Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy & Comprehensive Wound Care

Chronic wounds affect roughly 10.5 million people, and often, it is a lack of good circulation that keeps the wound from healing. A wound that keeps opening, weeping, or stalling is often considered a non-healing wound and may be a sign of poor circulation affecting wound healing, uncontrolled blood sugar, or tissue that has been starved of oxygen for so long it cannot mount a real healing response.

For these types of wounds, basic wound care plans just aren’t enough. These situations aren’t hopeless, but they do require more than what a standard wound care clinic can provide. Read on to learn how comprehensive wound care that includes hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can help, and where to find the best hyperbaric oxygen therapy in Metro Atlanta and North Georgia. 

Why Standard Wound Care May Not Be Enough for a Chronic Wound

In healthy people, the body responds to a wound by sending oxygen-rich blood, immune cells, and growth factors to the site to fight infection and rebuild tissue. But in patients with diabetic neuropathy and peripheral vascular disease, that response is compromised. Diabetics often develop neuropathy, which can further complicate things. Neuropathy causes a loss of the protective sensation that feels pressure, friction, or pain. This means you may continue to walk on a diabetic foot ulcer or wear ill-fitting shoes without realizing there is a problem.

Wounds become chronic when they do not show progress toward healing within four weeks of standard care, even when that care includes daily dressing changes and debridement. While debridement, infection control, moisture management, and appropriate dressings all play an important role in wound care, they can’t help if an underlying circulatory problem exists. 

How Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Helps Non-Healing Wounds Finally Heal

Healing requires oxygen to build new blood vessels, produce collagen, fight bacteria, and repair damaged cells. Many chronic wounds suffer from hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen in the tissue. That oxygen deprivation severely impairs the healing process. 

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy works by delivering high concentrations of oxygen directly to the oxygen-starved tissue. During an HBOT session, a patient breathes 99.7% medical-grade oxygen inside a pressurized chamber that is two to three times higher than normal atmospheric pressure. This forces more oxygen into the bloodstream than the lungs can absorb under normal conditions, pushing it into plasma and deep into tissue that standard blood flow can no longer adequately reach. 

HBOT offers several benefits for non-healing wounds, including: 

• Enhanced growth of new blood vessels
• Improved collagen production
• Increased white blood cell activity
• Reduced swelling and inflammation

HBOT is not a replacement for good wound care, but it works alongside it when tissue oxygen levels are the barrier to healing.

Who is a Good Candidate for Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy? 

Not every patient with a chronic wound is automatically a candidate for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. In most cases, patients must have at least 30 days of standard wound care, including debridements and treatment of underlying issues such as infection, malnutrition, and pressure relief. Beyond that, HBOT can only be used in patients with no history of pneumothorax, also known as a collapsed lung. 

How Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and Wound Care Work Together for a Comprehensive Approach to Healing

Comprehensive wound care is a coordinated, physician-guided approach to wound care that often uses advanced wound care treatments like a wound vac and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. In addition to direct wound care, comprehensive wound care treats the underlying condition that contributed to the wound in the first place. That means managing blood sugar in a diabetic patient, improving circulation in a patient with vascular disease, addressing nutritional deficiencies, and offloading pressure from tissue that cannot heal while it is still being compressed. 

Finding the Best Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in Metro Atlanta and North Georgia for Chronic Wounds

Chronic wounds can affect your sleep, mobility, confidence, and the simple comfort of moving through your day without pain or worry. At Hyperbaric Physicians of Georgia, we approach every non-healing wound with a commitment to solving the underlying issues. At our state-of-the-art facilities in Marietta, Cumming, and Sandy Springs, you can expect our board-certified physicians to oversee every aspect of treatment, provide patient-centered care, and integrate hyperbaric oxygen therapy into your treatment plan.

Ready to finally get your chronic wound to heal for good with help from the best hyperbaric oxygen therapy clinic in Metro Atlanta and North Georgia?