Healing Fast With High-Pressure Oxygen
If you have a diabetes-related foot wound, you know how difficult it can be to heal. One treatment that patients might consider is hyperbaric therapy, which is generally the first line of defense for smoke inhalation and for the decompression sickness known as "the bends." It involves entering a small chamber and breathing pressurized oxygen.
Carmella Montinor is thankful she can even walk on crutches. Three months ago, this 48-year-old correction officer slipped while crossing the street. An 18-wheeler ran over her right leg. When paramedics rushed her to Brookdale Medical Center, the prognosis was grim.
"When I first came in and they looked at my foot, they said 'amputation,'" she says. Had it not been for Dr. Edward Golembe, she might have lost her leg below the knee: He is one doctor who finds the chamber can be used for a variety of healing purposes.
"We had her in the chamber in under 2 hours," he says.
Patients must spend 2 hours in the tubelike chamber. They can watch television and often chew candy to relieve ear pressure, all the while breathing in pressured air that has ten times the amount of oxygen found in normal air.
The oxygen acts like a drug, rushing to the scene of the wound to heal. It can also be used on cancer patients. Radiation therapy eradicated one sufferer's cancer but caused tissue damage resulting in bladder bleeding.
"The very high pressure of oxygen that we use forces new blood vessels to grow in," says Golembe.
The hyperbaric chamber is generally considered safe, but about three out of every 100 patients experience claustrophobia, and some are forced to stop therapy. There's also a rare risk of seizures. Treatment time varies from one session to 50 or more, so it can be time-consuming.
Despite a good success rate, Brookdale Medical Center is one of just a handful of chamber sites around New York City, and the therapy has been slow to catch on. It is not a miracle worker: Carmella still had five toes amputated on one foot, but between hyperbaric therapy and the attachment of live leeches to her wounds to help drain them, she still has her leg.
©MMII CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed