When Should You Think About Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy?
Primary care physicians are often the first to recognize when recovery isn’t following the expected course.
The concussion patient whose headaches and brain fog persist months after injury. The individual with Long COVID who continues to struggle with fatigue and exercise intolerance. The patient with Lyme disease who has completed appropriate treatment yet remains limited by cognitive dysfunction and chronic symptoms. The migraine sufferer who has exhausted multiple therapies. The patient with dysautonomia or POTS who continues to experience dizziness, fatigue, and reduced quality of life despite comprehensive evaluation.
Although these patients carry different diagnoses, they often share something in common: recovery has stalled.
The diagnosis explains what happened, but it doesn’t always explain why healing isn’t progressing. Increasingly, research suggests that many chronic and persistent conditions share common biological barriers to recovery, including impaired oxygen delivery, mitochondrial dysfunction, neuroinflammation, autonomic imbalance, reduced microcirculation, and diminished capacity for tissue repair.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) approaches these conditions from a different perspective. Rather than targeting a single diagnosis, it supports the biological environment that healing depends upon. By delivering 100% oxygen under increased atmospheric pressure, oxygen dissolves directly into plasma at concentrations that significantly enhance tissue oxygen delivery throughout the body. This increased oxygen availability supports healthier cellular energy production, reduces inflammation, improves microvascular circulation, promotes angiogenesis, supports neuroplasticity, and enhances the body’s natural repair processes.
For some patients, restoring the conditions necessary for healing may be just as important as treating the underlying diagnosis.
At New England Hyperbarics, we partner with primary care physicians and specialists throughout Maine to evaluate patients whose recovery has plateaued despite appropriate medical care. Our physician-led multidisciplinary clinical team, supported by experienced nurse practitioners, provides comprehensive evaluations and individualized treatment recommendations while collaborating closely with referring providers throughout each patient’s course of care.
Consider a Hyperbaric Consultation When Your Patient Has:
- Persistent concussion or traumatic brain injury symptoms, including headaches, dizziness, brain fog, visual disturbances, or cognitive dysfunction
- Chronic migraine that remains functionally limiting despite appropriate management
- Long COVID with fatigue, exercise intolerance, autonomic symptoms, or cognitive impairment
- Persistent Lyme disease or post-infectious illness with ongoing neurological or functional limitations
- Dysautonomia or POTS with persistent dizziness, fatigue, exercise intolerance, or cognitive symptoms
- Delayed neurological, orthopedic, or post-surgical recovery despite appropriate treatment
- Chronic wounds or radiation-related tissue injury
- Patients who continue asking, “Why am I still not getting better?”
Not every patient is an appropriate candidate for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and HBOT is not a replacement for conventional medical management. Our role is to evaluate each patient individually, review the available evidence, and determine whether HBOT may be an appropriate adjunct to the care you are already providing.
New England Hyperbarics exists to serve as a collaborative resource for healthcare providers throughout Maine. We welcome conversations with referring physicians and are always happy to discuss whether hyperbaric oxygen therapy may be an appropriate option for patients whose recovery has stalled despite appropriate medical care.
New England Hyperbarics
A physician-led, multidisciplinary hyperbaric oxygen therapy program dedicated to partnering with healthcare providers to help patients recover from complex neurological, inflammatory, and difficult-to-resolve conditions.
A physician-led, multidisciplinary hyperbaric oxygen therapy program dedicated to partnering with healthcare providers to help patients recover from complex neurological, inflammatory, and difficult-to-resolve conditions.
