Dr. Jeffrey Gladden explains why hyperbaric oxygen therapy can be dangerous. Patients must equalize ear pressure or treatment is off limits. Pneumothorax and lung blebs can rupture under pressure, and certain chemotherapy drugs make HBOT unsafe.
And, you know, there are some risks to hyperbaric also. Do you want to speak to those? Because people should understand that there are some risks potentially.
You know, there's, there's, well, first of all, if, if you can't equalize your ears, you can't go in. That's sort of step one. So a pneumothorax, untreated pneumothorax, a popped lung, or the inability to equalize your ears, you just, it's no-go, 100%.
It'll collapse your lung further is the problem. Right.
You get a tension pneumothorax.
Exactly.
There's some medications, certain chemo drugs, certain conditions like advanced heart disease, advanced emphysema.
Yeah, you could blow up a bleb in a lung if you had advanced—
Yeah, so, you know, but, but quite honestly, even a lot of those people can tolerate at least lower pressures. The other risks really come in— there's, you know, as important as oxygen is, there's a thing called oxygen toxicity. So too much of a good thing is still a bad thing.
