Resources & Case Studies

Yes, you will need a prescription from your doctor for hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). We can assist if you do not already have a clinician familiar with HBOT.

During the compression stage of an HBOT treatment session, you may feel a fullness in your ears and a slight warmth in temperature. It is similar to what you experience when traveling in an airplane. Yawning or swallowing can help alleviate the fullness sensation in your ears and the temperature should stabilize once the desired pressurization is reached.

The treatment stage of an HBOT treatment session is entirely painless. You will breathe in concentrated oxygen in a pressurized environment. You should feel comfortable enough to relax, sleep, read, or listen to music.

During the decompression stage of an HBOT treatment session, you may notice a slight cooling in the chamber. You may experience a popping sensation in your ears – again, similar to what you might experience during airline travel.

In most cases, the compression and decompression stages last about 10-15 minutes each.

There is no downtime after HBOT. You will be able to immediately resume your regular activities after your HBOT session.

In most cases, patients will need to undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy repeatedly before noticing its effects. How often you should use your HBOT chamber will depend on the reason you are undergoing therapy.

In many cases, we’ve found the most effective use of a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber is to undergo one-hour treatment sessions conducted once or twice a day for 4-8 weeks. There is no medical benefit to receiving HBOT for longer than 2 hours at a time.

Please check with your physician about the ideal treatment duration and schedule for you.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is safe and effective with proper use. This includes clearing the ears during decompression and administering the correct amount of oxygen. Be sure to follow the medical device guidelines as well as instructions from your physician. When these precautions are followed, HBOT therapy has virtually no adverse side effects.

Breathing in extra oxygen using an oxygen mask will increase the amount of oxygen carried by your blood’s hemoglobin. However, your red blood cells can only carry so much oxygen with hemoglobin. By using an oxygen mask, you miss the opportunity to significantly increase the amount of oxygen carried in your blood plasma, which typically only contains 3% oxygen.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) allows more oxygen to dissolve into blood plasma with an ingenious solution: by increasing the atmospheric (barometric) pressure while breathing in concentrated oxygen. This not only increases the amount of oxygen that binds to your blood hemoglobin – but more oxygen is pushed into the blood plasma than is possible at normal air pressure levels.

Find out more about HBOT and how it works.

No alcohol or carbonated beverages should be consumed for four hours prior to undergoing an HBOT treatment session.

If you wear contact lenses, you will want to remove them before entering the HBOT chamber.

If you have a wound, make sure no ointment or covering is applied to it.

To avoid a fire risk, it is advised to avoid wearing alcohol-based products as well as oil, lotions, perfumes, nail polish, hairspray, aftershave, makeup, and deodorant during your HBOT treatment sessions.  You should also take off any removeable items before a session such as eyeglasses with a metal trim, jewelry, hearing aids, dentures, or prosthetic devices. Nothing flammable should be taken into the chamber.

Please consult your physician what is safe for you to wear or take into the HBOT chamber with you.

It’s best to delay an HBOT treatment session until your cold or flu symptoms subside.

No. Modifying a portable hyperbaric chamber – even if you purchase it outright from us – is illegal and potentially harmful. The chambers are approved by the FDA for a specific amount of pressure. A modified chamber is considered adulterated by the FDA and it automatically loses its safety compliance approval. For your own health’s sake, it is important that you do not modify a HBOT chamber.

Our son was diagnosed on the autism spectrum when he was 4 1/2. We tried many biomedical interventions, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and various restrictive diets.

Dr. Tony Boggess at Natural Balance Wellness Medical Center suggested that hyperbaric oxygen therapy was the next reasonable step given multiple positive responses thus far.

We rented a chamber from Natural Balance for one month and made sure our son underwent 2 separate dives per day, an hour long each. It was a big time commitment, but we were hopeful it would pay off – and it did! The advances we saw with the home HBOT were phenomenal!

Prior to HBOT, our son was not able to use the phonetic sound “yuh.” We had been working with a speech therapist for more than 2 years on this issue but had made no progress. While undergoing HBOT, we continued his daily speech therapy exercises. Even his speech therapist was amazed!

He also stopped wetting the bed at night, which Dr. Boggess attributed to improvement in his sensory sensitivities. The light switch had finally turned on for our son in these areas! All of these gains have held after several months. We are very pleased with the progress he achieved using in-home HBOT — it was money and time well spent for our son.

~ Dr. Yvonne & a very thankful family in Westland, Michigan

After a spider bite and struggling for 3 years with an autoimmune disease that left me with two large, nonhealing sores on each leg as well as severe malnutrition, anemia, and the need for frequent blood transfusions, I was on the verge of giving up.

Then in 2012, I found Natural Balance and started working with Dr. Tony Boggess and his team at Natural Balance Wellness Medical Center. I was still severely ill and weak, and I needed a new approach to bring me around.

Dr. Boggess ordered multiple tests, taking a close look at my nutritional status. After 4 months of focused supplements, in-home hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) treatments, and a far better understanding of what was behind my failing health, I started to see remarkable improvements.

Today, my legs are nearly fully healed, my weight is stable, and I haven’t needed iron infusions or blood transfusions for several months. Overall, I feel I have so much more energy and am in better health. I am so thankful for the time and attention I received from everyone at Natural Balance Wellness Medical Center. I would not be in my current state of recovery without them. The staff, doctors, psychologist, nutritionist, and the hyperbarics team really worked together to get to the root cause of my problem and help me heal. I would recommend them to anyone with complex medical problems that aren’t getting better with conventional treatments.

~ Jane H., Esq., in Ann Arbor, Michigan