Inside a hyperbaric chamber???

Has anyone gone through a hyperbaric chamber treatment for the bends or for any other reason?

Yes ... the genuine bend-treating kind, not the quack kind. I didn't have the bends, I was editing instructions for the user manual so we went through a short cycle at a pressure low enough I didn't have to stay there long. Just enough to see the controls and the sequences.

I'm interested in what it looks like and feels like.

Depends on the size of the tank. A mobile one will be like an old-style Iron Lung, just big enough for the victim and to be hauled in to a larger facility.

Land-based (or large ship) are like small sauna size - you can move around, eat, drink, etc. Big enough for patient and a couple of staffers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_sickness (picture here)

When the pressure is increased and decreased, do your ears pop?

I didn't, but we didn't go "deep". You might feel it, but compared to the symptoms from the bends, who cares?

Is it cold?

No ... temp and humidity controlled. Shirt sleeves.

Anything else that might be relevant?

That moment when the door closes ...

The newer chambers have large clear areas.
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/decompression_syndromes_the_bends/page5_em.htm

Here's the emergency protocol:
http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/m..._Illness_What_Is_It_and_What_Is_The_Treatment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbaric_treatment_schedules (times run from a couple of hours to a day ... depending on what's foing on)

Not sure if this'll be worth anything, but, back in the 90's, my aunt's doctor sent her for several weeks worth of hyperbaric treatments at a local hospital. Something about increased oxygen healing diabetic wounds as I recall. I do remember taking a tour of the "chamber." From the outside, it looked for all the world like a docked mini-sub. White metal, with round "portholes" even. The interior made the same submarine impression. Stark, everything was white. Some basic seating and room for a wheelchair, and some overhead lights for reading. Never was in there when they fired it up, so I can't speak to the ear popping, but my aunt's sole complaint (other than when she ran out of reading material before they popped the hatch) was the temperature. Could just have been the operators keeping it on the cool side. She was older though, so cold to her was room temperature for most of us.

ETA: I see you're in Colorado. The hospital was Porters, off Downing and Yale in Denver. You could probably finneagle a tour from those folks.

E. Steve said:

Very helpful, Tsu. Thank you. Nice to have some latitude in the actual device. The reason I asked about the ear pop is I was in a Gamow Bag, a portable high-altitude bag used by climbers to counter altitude sickness, and when the zipper was opened to let me out, my ears made the strangest sound as air seemed to escape around the ear drums, and it hurt a little - but mostly sacred me. I presume in one of these chambers, they gradually release pressure.

Click to expand...

yes ... The bags are either under pressure or not, there's no slow bleed-off.


And if you really wanted to kill someone, get them into a decompression chamber, run it "deep" with high nitrogen levels, keep them there for a while and then run it "back to the surface" really, really fast.

Then dump them somewhere and they die of the bends without ever having been near water.

Jack Judah said:

Not sure if this'll be worth anything, but, back in the 90's, my aunt's doctor sent her for several weeks worth of hyperbaric treatments at a local hospital. Something about increased oxygen healing diabetic wounds as I recall. I do remember taking a tour of the "chamber." From the outside, it looked for all the world like a docked mini-sub. White metal, with round "portholes" even. The interior made the same submarine impression. Stark, everything was white. Some basic seating and room for a wheelchair, and some overhead lights for reading. Never was in there when they fired it up, so I can't speak to the ear popping, but my aunt's sole complaint (other than when she ran out of reading material before they popped the hatch) was the temperature. Could just have been the operators keeping it on the cool side. She was older though, so cold to her was room temperature for most of us.

Click to expand...

Out of curiousity, did the treatment work? My doctor mentioned it once, but other than I've only heard about it used for the bends, or hockey players being sent to hyperbaric chambers to speed healing after injuries, but no idea if it works, or if it's just done to be seen to be doing something.
Did it seem to speed the healing of her wound?

frimble3 said:

Out of curiousity, did the treatment work? My doctor mentioned it once, but other than I've only heard about it used for the bends, or hockey players being sent to hyperbaric chambers to speed healing after injuries, but no idea if it works, or if it's just done to be seen to be doing something.
Did it seem to speed the healing of her wound?

Click to expand...

She went in with some pretty gnarly diabetic sores. And I never use the word gnarly, so that's how bad they were. The chamber was kind of a Hail Mary by her Doc, but surprisingly, it did seem to have an effect. Not a miraculous one, but it did help. Enough that he prescribed it whenever the situation recurred. I remember her going in for several courses after the first. I remember each course took several days (sometimes longer) of hours-long sessions each. She hated that chamber, but she kept going. So she certainly thought it was worth it.

Thanks for the information. Yes, if she was willing to put up with a series of hours-long sessions (long enough that she ran out of reading material) she must have felt it was worth the nuisance.

E. Steve said:

Has anyone gone through a hyperbaric chamber treatment for the bends or for any other reason? I'm interested in what it looks like and feels like. When the pressure is increased and decreased, do your ears pop? Is it cold? Anything else that might be relevant?

Click to expand...

Been there, done that, spent three days in the hospital from a severe panic attack (claustrophobic).

Basically, your air is pressurized to about 50 feet below sea level and you're given oxygen to breath. Chill comes from the equipment, but you have a pillow, blanket and can wear warmer clothing, although you feel a little warmer under pressure. Clear tubes are most common, and you can watch TV through them. There is a microphone and speaker for communication and you usually have a bottle of water because you'll feel dehydrated. Larger chambers may be steel tubes but they have window ports. In the one person tubes you cannot sit up, in a larger chamber you can and may even have a full chamber where you can walk around with a bathroom attached and under pressure.

For a repeated treatment series, such as wound therapy, you'll often have pressure equalization tubes put in your ears (hole in the ear drum with a one way valve) and thus no pain in the ears. Many people will need minor sedation such as a Valium or, like Michael Jackson, more serious medication like Propofol. Therapy is used to treat all kinds of problems since it basically forces oxygen into your blood stream which improves healing, but some even get treated for mood issues, toxin release or relaxation. Kind of like a seaweed wrap only more expensive and also not covered by insurance.

My treatment was supposed to be to aid healing for tooth extraction due to radiation necrosis to the teeth and jaws. The level of radiation I'd had made it (supposedly) impossible to heal without the hyperbaric treatments. Due to the panic attack I cannot do hyperbaric treatments so I had to have all teeth extracted without treatment. Healed fine. What do doctors know anyway?

Now, what do you need for your story?

Jeff

I worked in a major trauma center that had hyperbaric. Mine is/was the only hospital in the area with a chamber. It's about 20' long and you can stand up inside it, and it can hold 2-3 patients at one time. The operators sit outside, and from the brief tour I took when they installed the new one, it's not bad. Of course I was never treated in it. We treated non-healing wound patients, carbon monoxide exposures, osteo-radio necrosis patients like WeaselFire, sometimes burn patients whose skin grafts didn't take, and naturally those people who had caisson sickness or decompression problems after diving in Lake Michigan. In all the time I handled the charts of those patients (20+ years), I never saw one who had to be sedated. 'Course, ours was bigger and maybe more cushy than most.