Diabetic Wound Care and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

By Daniel Everett, CHT, DMT-A  Optimal Hyperbarics

If you are a diabetic, a wound or injury on your foot, leg or any part of your body can be a serious problem. Wound care for the diabetic patient is always a concern. Many diabetics experience  diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) or injury of the nerves usually in the legs, feet and toes.

Neuropathy can cause pain and a decreased ability to feel pain, heat or cold. This loss of nerve feeling often means that the diabetic patient may not feel even a minor foot injury. This can lead not only to a chronic wound but infection, gangrene and ultimately amputation of toes, feet and even legs.

While injury and wounds themselves are common and often minor, in diabetics they can quickly become major complications. With traditional treatment, antibiotics, debridement and cautery many patients experience significant disability, and in the end amputation may still be required.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT), A Better Treatment

When diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) and poor blood circulation are combined, as often happens in diabetics, injured tissues tend to get less healing oxygen to help repair and regenerate injured tissues.

When you breathe oxygen at normal atmospheric pressure, oxygen is transported on the hemoglobin molecules within your red blood cells. With increased atmospheric pressure, oxygen dissolves better in the blood stream and other body fluids, more oxygen attaches to hemoglobin and more oxygen is delivered to all of the tissues in the body. This is especially important for those tissues which have been damaged or where poor blood circulation exists. HBOT is a medical treatment during which an increased atmospheric pressure is used to deliver highly concentrated doses of oxygen to patients suffering from a wide range of medical conditions. One of the most frequent and valuable uses of hyperbaric oxygen is to support soft tissue wound healing and to salvage toes (fingers), feet (hands) and limbs that might otherwise end up having to be amputated. The HBOT device is a pressurized chamber, which provides 10 to 20 times the amount of oxygen which normally reaches the bodily tissues.

The combination of increased oxygen and this increased pressure allows the blood to carry considerably greater amounts of oxygen to the area of the body which needs to be healed. This may include those areas which might well have been deprived of oxygen due to poor circulation such as occurs too often in diabetics. This extra oxygen is incredibly beneficial in treating a number of conditions, including  chronic, infected or irradiated wounds.

A recent study showed 61% of subjects who used Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy had significant improvement, and the number of amputation generally seen was significantly reduced when severe foot ulcers were treated using normal wound care therapies along with HBOT.

Most patients using HBOT not only find relief from serious tissue wounds and injuries but also from the pain associated with these wounds. HBOT also works with other adjunctive therapies, such as Healthlight(TM) Infrared Therapy system which is also offered at Preventive Medicine Clinics of the Desert. Both of these systems are FDA-cleared for moderating or alleviating pain and inflammation. Pain and inflammation is often associated with, and a byproduct of DPN. Patients with DPN, as well as other conditions, have found temporary or even permanent relief from pain and inflammation using Healthlight™

To find out if we can help with your wound care solutions, please contact us directly for a no obligation consultation.  We are located at 2825 Tahquitz Canyon Way, Suite 200/201, Palm Springs, CA 92262 .To set us your free consultation call 760-320-4292 right now.

For more information about HBOT, click here.