If you have a nonhealing wound, HBOT is a safe, noninvasive treatment. It uses 100% oxygen delivered at higher-than-normal atmospheric pressure to help get more oxygen to the body’s tissues and accelerate the healing process. Under these conditions, your lungs can gather much more oxygen than what would be possible breathing pure oxygen at normal air pressure. “The idea is that most wounds have an ischemic nature, meaning there’s not enough oxygen getting to the tissues,” says Marc Mancinelli, DO, medical director of UPMC Wound Healing Services at UPMC Hamot. “With hyperbaric therapy, we can apply a supernormal level of oxygen not only to your red blood cells but to your plasma, and this, in turn, will help wound healing.”