Contact the airline that you are using to make sure they allow the Respironics EverGo on the airline during flights. Most of the larger airlines allow Oxygen Concentrators during flights. The airline will require that you submit a written prescription. Please notify the airline a month in advance and let them know you will be using the Respironics EverGo during flight.

Be prepared to adjust your travel schedule and have a well planned itinerary so that you don’t need to make last minute changes. Most airlines require as much as 48 hours notice to reschedule flights with passengers using oxygen. Try to plan a direct flight without layovers to converse battery power.
Be familiar with the latest airport security screening policies and plan for extra time for inspection of your EverGo.

Passengers using the EverGo may not sit in exit rows, or the EverGo can’t block another passenger’s access to seats or to the airplane’s aisles. You must be able to see the alarm lights on your EverGo when it is stowed away. Ideally, you would want to keep your EverGo under the seat in front of you.

Passengers are not allowed to plug the EverGo in during flight to charge their battery. You will need to plan to bring enough batteries for your entire flight, including check in time, security time, take off and landing time. For safety reason, it is strongly recommended that patients that use Portable Oxygen Concentrators on airplane flights carry enough extra batteries that will last twice the duration of the flight to ensure the battery power will not run out during flight.

The EverGo and EverGo batteries are considered medical devices; they will need to be screened by TSA personnel but they will not count against your carry-on baggage allowance.

During the flight drink fluids but avoid caffeine and carbonated drinks; they will make you feel bloated.

If you follow these steps, you should have a safe and hassle free flight.

This will also help out patients who only need an concentrator once in awhile and choose to rent instead of buying a concentrator. Renting a concentrator can become costly if the patient is planning a long trip and multiple batteries are needed. Most companies charge per battery and these costs can start adding up fast. With the Inogen G2 and its battery life of 8 hours, less batteries will be needed for your trip.

While increasing tissue-oxygen levels is a primary therapeutic effect of HBOT, other benefits include reducing edema, modifying growth factors and cytokine effects, stimulating more rapid development of capillary budding and granulation tissue formation within the wound bed, promoting cellular proliferation, accelerating collagen deposition, and increasing microbial oxidative killing.

Damaged tissue can have decreased oxygen levels that reduce the activity of several antibiotics, including aminoglycosides, sulfonamides, and fluoroquinolones. By raising the oxygen in ischemic tissue to normal levels, HBOT may normalize the activity of these antimicrobials. Additionally, HBOT may potentiate the activity of certain antimicrobials by inhibiting biosynthetic reactions in bacteria. HBOT can modulate the immune system response and also enhance oxygen-radical scavengers, thereby decreasing ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Although any therapeutic application of hyperbaric oxygenation is intrinsically associated with the potential for producing mild-to-severe side effects, the appropriate use of hyperoxia is one of the safest therapeutics available to the practitioner.

It is unknown if hyperbaric oxygen therapy will cause congenital defects in horses. In human studies it has not been shown to have adverse effects. In our hyperbaric center, we do not hesitate to treat a mare with HBOT, especially when the benefits outweigh the risks. It is not unusual in our clinic, if treating a foal, to allow the mare in the chamber during treatments to aid in the relaxation of the foal.

Hyper” means increased and “baric” relates to pressure. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) thus refers to intermittent treatment of the entire body with 100-percent oxygen at greater than normal atmospheric pressures. The earth’s atmosphere normally exerts approximately 15 pounds per square inch of pressure at sea level. That pressure is defined as one atmosphere absolute (abbreviated as 1 ATA). In the ambient atmosphere we normally breathe approximately 20 percent oxygen and 80 percent nitrogen. While undergoing HBOT, pressure is increased up to two times (2 ATA) in 100% oxygen. In the Sechrist monoplace chambers utilized at our facilities, the entire body is totally immersed in 100-percent oxygen. There is no need to wear a mask or hood. This increased pressure, combined with an increase in oxygen to 100 percent, dissolves oxygen in the blood plasma and in all body cells, tissues and fluids at up to 10 times normal concentration—high enough to sustain life with no blood at all (from 20% to 100% oxygen is a 5-fold increase, from 1 ATA to 2 ATA can double this again to a 10-fold or 1,000% increase).

While some of the mechanisms of action of HBOT, as they apply to healing and reversal of symptoms, are yet to be discovered, it is known that HBOT:

1) greatly increases oxygen concentration in all body tissues, even with reduced or blocked blood flow;

2) stimulates the growth of new blood vessels to locations with reduced circulation, improving blood flow to areas with arterial blockage;

3) causes a rebound arterial dilation after HBOT, resulting in an increased blood vessel diameter greater than when therapy began, improving blood flow to compromised organs;

4) stimulates an adaptive increase in superoxide dismutase (SOD), one of the body’s principal, internally produced antioxidants and free radical scavengers; and,

5) aids the treatment of infection by enhancing white blood cell action and potentiating germ-killing antibiotics.

While not new, HBOT has only lately begun to gain recognition for treatment of chronic degenerative health problems related to atherosclerosis, stroke, peripheral vascular disease, diabetic ulcers, wound healing, cerebral palsy, brain injury, multiple sclerosis, macular degeneration, and many other disorders (conditions treated). Wherever blood flow and oxygen delivery to vital organs is reduced, function and healing can potentially be aided with HBOT. When the brain is injured by stroke, CP, or trauma, HBO may wake up stunned parts of the brain to restore function.

Many conditions are being treated with HBO worldwide.

For help finding a Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Provider near you.

One of the world’s most experienced authorities on hyperbaric medicine was Dr. Edgar End, clinical professor of environmental medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, who voiced his opinion on HBOT’s value for the treatment of stroke in this way: “I’ve seen partially paralyzed people half carried into the (HBOT) chamber, and they walk out after the first treatment. If we got to these people quickly, we could prevent a great deal of damage.”

Using the Sechrist monoplace chamber, HBOT is administered in a transparent, cylindrical chamber, approximately 8 feet long and 3 feet in diameter. The patient is made comfortable on a cot-like stretcher and rolled into the chamber. While in the chamber, the patient has full 360-degree vision through the transparent enclosure. The chamber is equipped with two-way microphones and speakers. The patient can watch TV, listen to music, read, nap, or talk with the chamber operator, family, or whoever is outside. During treatment, usually lasting an hour, the patient is surrounded by and inhales pure oxygen while pressure within the chamber is increased from 1-1/2 to 2 times the outside pressure. At the end of treatment, the patient is gradually decompressed to normal pressure and leaves the chamber.