Can Oxygen Heal Your Body? The Power of HBOT with Dr. Julia Ward

Introduction to the Podcast and Guest 0:00

We really see a wide variety of patients. We see post stroke. We see people with, you know, chronic inflammatory disorders, inflammatory bowel disorders. A lot of autistic kids come our way. Long haul Covid. And then of course, some certain wounds. That are just not healing. Sports injuries, car wrecks, radiation kind of recovery, bone healing and and a lot of post-surgery patients too for faster healing. So if somebody is okay go ahead. I was to say like if somebody is having some plastic surgery, you know if they do like five sessions before their surgery and then they'll do like ten sessions afterwards, it really speeds up their healing, gives them better results.

Welcome to Doctor Talks the podcast where every episode leads to a healthier you. Join us as we navigate the world of optimal health, uncovering groundbreaking strategies to conquer chronic disease. In each episode, we'll bring you the latest insights from leading health experts, medical innovators, and wellness warriors. If you're seeking to transform your health journey, or if you're looking for answers to burning questions, you've come to the right place. Get ready to unlock the secrets of lifelong health and vitality.

This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Hello! Welcome to everyone to the Truly Healthy MD podcast. On this podcast, we empower patients to become truly healthy by addressing the root cause of illness with cutting edge medical science and holistic healing. Today we have a guest doctor, Julia Ward. She's a devoted wife, a mother of five, five kids. Wow, that is amazing. Oh, so doctor Ward combines her passion for medicine and a steadfast commitment to improving lives through transformative care.

This is amazing. I'm so excited to have this conversation. Thank you for being here, doctor Julia Ward. So what else? What else do we need to know about you? Before we dive into this conversation? Today, we decide to talk about hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which is one of the therapies that she has in her clinic. And this is something that I'm somewhat of a newbie to this, so I'm going to be asking a ton of questions, getting all informed, super excited about this. What else do we need to know about this?

About you. Before we dive into this conversation? Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate being here. And yeah, I got into functional medicine when I was looking to prevent menopause symptoms in myself, but also at the time I was feeling like super fatigued. I didn't want to call it chronic fatigue because it has such like negative connotations

How the Doctor Found Functional Medicine 2:51

with that, but it probably was along the lines of like, you know, I was falling asleep in the morning driving to work. So and I wasn't finding answers from conventional medicine, but that's literally how I found I was looking for bioidentical hormones and I found functional medicine. And that really renewed my my passion for medicine. Great. I know I think that happens to a lot of us. We go into medicine thinking it's one thing when we're in conventional medicine, a lot of us are like a little frustrated.

It's not what we expect it to be. And then find functional medicine is like a brand new awakening, a rebirth of our yeah. And so I always love hearing about how people find functional medicine, because it's not really a straight path for most of us. Yeah. So that's how you found functional medicine. So how did you get into hyperbaric? I was doing a course on brain health through I believe is Doctor Daniel Eyman, who does. If you were familiar with the Aymond clinic, he does a 3D scans. Yeah. Yeah, really? And stuff.

Yeah. And I was reading in there about every time, like hyperbaric would come up as a treatment for brain injuries. And I started thinking, wow, I wonder how much it would be, you know, how hard would it be to get hyperbaric oxygen chambers in your office and then like, you know, as, like the internet often does, as if by magic? I know I saw an ad somewhere for the International Hyperbaric Association, which is an association that really helps functional medicine doctors kind of get into. But so I decided to go down to their conference.

At the time, it was down in Florida somewhere and just really got excited about once I learned more about what hyperbaric chambers do and all the benefits they can provide, I got super excited about having them in the office. It just kind of blew me away that that first weekend down there. So that's great. So you just like, dove straight in and you're pretty much. Yeah, that's what I want to do. That's amazing. What I want to do. Yeah, yeah. It's super exciting. Feel I'm sure it was a big investment, but I've heard it's really paid off with your patients. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah.

We get amazing results on the patients who follow the protocols. Yeah. Right. Okay. So again, I'm a newbie at this. I've never been in a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber. So can you explain to me into our listeners what this is, how it works, like at a physical level. So we can kind of understand what this is. Sure. So a hyperbaric oxygen therapy or H bar, you'll call me, you'll hear me calling it h bar a lot. Let's just call it a as a college fund. It involves going into this pressurized chamber and breathing a mask of 100% oxygen.

Now, the pressure around you is increased with just room air. And then there's a constant flow room air going in and out of this tank, basically. And it looks like a little mini submarine basically. But there's different sizes. The the chambers that we have in our office. Each chamber is large enough for two people to fit into. So you can sit up completely. You can turn around. It's not at all like flat or constricted, not kind of like claustrophobia, like no, it's not like an MRI or anything like that.

And and also because the pressure is increased with room air, you can actually bring electronics in there. So I would bring my laptop computer in there and get work done, you know, because the sessions are an hour to an hour and a half. And so during this time, the basically the whole process of breathing 100% oxygen under increased pressure is super saturating all of your tissues with oxygen.

What Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Is 6:29

And so oxygen is really a vital component for growth, repair and healing. And so the the high oxygen environment is promoting the body's natural healing processes by enhancing cellular repair, reducing inflammation, stimulating release of growth factors and stem cells. And and so it's really boosting your immune system in a nice balanced way. It's stimulating your mitochondria, which are the little organelles that produce energy in the cell. It's stimulating the the mitochondria to produce more energy at that cellular level.

And it's stimulating your body to grow more mitochondria. So now all of a sudden your everything has more batteries in it. So you're literally increasing your energy there. And again that the dissolved oxygen it's it's like 15 times more dissolved oxygen in your blood at a like a 2.0 atmosphere and 100% oxygen. Then, then there is just a regular breathing room, air at regular pressure. And there's it become toxic when it's in that high amount. So not at these moderate pressures. It doesn't. Now if you certainly if you go higher or if you go longer, you do run the risk of something called oxygen toxicity.

But for these chambers, these chambers that I have go up to 2.2 atmosphere, they're still cited. They're very safe. And you would have to do a lot of hours before you get to that. So yeah. Yeah. Because you know anything in excess is bad, right. You can of course better yeah. Again. Right. You can have too much love or. Well, maybe not that bad, but most things in excess are poor. So we have to know how much. And I'm sure there's a ton of science that goes into knowing exactly the the right amount for healing.

Yes, yes. Okay, so what makes H sport unique compared to other therapy where that are oxygen based and other traditional treatments. So H differentiates itself through the use of increased atmospheric pressure, which enables the oxygen to reach the tissues that are otherwise purely pure perfused or deprived. So unlike home or soft sided chambers, the steel sided chambers like ours can achieve higher pressures again up to 2.2 atmospheres. And with the 100% oxygen in a mask, it optimizes the therapeutic benefits.

And so it just you're getting oxygen into places that maybe couldn't get to because of poor circulation, because of vessel breakdown, you know, peripheral vascular disease or, you know, some brain injuries, all sorts of things. So yeah, because I know, like, you know, most of us come from a conventional medicine background, and I know that they have the use for like in the wound healing centers. Right. So we get a lot more oxygen. So that's that's how. Yes. What about H bar. It's like they really. Yeah.

A pack the oxygen in there and people with like diabetes with peripheral vascular disease where there's not yes enough oxygen. But you don't have to have diabetes, don't have to have chronic wound for this to be beneficial. Is that correct. Right. Right. Absolutely. And there's a lot of wounds that we have internally. But people don't recognize them as chronic wounds because you can't see them. They're not on the outside. So things like irritable bowel or Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, those are all internal wounds that need healing, just like an external diabetic wound or conversely, somebody who's had traumatic brain injury.

That's a wound on the inside of their brain. You just can't see it. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It makes so much sense now. Yeah. Because I would love to, you know, take what we commonly think of when we think of certain concept and be like okay how does this apply to functional medicine. And so yeah I've known about what therapies in my conventional time in medicine with wound healing. But you're right. Like I want to heal other stuff. It's not just the diabetic wounds. There's so many other things you want to heal.

Yeah, and that's the beauty of it. But too, it's like you don't have to just pick one benefit. It's going to do everything for you. You know, it's not only going to heal your wounds, it's going to stimulate your stem cells. It's going to improve your your immune system. It's going to improve your your energy production. So it's just like it does everything and it normalizes gut microbiome. It clears up your skin. It's just it's just a wonderful. And it's the best at reducing inflammation. Yeah. So I love interventions that aren't just more pills because I feel like when I went from conventional to more holistic integrative medicine, at the beginning, I was just trying to substitute the, you know, amlodipine metformin.

I'm like, okay, I'll give them berberine instead. I'll give them something natural. But not everything is a pill I want to offer. Yes, things that are interventions, things that are either lifestyle things or other modalities are not just more pills. And that's what I love about learn about this. This is really cool. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. So like in your clinic, what are the primary health conditions or concerns that can address? We really see a wide variety of patients. We see post stroke. We see people with, you know, chronic inflammatory disorders, inflammatory bowel disorders.

A lot of autistic kids come our way long haul Covid. And then of course, some certain wounds, that are just not healing sports injuries, car wrecks, radiation kind of recovery, bone healing and and a lot of post-surgical patients too, for faster healing. So if somebody okay, go ahead. I was going to say, like if somebody is having some plastic surgery, you know, if they do like five sessions before their surgery

Conditions Treated with Hyperbaric Therapy 12:22

and then they'll do like ten sessions afterwards, that really speeds up their healing, gives them better results. If you like this discussion, please hit the subscribe button and consider leaving us a review. It really helps people find us and we truly appreciate your support and so the number of sessions that you recommend is going to be individualized to each of these conditions or how to that. Yeah. Yeah. And with different conditions there's there's varying amounts of research looking at those specific conditions.

There's actually a really helpful website called Hyperbaric experts.com. And they have a whole section where you can look at it, lists out all the different conditions, and then the research behind each condition that's related to each. But but a lot of studies have kind of centered around doing 40 hours in the chamber. And so you can do that, you know, and it is recommended to do the sessions in sort of a stacked fashion. So you'll do an hour each five days a week for two months. That would get you to 40 hours.

Some protocols call for more, some for a little bit less. But there's always that sort of stacking effect. It's not meant to be one and done. It's not meant to be done once a week. You know, it's like at least especially in the beginning, you know, you want to stack those sessions close to each other to get maximum benefit. So that's that's important for people to know going into this that you don't want to just think, okay, I can only afford one, so I'll do one and I'm done. Yeah, yeah. Know what you're getting into how to really get the benefits correct.

Consider this kind of modality. Correct. Oh. So cool okay. Yeah. So how does H. But support the body's natural healing process. Like from inflammation and brain health. So H part reduces inflammation by delivering oxygen to damaged tissues facilitating cellular repair. It stimulates the release of growth factors and stem cells, which are crucial for repairing blood vessels and promoting tissue regeneration. So for brain health, each part has been shown to improve cognitive function by enhancing oxygen delivery to oxygen starved areas of the brain, as evidenced by studies on post Covid patients and individuals with traumatic brain injuries.

And so cool. Okay. Yeah. Is there like a maximum age if there's somebody like with dementia, is there maximum age in which you take people or not? No, no there's no maximum age. What about minimum age? It is not as far as I'm aware. You know, the only the only true like sort of contraindications or like hard rules, like you shouldn't go in a hyperbaric chamber is if you've had some trauma to your eardrums, if you're just unable to equalize your ears for some reason, say if you have a cold, a sinus infection, there's a lot of fluid in your sinuses that's going to be really painful.

You probably should not go into a chamber at that point. Okay. And I do have some patients that have a lot of chronic sinusitis issues that they tell me I just I can't go up in planes because it's yeah, yeah, that's they it's that just a complete contraindication for them. They just have to go resolve that problem first before they see you. You know, if they can use some sort of like, you know, a nasal spray to sort of decrease the inflammation for a bit. Sometimes if you sort of get beyond the initial pain, being in the chamber itself is going to decrease that.

So I've had it where like I started to come down with a cold, I've got a little congestion. And in the very beginning of the pressurization chamber or the pressurization process, it's a little painful because it's really squeezing, but then it sort of like goes beyond it's like getting past the breaker waves, if you will. Of course, everybody's a little bit different in how they respond, how much fluid they have, that type of thing. But I'm sorry, my dogs barking in the background. I don't know if you could hear that, but you're okay.

Good, good. Okay. We love pets, so if you see one. Yes, you're one of my pets. To in this podcast. So I will tell you what I, I got I, I've been using the chamber for the last couple of years. I was using it pretty consistently, and I would take my little dog in with me as well. And he loves to come in the chamber with me. It's so cute. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm all for, you know, holistic health for all species. I have a dog, I have three cats. And so I give them their omegas. I give their probiotics. Yeah. Peptides.

I make sure that they have good health. Yeah. Maybe when I go to my hyperbaric chamber session with you, I might want to take my dogs too. Yeah, yeah. If there's, if they're little, you know, you know, not a dog, but yeah, I have a lion. So he would definitely. Yes. Yes. We had an older cat recently passed away, but before he passed, I was determined to kind of like, prolong his life. You know, I wanted him to be like, be healthier. So. So I took him to the chamber and I would put him in a little box, and I would put an oxygen hose in there.

So he would just get to sit in the box with the high oxygen. And it was nice. You could tell it perked him up after a while. Yeah. And so I guess you just know that they can equalize a pressure in their ears. Yeah, yeah. You know, they can yawn, they can swallow, they can do that the same. Yeah yeah yeah. And yeah I always when I'm like, how do you know. Yeah. Yeah. That is so cool. Yeah. I'm totally an animal lover. That is really, really cool. So what are some of like the practical aspects of going under H, for example?

Like what do you patients what what would you tell a patient to expect during a session. So basically when you go in you're going to either sit up or lie down. You're going to be in this pressurized chamber and you have an oxygen mask on and as the pressure increases, you can hear your ears pop, or it's sort of like when you're in an airplane, you know, it's going to equalize a bit, and you can kind of help this out by swallowing wing or yawning. And it takes, you know, it all depends 10 to 20 minutes to get to the pressure.

And then when you're there, it doesn't feel any different than just being at regular atmospheric pressure. And then when it starts to re pressurize, when you're kind of, as they say, coming up to the surface, you'll feel like a rush of cold air. Come in and again, your ears will start popping and re equalizing. Okay. So that's during do patients have any symptoms afterwards. And they need to be aware of. Sometimes the ears are still popping a little bit. You can have that sensation of the constantly popping ears.

But as you as you do more sessions in the body gets used to going in and out. Your ears start equalizing much faster and with less kind of residual side effects. Excellent, excellent. Have you ever had to, like, abort a session like a patient wasn't tolerating it or something like that? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, for some people, depending on their condition, we may need to go what we call a very slow dive. And that's where we very slowly take them to a down in the pressure range. But we gauge it because there's a window and we're watching them the whole time.

And you know, we we can send text messages, but we're doing hand signals or we're tapping on the side of the container, you know, it's like there's a lot of ways to communicate when you're looking to turn. Yeah. Yeah I think their bladder before they go in. Yes.

Treatment Protocols, Safety, and Risks 19:48

Yes. Exactly. I don't want to have to interrupt for that kind of reason. But yeah, but if something does happen it's totally safe. You just stop it and it's it's yeah, it's totally fine. In fact, this particular brand of chamber that we have, I love it because you can actually get yourself out. There's a little like emergency lever on the inside. And it's not really emergency. It's like I use that lever when I get myself in and out of this chamber all the time. But you can flip it up. It will depressurize within about, you know, ten minutes, and you can get out.

Excellent. Okay. Yeah. Think that would help people who might be like on the fence? Yes. I might feel a little bit. Yes. I don't know if I can do this if they know they have that. Yes. I think that would be like, okay, I'll, I'll just go ahead and. Yes. And I always say it's really good to sort of like face your feelings if you feel like you're claustrophobic. And a lot of people do, you know when you do it a time or two? And I was like, recommend like if look, if you want to take some CBD oil beforehand, that can be very calming or bring a movie in to distract yourself so that you can be watching a movie.

But once you do at a time or two and you realize that you're fine, it's like you kind of stop being afraid of that. And there's a lot of a lot of power in overcoming fears like that. Absolutely. Expose yourself. And once you overcome it, you're like, wow, I'm a much better person. Yeah. Stronger. Stronger. Yes. Yeah for sure. But but certainly once people start feeling the benefits after even 2 or 3 sessions, it's like it becomes worth it to to put themselves through that because they start feeling so much better.

Is there like a limit to how many sessions, like if somebody starts it and they love it, can they just be like a regular customer, be like, I want more? Yeah, yeah, it really is. Yeah. I'm sure there's you can keep going. You've reached a limit. You can't do it anymore. Right? Right. And we do recommend taking like if you're doing a series of them to take at least a two day break in a week. So if you do five days on two days off, you know, just to give yourself a little break. But yes, you can do quite a few sessions.

Yeah, I imagine you probably have a lot of repeat customers. You're probably like, yeah, I want to experience that. They probably are like, I to do this again. Yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely. Really really really cool. And so what about the risks associated with spot and how do you manage them in your practice. So the main risk is discomfort to the pressure in the ears. But this is minimized by monitoring and adjusting the pressurization process. Our chambers use room air again for pressurization so it significantly reduces any risk of fire.

In fact, when we're pressurized, when the cold air comes in, it gets it gets pretty steamy. And like foggy in there. There's pretty moist. Over time, patients find it easier and easier to equalize air pressure. And again, oxygen toxicity is a potential risk with very high pressures. But our chambers don't go to these limits. You know, you're talking like three atmospheres. And above there are some chambers that go 6 or 7 atmospheres. But we are not one of those. Okay. I wonder if anybody's like, try to like endure the pain and had any like significant trauma to their ears or anything.

Has that ever happened and and you're not not in my not in my experience. I'm sure it has happened before. But yeah, I think they're probably being cautious if they're like, aware and they're yeah, yeah, you're not going to get to that extent because it's really painful. Right, right. You would hope that somebody would be monitoring them. Yeah. Yeah. They don't want to just tough it out. Like if it's if it's hard it's for a reason. Yeah exactly. You got to stop. Yeah okay okay. So really low risk.

Not a ton of things that we need to be concerned about that is that's that's really cool because, you know any intervention I always tell people, okay, there's risks and there's benefits like yeah. And some of the best interventions like even exercising you can over exercise or eating a certain type of food. If you don't rotate your diet you need variety. Right. There's there's like risk and even things that you wouldn't think there's there's risk. And so yeah, when we're talking about medications, that's something that they teach us a lot in medical school.

Oh yeah. All all the risks of all this. But when we go into more integrative medicine, we're prescribing things that are not typical medications. Maybe herbs, vitamins. There's also risks in those things. I want to be very, you know, realistic with my patients. Like you can't just like go out and buy just like any supplement because they said it's good for whatever health. Yeah, risks with stuff. So that's something I'm always trying to inform my patients about. Like what kind of risks? So I love hearing about these type of interventions where the risks are really minimal.

Yeah. And it's it's something that people can do as part of their therapy, whether they're also doing other stuff. If they have an infection, they're also getting other kind of treatment. That's very integrated. Let's say. So it's it's I love hearing about these kind of treatments. Yeah. Yeah. Very very cool. So how does that fit into like a broader functional medicine approach to patient care. So each part aligns with functional medicine principles by addressing the root cause of illness such as inflammation and oxygen deprivation, rather than just treating the symptoms.

So it complements other therapies by optimizing the body's healing capacity, making it valuable tool and comprehensive personalized care plans that may include nutritional support, detoxification, and then other functional medicine interventions. Yeah. Like we were just saying like there's so many modalities that we need to implement with patients. It's not just like go home and take this pill or go right. You know, do one thing though. Yeah. Modalities we bring into our patients care. Typically the better outcomes they're going to have.

So yeah it's it's nice it's nice to to to know of one more thing that we can offer patients because typically as, as I'm sure you know, the patients that come to us are typically a lot more complex than. Yes. Yeah. Somebody who is, you know, just living a life. They got a little illness, they go to a PCP, take care of usually the patients that come to integrative practices, like yours and to mine, are people who have been having multiple symptoms. They have been able to get answers from multiple doctors, health practitioners.

And usually it's a lot of stuff that's going wrong with them. And so yeah, I just one intervention that we're going to offer, then we're going to have to offer them multiple things. Yeah. So it's it's good to know that there's these things that are not the typical things that we think of as pills and all the other things that we. Yeah have. Yeah, absolutely. Really. Well, with this functional medicine approach, this root, I'm. Yeah. So I love hearing success stories. That's always what I live for.

Do you have any success stories. Any good patient outcomes that you can share with us? One compelling case involves a long Covid patients. So in an an Israeli study, individuals underwent 40 sessions of each. But reported significant improvements in cognitive function, energy levels and mood compared to a controlled group. And similarly, NFL quarterback Joe Namath experienced relief from memory loss and focus issues after each bot, underscoring its effectiveness for brain health and recovery from concussions.

That is so cool. So yeah, it's nice to know, you know, those cases that are in the media that people are like, oh, I recognize that name.

Functional Medicine Integration and Patient Outcomes 27:48

Yeah, yeah. And so how how big is your practice? How many patients do you have doing this? Right now we probably have like. Probably around 100 patients who are coming in and using this off and on just depends on the, you know, sort of like fluctuates throughout the year. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like any business. But yeah, that's. Yeah a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah I just like oh one person a month. So yeah. Yeah they overlap. But yes it's, it's been pretty amazing. And again just getting all kinds of different conditions and seeing some really pretty dramatic results of improvement.

So and so I assume since you have that technology available to yourself, you just go in and use it too, right? Yes, yes. What what changes have you seen in your health with it? I, I've noticed it really reduced a lot of kind of early arthritis signs that I was getting, and it really cleared up my skin. I feel like my skin has never looked so good. Yeah, it's. Yeah. And it's helped with some gut issues. I think I've, you know, had some things like Sibo in the past and it's really helped to normalize those.

So yeah. And I had a little car accident about a year and a half ago. And it was I felt really, really helpful as far as my recovery process after that. Yeah, absolutely. That's great. Yeah. Because sometimes those recoveries can be super prolonged and difficult. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad that you have access to that. I can't I can't wait to be your next. That's so cool. I could definitely use, you know. Have our skin looking healthier and yeah. Yeah to increase our, our healthspan. You know, it's each year that we age, you know, there's a little bit more aches and pains or things that we, be aware of.

So that sounds so, so cool. Yeah. What about for athletes? I personally I love working out. That's a big part of my identity. And, I encourage people to be as cognizant as they can about, you know, how much lean body mass you have. Don't try to just, like, lose weight, lose fat. Think about, yeah, how much muscle mass you have. There's so much science going into this is really what's going to tell us how long we're going to live and how healthy we're going to live. So I'm really on that bandwagon a lot of us have, yeah.

The, trying to increase the amount of physical fitness and muscle mass and that will lead to better health. So in that kind of scenario, are there any specific benefits for athletes to get better physical performance recovery? Because, you know, we're always trying to get an edge on all of this, right. Whenever. Yeah, yeah. Working out. We're like, any little thing will help. I want to eat better. I want to sleep better. Yeah, yeah. You know, meditate. I want to control my stress. Does this also offer anything?

Absolutely. So athletes have started I think more and more are starting to use this to accelerate recovery from injuries and improve their stamina. And by delivering oxygen to these oxygen deprived tissues, but speeds up cell recovery and reduces inflammation. And research has shown that it helps reduce pain intensity and it improves post-workout recovery. So professional athletes like Joe Namath have also leveraged each sport to address head injuries and improve overall well-being. And I would just like to say, for any professional football teams who might be listening, y'all need to get pot chambers in your recovery room because, you know, any time you have head injury, like you need each bite to help repair those tissues and prevent all the the brain damage that's going on.

And even though it's a little bit, it's like it adds up over the years especially. So yeah. Yeah, we definitely want to do everything we can to be proactive about not letting that damage build up over time. I think that's something that there was not enough awareness in the past. Yeah. You're either like, oh, well, if you did completely pass out you're okay. Yeah, yeah yeah, a little bump. I mean, our brain is definitely a very sensitive tissue. Yeah. You know, we've seen that any kind of trauma, even if we were started off as minimal in the past, we're like, you know, that really affects it.

It increases the it's huge permeability between. Yeah. You know, we talk a lot about leaky gut in. Yeah. It's in. Right. Right. The real term for that is increased intestinal permeability. It's something scientifically proven. It's something that we know affects our health in many ways. But there's also leaky brain. And so it's really interesting to hear about how leaky brain from little traumas can affect our brain health and cause. So many things can cause dementia. My cause, a learning difficulty, is it can cause brain fog and cause even, anxiety, depression.

It can cause so many things. And so we want to be active, we want to be out there, but there's always some risk more active. So this is. Yeah. No, that. Okay. You're gonna be taking some risks. But if you do happen to have some brain trauma, let's be proactive and not wanna run into a bigger thing in the future that can't be as easily repaired. So that's super cool. People don't realize that the consistency of our brain is like soft butter, and it's housed in this very, you know, rigid. Yeah. Container with sharp ridges on the inside.

And so even just little hits to the head can really do some damage to that soft buttery tissue. So and you're right, when you have leaky gut, you know, you're going to have a leaky brain or you can have leaky vessels. You know, it just it all kind of goes together. So. Yep. They're all intertwined. Yeah. And so it's, it's great to know that there's some other modalities to. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like okay how do you get up there in the brain and heal all that. Yeah. Yeah. Access it real easily with a lot of the tools.

Yeah. But this is a tool where the actually goes in there and it repairs it. So yeah. Yeah. And is and who doesn't want to get her brain right. We all right thinking faster. We all want to be calmer. We all want yes avoid dementia right. So that's something for all of us. Even if you're like, oh, I'm not sure I ever had any head trauma. I, you know, I don't engage these high risk things. Yeah. Brain health is one of the most huge parts of. Yeah. Health. Yes. Yeah, definitely. The brain has to be working well for everything else to be in line.

Very good to be very proactive about that. Yes. Because and yeah and like you said everything is intertwined. When you have leaky gut you also get leaky brain. And yeah it's that's part of what I love about how we practice in integrative medicine. Not only do we integrate different modalities from, you know, not just conventional medicine, but from other ways that we can help the body heal, but we also integrate different systems. We don't think like the brain is separate from everything else. It's it's connect. Everything's connected. Yeah.

And when we want somebody to heal, we have to look at the whole thing. We have to see how everything affects everything else. So yeah, it's it's a super interesting way also to practice medicine. It's definitely was boring then. Yes. ABC you have a symptom that's a diagnosis and it leads to that pillar procedure. Right? Yes. Yeah. It's kind of boring to do that. Definitely the way that you kind of have to and and conventional medicine because one that's the way we're taught and to because time constraints, you know the healthcare system is is overloaded.

So many times it's like, okay, I got a single patient, okay. You're not feeling great. Okay. Let me just put on some Zoloft, see if that helps. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because you only have ten minutes to see them. So I know it's it's so frustrating in that system. I know patients are frustrated, but doctors are also frustrated. We want we're not fulfilled as much I think. Yeah. In absolutely setting. So most of us that have made that transition from going from, you know, the comfort of, okay, there's always going to be conventional medicine.

We always need know that commercial stuff. But we take this leap of faith and we go into integrative medicine. It's scary, but most of us are so much happier because we see true healing and we truly get to know our patients so much better. And I just love that so much. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So what advice would you give somebody that's considering spa. They're like okay this is really cool. First I've heard of it or maybe I've heard about it for a while. But what how can they determine if it's the right therapy for them.

So each one is a powerful therapy for those seeking healing. And recovery is especially beneficial for individuals with chronic conditions, inflammation or injuries that haven't responded to traditional treatments. Patients should seek providers with steel sided chambers for the best therapeutic outcomes, and it's also important to approach heart

Athletes, Brain Health, and Recovery 37:48

with a commitment to multiple sessions as its benefits accumulate over time. So it was, again never meant to be a one and done situation. And sometimes the patients say, well, I can only make it once a week. I mean, you're just not going to get the results that that we know it can provide if you're doing it. Not that often. Yeah. And I'm sure you have many instances where people have tried other things before and they're like, hey, all these ideas I've tried, I keep track if nothing is working and then you just write this and it just helps everything else work better too I imagine.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah it does, it does. And you know I've gotten lots of patients off of their rheumatoid arthritis medications just by doing a series of what I mean, as well as looking at their diet and seeing what we can clean up their. Yeah. You know, some other one thing we're like I say we integrate all these different modalities. So we can't just say, we can't just say everybody who walks through my door, I'm going to put them on this one thing and they're going to get better, right? That's not how it works. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

All all of our programs for patients are highly personalized based on their unique situation. Yeah. That is so cool. It's it's very refreshing as a physician to be able to offer these kind of things to patients. And it is get better and not just like I know when I was in conventional medicine, I would, you know, see my list of patients, whether, you know, an inpatient signing off after round on these patients or outpatient setting, like, oh, they're back again with the same thing. And it was kind of demoralizing to some extent not being able to people get better.

It was just making sure they didn't get worse, try to keep them from yeah, getting worse. But even though it's very emotionally and intellectually taxing to practice this kind of medicine, because we got to think a ton and we have patients with these really long, complicated stories. It's really it's, it's, it's a lot of emotional effort and time that. Yeah. Built into this. But it's just so much more rewarding to when we do see. Yeah benefits because we really help people heal and finally get better.

And what I tell you is like my the best outcome would be that you don't need me anymore. I don't want to have to be your doctor forever. I want you to get to a point where you're like, oh, I don't I don't need to follow up with you anymore. I'm good. Yeah, I yeah, a great life. I don't want more. Whereas a lot of times in conventional medicine, they're never aiming for that. They're like, okay, you have let's roll. Let's put you understand I got a monitor you on stat in the rest of your life. Right.

There's no endpoint right? Yes. Yeah I love it when patients don't need us when they even achieved those those goals. And so that's that's one of the main things that I love about the type of medicine that we practice. And it's, it's, you know, I think it's, it's helpful for, for everyone. I mean, nobody wants to spend their time and their money on doctors and pills, be it natural pills or pharmaceuticals. Yeah. Of that time with their loved ones or with new projects. And so the more we can help heal people so they don't have to all their efforts don't have to always be on their health.

Just liberates so much of the human spirit to it does matter. Yeah, it does absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So what else? Is there anything else that you want to tell our listeners? I always like to make sure that people go away with a really clear idea of like, okay, these are the three main takeaways if I yeah, I there was a lot of information. Maybe I need to listen to the podcast again. I'm going to go into your website and see what you offer. I'm going to go to that website that you recommended that has all lot information about hyperbaric or go into, you know, yeah, they're Google searches.

ChatGPT. These are so much on the internet right now. But if you want to narrow it down to three things that people can take away from this conversation, what would those three things be about? Each bot therapy, I would say number one is that it's it's a, it's a safe and 100% natural therapy. And think about it, when you or someone you know has been through a, say, a stroke or a head injury or they're having some sort of neurodegenerative disorder like an Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or even autism, because it really does well for those type of disorders and brain injuries.

Anything that, you know, you need a reduction of inflammation for it. It's really fantastic. Number one, it's natural. It reduces inflammation. We all love that. We all. But the more natural the better. Yeah, this works better with our bodies. And yeah, inflammation is at the core of of everything. Even like heart disease. Yeah. An inflammatory. Yeah. Diabetes. It's all of these are inflammatory conditions. So yeah, reducing inflammation is so, so important in just about everything. Like even. Yeah depression, anxiety, they're all seen.

Yeah. So it's like some people have described depression anxiety like an inflammation of the brain. So it can it can really help. Yeah. And not just depression anxiety but all the gamut of all the neuropsychiatric problems. Yes. Yeah. To be so separate. Right. They used to think right. Neurology and psychiatrist two different things. But as we learn more about the brain we know that yeah it's all the same. Like there's something going on. Yeah I just watched on Netflix this one thing called Brain on Fire.

And it was this book previously and it's out of this 27 year old developed autoimmune stuff itis with the anti NMDA receptor antibodies. She just started going crazy like she was a very productive person. Yeah. And she was working as a journalist. And she just started like being super fatigued and then acting having these highs and lows. They thought she was had a psychiatric issue but she was seizure. So the doctors did not give up on her. They're like there's something going on in her brain because she's having seizures too.

And, there was like so many doctors, you cannot just put her in a psych ward forever and say, yeah, yeah, because we know something's going on. And so it took multiple multiple doctors and tests. And finally they were able to diagnose her with this autoimmune condition where the her own immune system was producing antibodies against part of her brain that was having her act crazy. And so what I love about that is that I, I always hated psychiatry when I was training. I just always felt like we just, you know, we just give people to suppress their hallucinations. Yes.

I just yeah, it's psychiatrist. But the more that I learn about healing the body and healing the brain, healing the mind. So, like all psychiatric diseases are also things that can be healed. And so just because we don't know, we don't always know what the root cause we know how to heal. It doesn't mean there isn't a way to heal things. So something like that. Yeah. Get the book. Yeah. It on Netflix. Brain on fire. It's so interesting. That's so great. Yeah. It makes you think about what? About all these other cases I've heard of. Yeah.

Like people going into psychiatric hospitals and checking, you know, doing blood work on all the schizophrenics and everything and people. Right? Yeah. The high rate of infections, like from Bartonella and stuff like that, they just didn't ever think to look for a reason. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Even some heavy metal toxicities can nail toxicities. All these things are reversible. That yes. Then they don't have a wide enough toolkit sometimes to. Yeah. Looking and they're like okay that's all we know to look for.

So you're just gonna take this military and that's it. That's like no you have it for life. Yeah. So I mean fortunately now they've got better brain scans. And so you can go to a place like the Aymond clinic and get a 3D Pet scan of, you know, perfusion and, and electrical activity and really get a different perspective. Yep. I've taken what's going on my own clambers to cats Pet scans, and it is amazing to see. Yeah. What parts of the brain are working well. What? Yeah. It's like it's an image and it's anybody can look at that and see what.

Yeah. And I think it's as I, I just think it's so strange

Choosing Hyperbaric Therapy and Final Takeaways 46:36

that psychiatry doesn't look at the brain routinely, like it's the one specialty that doesn't really look or image the organ that it's studying. Because it just it never has been done. Now they have the technology but it's just not kind of in their wheelhouse to do that on a routine basis. Absolutely. Yeah. When I took my family member so they saw there were like specific parts. There were like okay so in the temporal lobe this is happening. We see it abnormality there. So we're gonna do, you know, for some medication to, treat that and then get to the root cause.

So we can take her off medication later. And so it's it's so interesting. So. Yeah. Yeah, we're one take away that this is a natural therapeutic healing. Like, it's healing for killing people. That's wonderful okay. So that's number one. What's your number two takeaway. I'm drawing a blank now we we don't know where this at the beginning but I, I that's number two before we start recording. It's it's been a while now that there's different types of hyperbaric chambers. Oh yeah. Right. So there is a difference between the hyperbaric chamber.

So if you see an advertised for one chamber and they're charging 50 bucks per session, and then you see another place and they're charging, you know, 300 bucks a session, like why why the price discrepancy. Well, you know, maybe ivy bars or med spas might have a home unit, which is a soft sided chamber. And those can get up to 1.3 atmospheres of pressure. You're typically not breathing 100% oxygen. You're just on room air. And so you're still going to get some benefit from that. But not you know, we're getting exponentially more oxygen dissolved in the system by using a higher pressure chamber, steel sided one.

So and breathing the 100% oxygen. So just realize that there are differences in chambers out there. That's so good to know because to the person that's not educated on this, you're like, I don't understand this. So that's okay. Yeah. Take away. Yeah. It's for all sorts of different conditions. It's healing. It's there's different types of hyperbaric chambers in the last takeaway that we had talked about previously is that you said it's 100% natural. So tells us more about that. Well, I love that because not only is 100% natural, but it's noninvasive meaning like there are no needles involved here.

And so for a lot of my patients, you know, venous access is a major issue. And we can't do certain treatments like IV nutrition or ozone therapy because they just don't have very good veins. But so it's just it's just nice to have a therapy that's very effective. And again, noninvasive. Yeah. That is excellent. I love water in my toolkit. The more that I can offer people different modalities, the less and help these people who have struggled usually for a long time. So thank you so much for coming on our podcast and talking about export therapy.

Do you want to share your website if people want to look you up? Yeah, my doctor, Julia Waukon, excellent. Dr. Julia Walker, and then the other website that I mentioned for more information on H. But if you're just looking for information, it's called Hyperbaric experts.com. I think there's a dash in between the hyperbaric and the experts. Okay. That is great. I love all these resources because we're just so empowered now with the internet to do to to understand these things better. So I love sharing these resources with with patient and with listeners with family members.

And you're located in Houston, Texas, is that correct? Correct, correct. All right. So I'm going to have to go down to Houston and visit you and experience is hot. Team would love to have you sold on it. It's awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it so much. Thanks. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website WW Dot doctor Talksport.com.

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