Cosmetic Surgeons and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

Hyperbaric oxygen can: Help resolve unexpected complications post-surgery. Dramatically reduce post-surgical bruising, swelling, and inflammation. Speed up healing and recovery time from elective surgery.Important effects of post-surgical hyperbaric oxygen for your patients would be the stimulation of leukocyte microbial killing, the enhancement of fibroblast replication, and increased collagen formation and neovascularization of ischemic tissue.Hyperbaric oxygen is a safe way to alter the inflammatory process to help wound healing. It cuts down pain and swelling, inflammation in tissues, and it has an anti-bacterial effect. Patients who had this therapy in conjunction with their cosmetic surgery seem to have a shorter recuperation period. And scars have been shown to heal better with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.Cosmetic surgeons are recommending hyperbaric oxygen particularly for patients who have problems with healing. They may have been smokers, overweight, they may be immunity suppressed, or their incisions may have become infected, etc.The bruising goes away faster, swelling decreases faster, and the patients actually feel better overall. HBOT is known to be exceedingly effective for laser peels. After a laser peel, lingering redness is a problem for many patients. The chamber gets rid of the red more quickly. For liposuction, the chamber helps the swelling decrease much faster, which results in less post-operative discomfort.Normally, only red blood cells are fully saturated with oxygen molecules and the body consumes energy sending it to demanding cells.However, inside the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, oxygen obeys Henry’s Universal Gas Law and so the oxygen becomes soluble using passive diffusion to saturate the plasma and cerebrospinal fluid.Depending on the treatment depth, the patient will leave the chamber saturated with up to twenty times normal oxygen levels.HBOT triggers many positive physiological events:New tissue striving to fill the dead tissue wound space requires a 24 times oxidative burst. This intense competition for oxygen can cause inflammation and swelling. HBOT provides this additional oxygen.HBOT sessions prior to surgery will eliminate the reperfusion phenomenon, reducing the chance of scar tissue forming. It also reduces inflamation and swelling.Hypoxia in normally perfused tissue can unexpectedly occur post-surgically due to an inflammatory response and edema. HBOT corrects hypoxia and dramatically reduces inflammation and swelling.HBOT increases fibroblast replication and collagen production. It also raises the RNA/DNA ratio in the tissues, indicating increased formation of rough endoplasmic reticulum of cells of the wounded area.From Beverly Hills to New York City, more and more cosmetic surgeons are adding Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy to their protocol, routinely treating their patients before and after cosmetic surgery, sometimes providing the hyperbaric chamber right in their office.