"Preliminary research evidence indicates that even a small elevation of the ambient pressure might be lifesaving". A reduction in brain oxygen levels (brain hypoxia) may help to explain early neurological symptoms of COVID-19 (i.e, headaches, fatigue, impaired consciousness, including respiratory distress), which can be seen in a significant proportion of more severe cases. Other neurological symptoms typically observed in those suffering from long-COVID may be attributed to the imbalance of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and dysautonomia. It has been reported that around 67% of individuals with long COVID are developing dysautonomia. Keep in mind, the ANS plays a critical role in regulating immune function, inflammation, coagulation pathways, fatigue, exercise intolerance, cognition, along with many more factors relating to physiological functioning. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is a very simple, safe, and non-invasive intervention that helps to relieve tissue and brain hypoxia, particularly at lower pressures! This procedure can also stimulate the vagus nerve (an integral part of the ANS) to help restore viral-related dysfunction of the ANS and this may explain long-COVID patients reporting relief from fatigue, cognitive impairment, weakness, headache and dizziness among many others after completing  a course of hyperbaric oxygen therapy therapy <view study> Read Less

Long COVID-related fatigue can be debilitating, and may affect young people who were previously in economic employment. All patients had been suffering from long COVID symptoms for over 3 months. The results presented here suggest potential benefits of HBOT, with statistically significant results following 10 sessions of HBOT at 2.4 ATA <view study> Read Less

Pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic progressive lung disease that is becoming more prevalent and poses medical challenges due to the limited therapeutic options available. The rise in the aging process along with the rise in pulmonary complications from long COVID has led to new research studies to help identify potential treatment options. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is emerging as one of them, showing good promise with clinical outcome measures. To demonstrate HBOT's influence on this disease, researchers in this study first exposed a group of rats to bleomycin (a chemotherapeutic agent that is known to cause acute pulmonary toxicity) directly into the trahea. This is to induce pulmonary fibrosis. They waited 7 days and then treated the rats with 14 days of HBOT at 2.5 ATA  for 90 minutes. The rats that were treated with this 2 week course of HBOT demonstrated a marked reduction in TGF-β, which is normally elevated and plays an active role in the development of the fibrosis.  The findings in this study support the use of HBOT as a potential "life changing" therapy for patients with pulmonary fibrosis <view study> Read Less

This is a single-center clinical trial of 20 COVID-19 patients aged 30 to 79 years being treated with 5 sessions of hyperbaric oxygen therapy at 2.0 ATA (90 minutes) at NYU Winthrop Hospital from March 31 to April 28, 2020. “The results demonstrated the safety of hyperbaric oxygen among COVID-19 patients and strongly suggests the need for a well-designed, multi-center randomized control trial” <view study> Read Less

Two male patients ages 57 and 64 years old were treated with a 1 week course of hyperbaric oxygen therapy at 1.5 ATA (60 minutes per session) Shortness of breath subsided immediately with both patients after the first hyperbaric session and resolved by the end of the 7 days. More notably, neither patient became critically ill and the lung CT scans showed remarkable improvement in lung pathology. The authors of this study concluded this report by suggesting that “hyperbaric oxygen therapy may promptly improve the progressive hypoxemia of patients with COVID-2019 pneumonia” <view study> Read Less