Physiology; A hyperbaric treatment means the patient is breathing oxygen enriched air, hopefully that mix has been filtered to remove combustable hydrocarbons and other impurities to make it safe, under pressure greater than ambient.  Enriched because air that has 21% oxygen has a greater oxygen concentration under pressure in the chamber or during the dive.The pressure is measured in ATA where 1 ATA is sea level pressure 14.7 psi gage. 33 feet of sea water - 1 ATA. Divers measure the pressure in fsw. 0.445 psi = 1 fsw. In converting remember where you started from. If you started from sea level you must add 14.7 psi to convert to ATA.Blood glucose, a sugar, decreases while breathing increased concentrations of oxygen. Eating before the HBO treatment and between dives does prevent rapid fluctuations of blood glucose. Instant glucose products should be with the diabetic whether in a chamber or in the water.

To convert Feet;12"/Foot divided by 39.37 inches/Meter=0.305 Meters.               Meters =Feet X 0.305.

Pressure in Atmospheres Absolute, (10Meters=1ATA) ATA=(depth/33) +1.  Portable, fabric hyperbaric chambers are medical devices that are designed to treat medical conditions, they are regulated by the FDA. The oxygen comes form a concentrator that delivers about 95% oxygen, or from an oxygen storage tank. Since the facemask may leak reducing the fraction of oxygen in the inspired mix of gasses. A 1.5 ATA protocol for ADD and Lyme syndrome needs an overshoot on the pressure to achieve the desired result because theoretical FiO2 is not achieved. Numerous centers are reporting remarkable results with CP and AUTISM. DIVEHEART™ (Making Possibilities for Disabilities) is an organization that can help children whose families and support situation has given up on them. (info@diveheart.org)

Lyme syndorme may be present in the absence of a confirming laboratory test. It is a clinical diagnosis, not a "DISEASE". Confusing patients is the policy of the  insurance companies NOT to pay for services and HBO therapy. The condition disables the young person and then bankrupts the family, slowly but surely. The condition of the patient does not improve with time. Rocephin intravenous therapy may help at the outset, but often the treatment is not instituted because at the outset there are no symptoms. A textbook sign is the "bull's eye" lesion,which may be temporary,at the site of the tick bite. This lesion occurs with a tick bite and is not diagnostic of anything. The "bull's eye" is typical at the outset of Lyme Syndrome and its significance usually is overlooked. The fatigue, heart, nervous system, and other aspects of the syndrome take a long time to develop. The affected person may consider themselves lucky if they avoid hospitalization and keep their personal life and family relationships together.

Mild Hyperbaric Treatment seems to have a positive effect on athletic performance in some studies. Mild means less than 1.3 ATA or less than 4 psig. The breathing mix is air, hopefully SafeAir™"see the link to ANDIHQ.COM.

The FlexiLite Hyperbaric Chamber

FlexiLite™ and Solace™ are popular. The air from the compressor may also be  FDA approved. Click the hotlink for more information about the retailer HyperbaricsRx. Air compressors fill the chamber with air. Medical grade air, without impurities, SafeAir™ www.ANDIHQ.com comes from compressors that are FDA approved. ANDI™ (516)546-2026 is the Premier Training Agency as well as a supplier of all types of hyperbaric hardware. The 1.6 ATA or 1.6 bar chamber and accessories varies in cost with the manufacturer. Higher pressure, portable chambers may not be FDA approved; yet, they are still regulated by the FDA, a federal safety standards agency.

Solace™ is a brand of mild hyperbaric chambers that come in many sizes for various applications. www.Oxyhealth.com markets this brand. The resale value on any chamber is good-especially if you have a warranty. www.ReimersSystemsInc.com. offers the 9600D™ Series multiplace chambers with 66inch high doors.

The U.S. Navy Diving Manual Revision 6 is available on the internet. Section 5 has indications and tables (www.U.S.NavyTreatmentTable9.org) for  medical treatments. Section 20-4 notes that inwater compression of a diver is effective at 30fsw. Various protocols all start at 30fsw and adjust depending on the treatment gas and how the diver responds to therapy. Medical treatments are effective at this pressure and I expect that Revision 7 will state this unequivocally. I also expect and hope that the new revision could state that even lower pressures than 30fsw (13.4 psi) are effective for chronic conditions, requiring many treatments over months, are effective.

The EAD Formula is used to convert actual depths of a dive into what the depth of the dive would be if air was the breathing gas. A deep dive on a mix with reduced nitrogen would calculate out to be much shallower if air with 78% nitrogen was the breathing gas. If air or a mix is the diving gas the U.S. Navy recommends recompression to 30fsw in a chamber if the diver missed his/her decompression stops or surfaces with symptoms of DCS.

Surface-On-Deck (SOD) Decompression without temperature, dehydration, and diver fatigue considerations using a portable chamber is preferable to in-water or hanging on the anchor line method of decompression. On surfacing the diver is more buoyant due to less weight of air in the tank and air swallowing. Buoyant divers holding on a line cannot stay at a constant depth required by their deep, long, and repetitive diving profile. Their decompression becomes much shorter than they are aware of because of their tendency to bob to the surface before they complete their stop.

Seachrist™ monoplace chambers compress and ventillate with oxygen. Purchase, installation, and instruction for all kinds of chambers are available from www.HYPERBARICSRX.COM. Plexiglass™ chambers are rated by the number of cycles permitted for the materials involved. An aggressive treatment schedule for a motivated patient with a chronic medical condition is about 150 cycles. Used chambers from a facility may have years of use left for an individual at an affordable outlay. Operating costs for the FlexiLite™ are less because the oxygen is supplied form the OGSI unit and only the amount inhaled is used. Monoplace chambers require a high flow of oxygen for cooling and ventingl of exhaled CO2. Multiplace chambers compress and vent with air, oxygen goes through a regulator valve to a face mask or a hood. The valve regulates the flow according to the pressure in the chamber which is usually measured in feet of seawater.

Valves and operators monitor the pressure in the chamber. If the chamber pressure is measured in meters instead of feet of sea water and the operator thinks the gage reads feet of sea water then there is a real problem. It has been recommended that operators be trained on more than one system, that video monitors are adjacent to the panel controls, and blow-off valves are tested daily.

Even if you do not purchase a chamber you should be aware of how you can obtain and use it effectively. In remote locations a chamber is preferable to all other methods of recompression therapy. If the patient arrives at a fixed chamber facility there should be no confusion because the patient has received treatment in the transport chamber. The transport chamber may be placed into the larger chamber or the patient transferred in the 5 to 10 minute window of opportunity before symptoms worsen. I was shocked to find out that this was a controversial point with some lightly informed people who maintain that transport in a fabric chamber might obfuscate the treating techs decision on profiles. A US Navy Treatment Table 6 is always the treatment of choice. Low pressure oxygen treatment for a few hours will not accelerate oxygen toxity of Paul Bert or Lorraine Smith.

Treatment of medical conditions at home without purchasing oxygen is feasible with the OGSI™ osygen concentrator. It is efficient and runs on the 120V AC that is found in the home.

Martin, a great guy, was treated at 20 psig (45 fsw) or 2.36 ATA (a modified US Navy Treatment Table 5) by me in a multiplace chamber, about 80 cycles, for OsteoRadioNecrosis of his jaw. In this photo his mandible is held together by an external splint.

To calculate psi multiply the depth in fsw by 0.445.To calculate the ATA add 14.7 to the gage pressure and then divide by 14.7.

I advise wound care centers to consider DIAPULSE™, a unique, proprietary modality that uses pulsed non-thermal electromagnetic energy. www.DIAPULSE.com has sumitted clinical studies to the FDA and the FDA has approved DIAPULSE™. In conjunction with HBO it achieves better wound healing than HBO alone, as in my own fight with osteomyelitis. Unlike HBO, DIAPULSE™ treatments, that usually last 30 minutes, may be repeated four times a day without fear of any toxicity.

The scientific mechanism for HBO is a net increase in collagen in the wound which correlates to angiogenesis, the collagen increase represents an increase in capillaries; ref. Dr. Paul Sheffield. The scientific basis  of DIAPULSE ™ is that there is pearl chain, regular and orderly formation in the tissues which opens channels for tissue fluid that carries oxygen to compromised macrophages, which enables oxygen dependent pathways to work. This may be thought of as akin to iron filings lining up in a magentic field. When the DIAPULSE™ treatment is over the pearl chains revert to a random pattern; ref. David Ross.

Martin got symptomatic relief of his pain from OSTEORADIONECROSIS of the MANDIBLE & some evidence of healing on X-ray.

Lonnie had diabetic foot in addition to cocaine use with recent peripherovascular obstruction. He would not give up cocaine and he did not improve. Cigarette use is a similar complicating factor.

Commercial Diver with the Scott Bibs.

See http://www.comex.fr/ for application of O²HB under the heading "Expertise&Culture"  subheading HYPERBARIC  PHYSIOLOGY using O² to recondition athletes at 1.6b.