Mercy Health-Lorain’s oxygen therapy offering more options to patients – The Morning Journal

Mercy Health-Lorain Hospital welcomed a new service line in October 2019, bringing hyperbaric oxygen therapy to patients.

The outpatient program is offered through Mercy Lorains wound center.

The science behind it is putting a patient's body under pressure, said registered nurse Brian Elliot. We put the patients in the chamber, take the air out, replace it with 100 percent oxygen.

"They're taking in 100 percent oxygen, we're shrinking that bubble down tighter, it's dissolving and their plasmas, along with the blood cells, but it's able to reach further than the vasculature, say on a diabetic."

Flooding the body with oxygen also promotes angiogenesis, helping to promote healing through the formation of vascular circulatory highways,Elliot said.

The science about hyperbaric medicine has been around for decades with treatment beginning through the military with divers suffering from decompression sickness or the bends.

The Wound Center has been open since 2006 and Mercy Health Lorainshyperbaric oxygen therapy service began Oct. 23 with its first patient.

Mercy Health Lorain currently has two hyperbaric chambers, and Elliot described it as a glass tube with constant communication between the patient and medical personnel.

When we start pressurizing them, it takes about 10-15 minutes to get them to about two atmospheres," he said. "The patient will experience warmth .... Then we can adjust the ventilation in and out of there.

Dr. Lleowell Garcia said the outpatient program mostly is treating four categories of patients.

Were dealing mostly with wound patients, diabetic foot ulcers, were dealing with chronic bone infections, osteomyelitis that's been treated with antibiotics and it's failed antibiotics, Garcia said. We're dealing with patients that have had radiation therapy that now have tissue injuries from radiation therapy or a bone injury from the radiation therapy.

For patients suffering from diabetes, losing sensation in their feet makes them more susceptible to wound formation, he said.

For many patients, Garcia said hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a last resort after traditional treatment options have failed.

They're kind of at the end line of trying to figure out how we can get this to heal, so they can go on with their lives and live a more productive life, he said. So, this really is an advanced therapy; it's not the front line that most people go to off the bat.

The body needs oxygen to heal and hyperbaric oxygen therapy delivers high doses of it to your body up to 10 times more than what you would normally breathe in, Garcia said.

The treatment involves breathing 100 percent oxygen through special head gear while relaxing in a sealed, pressurized treatment room known as a hyperbaric chamber.

Hyperbaric wound treatment, also known as hyperbaric medicine, helps heal a wound from the inside out.

The therapy can reduce swelling, fight infection, improve circulation and build new blood vessels, ultimately producing healthy tissue.

Treatment is spread out over multiple sessions, with most patients needing five a week for four to six weeks to receive the full benefits.

The number of sessions a patient needs depends on the type of wound and the bodys response to treatment.

Each session lasts about one to two hours.

The program currently is treating it first four patients and the facilities at Mercy Health Lorain have the capacity to treat up to six per day.

For more information, call 440-960-3470.

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Mercy Health-Lorain's oxygen therapy offering more options to patients - The Morning Journal