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It looks like it belongs in a space station. The long clear plastic tube-bed seems fit for a character from a future galaxy. But the presence of the cheerful nurses in fish-printed scrubs brings us back to planet Earth—back to Bangor and the Hyperbaric Medicine Center at St. Joseph Hospital.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is a doctor-prescribed treatment where a patient lies in a pressurized chamber for approximately 120 minutes per treatment. The chamber emits a steady flow of 100% oxygen and the pressure in the chamber helps to quickly deliver the oxygen through the patient’s bloodstream, thus speeding up the healing process.
Two hours may seem like a long time to lie in a plastic tube, but in the beginning, 20 of those minutes are devoted to bringing the patient to the desired pressure, usually two times the atmospheric level, and back. There are also two, five-minute normal-air breaks, bringing the total time of continuous therapy to 90 minutes.
This therapy was originally created to treat scuba divers with decompression sickness, also called “the bends.” St. Joe’s sees about seven or eight of these cases a year. Nowadays there are 14 approved diagnoses for the treatment including carbon monoxide poisoning, foot and leg ulcers from diabetes or poor circulation, radiation tissue damage, and the preservation of skin grafts and flaps.
“It’s not a cure-all—it doesn’t work for every patient,” says Beth Allen, the hyperbaric coordinator at St. Joe’s. But she says that it’s wonderful adjunctive therapy to wound care in the right situation.
Most of the people who take advantage of this therapy at St. Joe’s have wounds from diabetes and radiation, both of which can kill a patient’s small blood vessels. Without blood flow, a wound cannot heal. Hyperbaric therapy helps to regrow these blood vessels, which brings the blood flow back to the damaged area to generate new growth and healing.
“There is a gratification you can’t explain to know you are a part of saving a person’s foot,” Allen says while standing in front of a wall of wound care supplies. There are countless gauze pads in every shape and size. Tape of every kind and width. There are swabs, wraps, fasteners—you name it. Every wound is different, and the wound care team makes sure to have something on hand to help every patient.
One of the best things about this holistic therapy is that it is usually painless. The only discomfort being a sensation of fullness in the ears—much like you would get driving up a mountain or flying in an airplane.
Doris Shorey of Enfield said she had to keep swallowing so the pressure wouldn’t hurt her ears. The 67-year-old retired schoolteacher recently finished her 40th and final treatment for a wound related to breast cancer. For four days a week for 10 weeks, Shorey got up at 5 a.m. for her morning walk, got dressed, ate breakfast, and drove the 45 minute commute to Bangor for her 8 a.m. appointment. “I would watch TV and movies during my treatment,” she says. “Sometimes I would take a nap.”
Serious side effects are uncommon for this holistic therapy. Shorey experienced some temporary changes in her vision. “It bothered my eyes. My prescription doesn’t fit my eyes right now, but in time the doctor said my eyes will go back to normal,” she says.
With two hyperbaric chambers, St. Joe’s can treat up to eight patients a day. On average they treat four. Why aren’t more people banging on their door for this relatively pain-free treatment? Location, location, location.
“Time and distance are the major factors in why people don’t choose to have this therapy,” Allen explains. Most of their patients are elderly and sometimes it’s hard to find someone to commit to driving them to their appointments. The next closest facility to St. Joe’s is in Lewiston, approximately two hours away by car.
The hyperbaric team suggests that the best way to see results is to have therapy every day for at least 20 treatments. That’s five weeks of treatment. Getting to Bangor for people who live far away is hard and expensive. “We’ve had people come and set up their camper in the parking lot!” Allen says. In the past three years, there has been an average of 552 treatments a year.
While the government doesn’t require special training to run a hyperbaric chamber, St. Joseph Hospital does. All of the hyperbaric doctors, nurses, and techs that work at St. Joe’s must be certified. This includes 40 hours of classes at a training facility and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience. Allen is very grateful for the training, which has helped her understand the mechanics of the chambers and provided a network of trained professionals across the country she can call with questions or problems. “I wouldn’t want to run one without training,” she says.
Hyperbaric oxygen treatment is a big time commitment for any patient. And because the patients are at the hospital for treatment so often, the nurses and doctors become their extended family. The fact that former patients still come back to St. Joe’s to visit the hyperbaric staff years after their therapy is over speaks volumes about the kind of care they get. “People don’t get pushed through here. They are not a number, they are a person,” Allen says. Shorey agrees. “I’m going to miss the girls.”
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is a doctor-prescribed treatment where a patient lies in a pressurized chamber for approximately 120 minutes per treatment. The chamber emits a steady flow of 100% oxygen and the pressure in the chamber helps to quickly deliver the oxygen through the patient’s bloodstream, thus speeding up the healing process.
Two hours may seem like a long time to lie in a plastic tube, but in the beginning, 20 of those minutes are devoted to bringing the patient to the desired pressure, usually two times the atmospheric level, and back. There are also two, five-minute normal-air breaks, bringing the total time of continuous therapy to 90 minutes.
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This therapy was originally created to treat scuba divers with decompression sickness, also called “the bends.” St. Joe’s sees about seven or eight of these cases a year. Nowadays there are 14 approved diagnoses for the treatment including carbon monoxide poisoning, foot and leg ulcers from diabetes or poor circulation, radiation tissue damage, and the preservation of skin grafts and flaps.
“It’s not a cure-all—it doesn’t work for every patient,” says Beth Allen, the hyperbaric coordinator at St. Joe’s. But she says that it’s wonderful adjunctive therapy to wound care in the right situation.
Most of the people who take advantage of this therapy at St. Joe’s have wounds from diabetes and radiation, both of which can kill a patient’s small blood vessels. Without blood flow, a wound cannot heal. Hyperbaric therapy helps to regrow these blood vessels, which brings the blood flow back to the damaged area to generate new growth and healing.
“There is a gratification you can’t explain to know you are a part of saving a person’s foot,” Allen says while standing in front of a wall of wound care supplies. There are countless gauze pads in every shape and size. Tape of every kind and width. There are swabs, wraps, fasteners—you name it. Every wound is different, and the wound care team makes sure to have something on hand to help every patient.
One of the best things about this holistic therapy is that it is usually painless. The only discomfort being a sensation of fullness in the ears—much like you would get driving up a mountain or flying in an airplane.
Doris Shorey of Enfield said she had to keep swallowing so the pressure wouldn’t hurt her ears. The 67-year-old retired schoolteacher recently finished her 40th and final treatment for a wound related to breast cancer. For four days a week for 10 weeks, Shorey got up at 5 a.m. for her morning walk, got dressed, ate breakfast, and drove the 45 minute commute to Bangor for her 8 a.m. appointment. “I would watch TV and movies during my treatment,” she says. “Sometimes I would take a nap.”
Serious side effects are uncommon for this holistic therapy. Shorey experienced some temporary changes in her vision. “It bothered my eyes. My prescription doesn’t fit my eyes right now, but in time the doctor said my eyes will go back to normal,” she says.
With two hyperbaric chambers, St. Joe’s can treat up to eight patients a day. On average they treat four. Why aren’t more people banging on their door for this relatively pain-free treatment? Location, location, location.
“Time and distance are the major factors in why people don’t choose to have this therapy,” Allen explains. Most of their patients are elderly and sometimes it’s hard to find someone to commit to driving them to their appointments. The next closest facility to St. Joe’s is in Lewiston, approximately two hours away by car.
The hyperbaric team suggests that the best way to see results is to have therapy every day for at least 20 treatments. That’s five weeks of treatment. Getting to Bangor for people who live far away is hard and expensive. “We’ve had people come and set up their camper in the parking lot!” Allen says. In the past three years, there has been an average of 552 treatments a year.
While the government doesn’t require special training to run a hyperbaric chamber, St. Joseph Hospital does. All of the hyperbaric doctors, nurses, and techs that work at St. Joe’s must be certified. This includes 40 hours of classes at a training facility and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience. Allen is very grateful for the training, which has helped her understand the mechanics of the chambers and provided a network of trained professionals across the country she can call with questions or problems. “I wouldn’t want to run one without training,” she says.
Hyperbaric oxygen treatment is a big time commitment for any patient. And because the patients are at the hospital for treatment so often, the nurses and doctors become their extended family. The fact that former patients still come back to St. Joe’s to visit the hyperbaric staff years after their therapy is over speaks volumes about the kind of care they get. “People don’t get pushed through here. They are not a number, they are a person,” Allen says. Shorey agrees. “I’m going to miss the girls.”
