The medical application of ozone was discovered in World War I when it was used as a powerful healing agent, but the difficulty of application and side effects have not made it a form of treatment until a few decades ago.
Ozone therapy is a way to eliminate pain with less aggressive treatments than the traditional ones, combining it with homeopathy or homotoxicology and platelet growth factors.
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The treatment of pain by ozone therapy
The form of administration of medical treatment with ozone/oxygen will depend on the type of pathology to be treated.
- In healing delays, it is necessary to create a closed system by means of a Teflon bag, a bell or a vacuum cylinder. The session lasts about half an hour and the number of sessions varies according to the size and type of lesion. These sessions will be performed between 1 and 2 times a week.
- Autohemotherapy: is the treatment used in pathologies caused by arteriosclerosis, and aims to get oxygen to all tissues. The treatment in this case consists in the extraction of 120 cc. of venous blood that will be derived to a vacuum bottle. Then, a gaseous mixture of ozone and oxygen is introduced, which reacts with the patient’s blood. This mixture is then re-injected into the line used for the extraction. Each autohemotherapy session will last about half an hour, and will be performed once or twice a week.
- Subcutaneous ozone therapy: this is the treatment most commonly used to palliate rheumatic fibromyalgia. A small amount of ozone and oxygen is administered subcutaneously in the areas where the patient feels pain, and immediately has a painless and anti-inflammatory effect. Many times autohemotherapy is also practiced to improve the general condition of patients so that they no longer feel fatigue or tiredness.
- Intrarticular ozone therapy: it has very good results in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis thanks to its analgesic and anti-inflammatory action. The pain decreases in the first treatment sessions, and it takes about 5 sessions for there to be a great improvement in the patient. It is performed on an outpatient basis once a week. This treatment has no side effects or complications, and can be performed as many times as the doctor sees fit. The puncture is not painful at all since local anesthesia is applied.
- Intravaginal ozone therapy: it is used to treat vulvovaginitis. It is administered intravaginally with the help of a bladder catheter, which insufflates the gas. The treatment is painless and does not require preparation of the patient for it. Each session lasts between 10 and 15 minutes and the number and frequency of sessions will depend on each patient.
Treatment of herniated discs
This treatment is performed in three phases:
- Paravertebral infiltrations. It consists of the administration of injections in the paravertebral musculature. It does not require anesthesia and is usually done in 2 sessions.
- Ozone injection into the intervertebral disc. It is performed in the operating room under sedation and local anesthesia with radiological control. Hospital admission is not necessary.
- Paravertebral infiltrations in 2 or 4 sessions.
Learn more about ozone therapy from a specialist.