release (up to 8-fold increase in mesenchymal and CNS stem cells)
Increased oxygen perfusion- (Immediate increase in free floating oxygen available for tissue use)
Neovascularization- Angiogenesis (new blood vessel growth)
Increased white blood cell function (improved neutrophil and macrophage activity)
Nerve healing factors (increases in VegF, BDNF, HIF1)
Wound healing Increased capacity for healing (PDGF, VegF, collagen production circulatory healing)
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Hyperbarics & Athletics
Performance is the result of proper training and recovery. As athletes, we often focus on the catabolic portion of the equation; the training, the frequency, the duration, how hard or fast, etc. Often neglected, is the anabolic portion of the equation- your recovery and giving your body the time it needs to repair and build up after the catabolic stimulus. Through its mechanisms of action, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy can help to speed up the recovery phase, and balance the equation of achieving optimal performance.
The most you will feel is the equalization of your ears when pressurizing and depressurizing. Once at pressure you really don’t notice any difference. For most, it is a relaxing time to disconnect from the world. Some meditate and connect with themselves. Others take a nap.
No. Once you begin HBOT most of the mechanisms begin to work. The cascade of healing begins. Some mechanisms take less stimulus and time to be realized while others take more time and sessions to be realized. But a lot of the mechanisms will continue to build for up to 4-6 weeks after your protocol ends.
It’s like standing on top of a snow-covered mountain and you push down the mountain multiple snowballs of different sizes. Some will getting rolling sooner and faster with only a few pushes. Others will roll slower and take longer to get up to speed requiring more pushes. But once either gets going they will build momentum and continue to roll without requiring any stimulus.
It depends on what you are optimizing for at this point in life. On what you are dealing with and what your goals are. If your reason for using it has a beginning and end. Your protocol probably has a beginning and end. If the reason you are using it is ongoing then your protocol will be ongoing, but typically at a lower frequency.
If you are getting over a specific injury, once you are done your protocol and the body has healed the tissue, you’re done.
If you are dealing with, say a neurodegenerative or auto immune issue, these are degenerative and/or chronic in nature. Often with these types of issues you will require an initial protocol to maximize your bodies achievement and then some level of maintenance. But again this depends on your goals.
If you are doing it for performance/recovery. HBOT will be worked into you training schedule specifically to help boost performance and/or assist in recovery as training load increases.
It depends on what you’re dealing with, how long it has been a problem and what you want to achieve i.e., your goals. Then, it’s which of the hyperbaric mechanism(s) do you need to achieve your goals in what time frame. We offer what are called 60-minute and 90-minute sessions to help individuals achieve their specific goals.
It depends. When you dive into the hyperbaric research most protocols coming for the research are based on 40 sessions. 5 times a week for 8 weeks. Why 5? This is often because research facilities are open 5 days a week. Newer research shows certain benefits that they looked at can be obtained at 3 times per week.
Ultimately, depends on what you’re dealing with, how long it has been a problem and what you want to achieve, your goals. Then it’s which of the hyperbaric mechanism do you need to achieve your goals in what time frame.