Just started HBO prior to dental implants at UCSF. Highly recommended by oral surgeon & dentist - 30 dives.
Hated it! Had trouble clearing my left ear, came up, used nasal spray which helped. Felt nausea during dive. Afterwards, nausea, light-headed, sleepy, dopey, left side of jaw hurts, continuing for 12 hours.
I don't want to go back tomorrow. Not sure how far to push myself. Any advice?

First off, welcome to the family Nancy. It's a big one with several who have gone through exactly what you are facing. Unfortunately, I am not a diver (yet). Others will be along directly to answer your concerns.

Take a few minutes and read several other people's signature line at the bottom of their posts. We all use it to remind ourselves of the particulars each person has in their case before we respond on the forum. Everyone is different, so we need a way to keep things straight.

Then go make a signature line for yourself. At the top of this page, click on My Stuff (beside the green triangle), select Edit Profile, go down to Signature block and start typing. Hit Save and you're done.

Hang in there Nancy, your post is in one of the more advanced forum areas, one that doesn't get as much attention and traffic as others like Introduce Yourself, General, etc. If you don't get any answers here in the next couple of days, consider reposting your question in one of the two I just mentioned.

take care,
Tony

Welcome to OCF!

Do you have tubes in your ears? If not you may need to get them put in. Many HBO patients need tubes in order to do their dives. Some HBO facilities insist on the patients getting tubes put in prior to beginning any dives.

Having tubes in your ears is not a big deal. Its minor surgery, some ENTs will even do it right in their office. When a patient has tubes in their ears, they must always wear ear plugs when taking a shower of getting into any kind of water.

When doing HBO, you should get checked prior to and after every dive by a nurse or the HBO tech. A doctor should be checking you once a week. In PA (probably everywhere), the doctor must be in the building whenever a patient is diving. I suggest you talk over your problems with the tech and ask if its a normal reaction. Ive done many dives and never had any problems except with my ears, that is until I got the tubes put in.

Since you are doing HBO for a dental procedure, you need to do the whole regime of dives. You goal is to avoid osteoradionecrosis which could turn into a huge problem if it would develop. Best wishes!!!

Other than what is recommended, take one day at a time, and get through that. Only you can push yourself forward to help prevent ORN, which can occur in patients with prior radiation to the mouth, jaw, who are having surgery, extraction, and dental implants, so think about that. You are a cancer survivor/fighter, and this is minor in comparison, so you can do it. Some had family members outside the tube talking with the patient on the phone, some the Tech did so.

I'm surprised their putting in dental implants, but may depend own the amount and areas radiated? I need to have HBOT again for extractions, but have to wait for a clear PET/CT.

As to the tech's, they took my blood sugar before having a dive, and actually had to be higher than normal, over 140, being the HBOT would lower it, so sometimes I had to drink juice, eat cookies and wait I until it raised, and the same after the dive, and if too low had to drink, eat again, and wait before going home. They suggest you bring your own snacks in case needed for such. The same was done with my blood pressure, which HBO can lower. I was lucky since a doctor was present in the room supervising the two techs, tubes, patients, and spoke to them every session.

I never felt great after HBOT either and was light headed, dizzy, eyes needed time to adjust, so your not alone, but do let the staff, doctors know.

I hope this helps.

I've been through HBO twice. I had a rough time the first few dives and did quit, but after discussion with my doctors about the need to continue I did.

My doctors recommended using nasal spray before each dive, which did help. It took a while for me to get the breathing technique down, but once I did I didn't have any more problems with my ears and did not need tubes. For me the key was to use the breathing technique during the entire time I was diving and then at the end. My blood pressure also got higher with treatment which did make me a little light headed and my doctor put me on additional BP medication. Your vision could change as a result of HBO, but for most people it goes back to normal after you finish treatment.

If you had radiation to your jaw, it is very important to have HBO prior to any invasive dental treatment to avoid more serious problems in the future.

Best wishes!

Welcome to OCF, Nancy.

Lots of experience here so read away. Just curious how the decision was made to do implants in areas that were subjected to radiation?

It is just that it is pretty rare to see, maybe most insurance won't pay for a very expensive set of procedures.

Best of luck,
Don