Receiving a cancer diagnosis can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to finding the most effective treatment for your diagnosis. That’s why our Nurse Practitioner, Elena Schertz and the team at Extivita-RTP provide personalized attention and compassionate care along with our premium services and innovative treatments at our Hyperbaric Oxygen(HBOT) Wellness Clinic. We offer various therapies that help with treating cancer, with our most significant therapy being HBOT.
If you have cancer, we can guide you through treating cancer, using the least invasive techniques available, including hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Our available therapies will help you achieve the best results with faster recovery times.
Here’s how hyperbaric oxygen therapy can play a valuable role in treating cancer:
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO or HBOT) is a therapeutic technique designed to increase the oxygen in your body.
When you breathe, you take oxygen into your body, where it passes from your lungs into your bloodstream. This process enables oxygen-rich blood to feed all of the cells throughout your body.
When you have hyperbaric oxygen therapy, we increase the air pressure around you to three times higher than normal. This change in pressure helps your lungs absorb even more oxygen, which in turn increases the levels in your blood.
Having high levels of oxygen in your body triggers the release of naturally occurring substances like stem cells that stimulate the healing process. It also helps fight bacteria and infection in your body.
Using hyperbaric oxygen therapy for treating cancer:
All of your cells require oxygen to survive, even cancer cells. However, when you have tumors in your body, they often outgrow their oxygen supply. Instead of failing to survive without enough oxygen, some cancer cells can actually thrive and even resist treatment.
By flooding your system with concentrated oxygen in your bloodstream, hyperbaric oxygen can help make your cancer cells easier to kill with treatments like chemotherapy and radiation while also activating the healing process in your body.
Additional benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for treating cancer include:
Triggering the growth of new blood vessels, which increases the flow of blood and nutrients to your tissue. Boosting the performance of your white blood cells to prevent infection and kill bacteria. Reducing pressure, swelling, or pain in your cancer site.
Cited By: South Shore Surgical
What to expect for your first Hyperbaric Oxygen Dive
We provide hyperbaric oxygen therapy on-site in our hyperbaric wellness clinic. These treatments are typically painless and can take up to two hours, depending on your diagnosis.
During your appointment, you sit comfortably in a large chamber that resembles an airplane, while we increase the air pressure in the space around you. This process is painless, but you may have a passing feeling of fullness in your ears, similar to flying or changing elevation. If you have this response, you can relieve the sensation by swallowing or yawning. Once you reach “bottom”, a depth of 33 feet, an attendant in the chamber will help you put on your breathing equipment. Divers can choose between a face mask or a hood. After putting on your face mask or hood, you will then spend an hour relaxing and breathing 100% pure oxygen.
After your hyperbaric oxygen therapy session, you can resume normal activity, but you may feel tired or hungry. We usually recommend a series of hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatments to achieve the best results. These often occur over several days or weeks, but we can provide a more detailed strategy based on your specific case.
To see if hyperbaric oxygen therapy should be part of your cancer treatment, call us today at Extivita-RTP, at 919-354-3775 or request an appointment using our online portal.