Portable Oxygen Therapy Improves Wound Healing

"Time heals all wounds" - according to the old adage. But medical professionals know that is not always true, and these so-called non-healing wounds can lead to serious, even life threatening, complications. Wounds are a tremendous problem for the United States and the healthcare system worldwide, and up until recently wounds were not addressed in a fashion where good wound healing was the result. New technologies and discoveries are bringing to patients the ability to work with their doctors to really get these wounds under control. Patients should not have to accept the fact that they have these wounds. The population most at risk for wounds that will not heal and the complications that come with them are those suffering form Diabetes. Neil M. Scheefler, with the American Diabetes Association explains. "Non healing or difficult healing wounds are wounds that have not progressed to the point we would like to see it progress during its healing phase. Healing occurs in a number of different phases, and healing can plateau, or not continue the way we would like it to continue, and that becomes a difficult or non-healing wound."

It's been well documented that oxygen plays a critical role in wound healing. In fact it is often the lack of oxygen due to poor circulation that causes wounds. Traditionally a hyperbaric chamber has been used to infuse tissue with oxygen and stimulate healing. Now, researches have developed a portable device that can be applied directly over the wound site to achieve the same results. The device is known as the O2-Boot. Dr. Scheefler explains how it works. "Topical oxygen stimulates collagen production which adds new growth to the wound, it stimulates new blood vessel formation which allows the wound to heal faster, and it also fights infection to allow white blood cells to fight the infection in a more efficacious manner. Very frankly a lot of physicians don't believe that the topical oxygen therapy works. And they're not sure about it because it's a new modality. As a matter of fact I had a patient who was a physician with a non-healing diabetic foot ulcer. And he didn't think that it was going to work, and he refused it at first, but we talked about it and he decided to give it a try and he actually found that it helped tremendously, helped heal his diabetic non healing foot wound."

Lest you think that these types of wounds are only of concern to diabetics listen to this story told by Phil Turner. His son suffers from a rare condition that caused him to have multiple non-healing wounds over much of his body. "My son he was born with a condition called AMTC. It's a vascular condition that results in sores that just open up on different parts of his body wherever the conditions is. There was nothing we tried that would work, that would help the sores, we went to different specialists different seminars. Every doctor had a different opinion of what we should do until our pediatrician recommended this particular hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The treatments using the hyperbaric therapy were literally like day and night. Before this he would go like a year without being able to heal a sore as opposed to literally weeks using this treatment method. And it virtually leaves no scarring, it heals over completely. We can use these right here at home which is great too. Before we would use these thing on his arms, on his legs, when he had a sore he'd be in constant pain all the time, he'd wake up in the middle of the night, he wouldn't be able to play, clothing at the various spots where the sores were at were a problem, he couldn't were clothing. And now he's completely totally uninhibited as far as any activity is concerned. Nothing seems to bother him at all, he plays, he goes about his business and he's just like any other kid without this problem.

Researchers are dedicated to working with leading medical centers to develop new treatments that are literally saving life and limb.