Kuna chiropractor offers hyperbaric oxygen therapy

A Kuna chiropractor has gotten into the business of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, becoming the only provider of outpatient mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the Treasure Valley.
Kyle Burtenshaw, owner of Pioneer Sports & Pain Center, recently launched Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy of Idaho with the addition of a new portable hyperbaric chamber, which he uses at his office at 1619 N. Linder Road.
Patients lay down inside the hyperbaric chamber, which increases the pressure to 1.3 atmospheres, just a little bit greater than normal, or the equivalent of being underwater 10 feet. In addition, the patient is given an oxygen mask, breathing in 80 to 90 percent pure oxygen.
The idea is that under greater pressure, the cells of the body are better able to absorb oxygen, increasing the cells’ function and health.
Patients stay in the chamber for about an hour. The chamber has three windows, and the material of the chamber’s shell is translucent, so it’s bright inside. There’s enough room in the 7-foot-long, 3-foot-diameter chamber to move around a bit, read a book, listen to music or just take a nap. A parent could also go inside with a hesitant child.
Most people are probably familiar with a hyperbaric chamber as a treatment for scuba divers who suffer from “the bends,” in which too-large bubbles of oxygen get trapped in the body’s bloodstream. What a hyperbaric chamber does is get the body to absorb that oxygen once the pressure dissolves the oxygen.
The science behind it has now expanded to all sorts of treatments, from stroke patients to diabetics, traumatic brain injury, burn victims, blood poisoning, bone damage or death, among others.