HBOT

So yesterday, I had my first HBOT dive. I'm going to try to describe it as best as I can.


So I arrived at the office and was taken back to the HBOT room. Then, I was asked to take off my shoes and my shirt. I had on two shirts and was told that the capsule got kind of hot. So I took off my work shirt and left on my long sleeve shirt. They took my temp, pulse ox, blood pressure and weight. Then, I stepped into this machine. I put my hand on "M's" shoulder and stepped up. This was quite difficult, but I grabbed the bar on the wall and pulled myself in. I stood up and slowly sat down. (kind of like this:)


http://www.rimlandcenter.com/photos/thumbs/k.jpg

Now, I'm not quite sure how I thought that Oxygen would be delivered, but color me surprised when I saw the oxygen nasal cannula, the FLARED nasal cannula.

So, "M" asked me to put the plugs up my nose and the tubing around my ears. So I did it as best as I could seeing as how their was already Oxygen blowing out of the cannula. The only thing that got me through this step was thinking of a few friends that I know deal with these things on a daily basis.

I laid down and positioned my head so I could see out of the clear opening. M handed me a door bell and said that if I needed her that I could press the button and she would be right there, decompress the chamber and let me out.


I put in my ear phones with MP3 player and pressed play. M zipped up the chamber and I was good. I was surprisingly good. I thought, oh this isn't that bad. Then I I started feeling something. My ears. I could feel them and hear the pressure through my music. It was uncomfortable. I started getting nervous. This was the 2nd minute in. I started giving myself a pep talk. It was one of those, "Oh you so got this. Get over the fear woman. You are spider woman. You can do this. You did the needle in your legs test ... this is nothing ... Come on Jennifer, get it together. Don't press that button Jennifer. GET IT TOGETHER." Well it went something like that for about 10 minutes and then I settled down.

I listened to some of my favorite songs and sang ... loudly. Well I guess it was loud, I couldn't hear it through the noise of the machine and my ear phones. I toggled between Kate Voegele's Lift Me Up and Sweet Silver Lining. Also enjoyed listening to a little Marty Casey & Lovehammers. It worked. I managed to stay in for the entire planned 60 minutes and the 10 minute decompression time.

As soon as the 60 minutes were up, M came back and scared the boogers out of me. I had my eyes closed and was singing. I opened my eyes momentarily and saw her standing at the opening. She told me (her words were very muffled) that she was going to start depressurizing the chamber. Then I heard it hissing. After it was finished, she unzipped the chamber and helped me out.

It was by far the weirdest thing I've done. I'm not sure if it was the chamber or the IVs or the Borrelia series or what, but this morning I woke up clear headed and without a headache for the first time in a couple of weeks.

Yah! I go back on Tuesday.