What a Session Is Like
You settle into the chamber and the pressure comes up slowly. The part everyone notices first is the ears: the same fullness as a plane taking off, cleared the same way, by swallowing or yawning. Our team walks you through it and slows the pressure change if you need more time. Once you are at pressure, there is nothing to do — people listen to music, watch something, or fall asleep. At the end the pressure comes back down gradually, and your ears equalise again.
How long the session runs and at what pressure depends on the protocol Dr. Irfan sets for you, which is why the first appointment is a consultation rather than a treatment. There is no recovery time afterwards: you can drive, work, or train the same day. Some patients feel pleasantly tired for an hour or two; most feel nothing unusual at all.
Who HBOT Is Not For
Screening happens before you book, not on the day. An untreated collapsed lung (pneumothorax) rules HBOT out completely. Several other situations mean either a different plan or clearance from your treating physician first:
- Current treatment with certain chemotherapy agents, including bleomycin, doxorubicin and cisplatin
- Recent ear or sinus surgery, or an inability to equalise ear pressure
- Severe COPD with carbon dioxide retention
- Uncontrolled seizure disorders
- Fever or an active respiratory infection on the day
- Pregnancy, which is considered case by case
- Claustrophobia severe enough that the chamber would not be tolerable
Side effects, when they happen, are usually about pressure rather than oxygen: ear discomfort or barotrauma is the most common, followed by sinus pressure and a temporary shift in near vision that settles over the following weeks. Oxygen toxicity is rare and is what the protocol limits are there to prevent.
What the Evidence Shows, and Where It Stops
HBOT has a list of conditions it is FDA-cleared to treat, and that list is specific: decompression sickness, arterial gas embolism, carbon monoxide poisoning, gas gangrene, crush injuries, problem wounds including diabetic foot ulcers, severe anaemia, intracranial abscess, necrotising soft-tissue infections, refractory osteomyelitis, delayed radiation injury, compromised skin grafts and flaps, certain thermal burns, and sudden sensorineural hearing loss.
Everything outside that list — recovery from training, fatigue, brain fog, long-COVID symptoms, cognitive performance, general longevity — is off-label use. There is research pointing in an encouraging direction, but the trials are mostly small and the picture is still forming. We will not tell you it is settled science, and if a clinic tells you HBOT treats a disease outside that cleared list, treat it as a sales pitch. Here it is supportive care inside a broader plan that Dr. Bismah Irfan builds from your history and labs.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in Westchase, West Houston
Our chamber is at the iVitality MD clinic, 12000 Richmond Ave, Suite 230, in Westchase, near the Beltway 8 and Richmond intersection, with parking on site. Patients come in from across the Houston metro — Katy, the Energy Corridor, Memorial, Sugar Land, Bellaire, Cypress and The Woodlands. Many combine HBOT with IV therapy or other services in the same visit, which is worth saying when you book so we can sequence the appointments properly.
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