SPORTS INJURIES

In Hyperbaric Oxygen treatment [HBO] pure oxygen is breathed at greater than sea level pressure through a mask or hood. The effect is to dissolve up to 10 times more oxygen in blood plasma than is present at normal atmospheric pressure. This allows more oxygen to reach damaged tissues, reducing inflammation and swelling to assist in their repair.

Oxygen is of course essential not just to function but also to recovery. The additional oxygen provided under hyperbaric conditions can improve the repair, particularly of muscle and ligament tears because the blood supply is often significantly damaged. Fracture healing may also be accelerated.

The increase oxygen content in the blood plasma raises oxygen levels within the body's tissues. This assists healing in several ways using elements of natural recovery, resulting in decreased inflammation, new blood vessel and tissue growth and increased stimulation of osteoblasts in fractured bones. In simple injuries that prevent training, up to a 70% decrease in recovery times has been found. This means athletes returning to training and competitive play much earlier.

Evidence suggests that for sports injuries five one-hour sessions is the minimum required to see a benefit, starting as soon as possible after the injury has been incurred. Note for best results this means in the first four hours post injury. The decrease in recovery times is highly geared to the timing of the first treatment.

We have two compression chambers that will both take seven people and hence we can offer them for a team or individual usage to delay/recover muscle soreness or sports injuries and other conditions. We can accommodate people at several times during the week, please see opening times for details. If there was a collective demand, or a special accelerated requirement other timings may be possible, please enquire.

After studies of recovery in football players in the UK many professional athletic teams, including ice hockey [NHL], football [NFL], basketball [NBA], and soccer [MLS] in the USA and Canada, utilise and rely on HBO for sports related injuries. Some teams and even individuals have their own facility. English professional football, rugby and cricket teams have successfully used HBO to treat injured players. David Beckham and Wayne Rooney have utilised HBO to recover from injuries for critical games, and here at Nottingham we have treated Ryan Sidebottom and Charlie Shrek.