If you’ve gotten this far, it’s time to come in for a consultation. For more information about Ozone therapy, call the Meeting Point office at 215.315.3964. You can also schedule a consultation online at www.meetingpointhealth.com.
Ozone Therapy in Philadelphia, PA
Do you have autoimmune issues or chronic infection or toxicity such as Lyme or mold illness? Or do you have a cardiovascular condition that could use a functional approach? Meeting Point Health offers ozone therapy in Philadelphia as a therapeutic solution. Ozone therapy can improve your immune system, destroy pathogens, reduce the risk of heart problems, and enhance the effects of chemotherapy.
To talk to a professional about ozone therapy in Philadelphia, contact Meeting Point Health today.
How Ozone Therapy Can Help
So, you have been researching ozone therapy treatments and wondering if ozone can help you reach your health and wellness goals. What does that mean? What is ozone and how does Meeting Point Health use it to improve patient outcomes?
It’s first important to recognize how overburdened our immune systems are given our industrialized lifestyles and environments. The modern human is constantly detoxifying from plastics, mycotoxins, heavy metals, emissions, herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals in alarming quantities. We are also heavily exposed to bacteria, yeast, mold, viruses and parasites. When coupled with trauma, stress, and genetic variations, our immune cells must keep up with the pathogenic and toxic burden. This causes our immune cells to age and degenerate faster than they should, and these are often the reasons why we succumb to chronic disease.
Enter Ozone Therapy. Ozone is a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms. It occurs in nature at very low levels. In fact, about 90% of the ozone we encounter on earth comes from natural sources such as lightning and ultraviolet rays from the sun interacting with oxygen. When used medicinally, ozone creates controlled oxidative stress to stimulate your own immune system. Ozone therapy can treat a variety of conditions that can benefit from increased lymphoid cell production, blood circulation, oxygenation, detoxification, and natural antioxidant production.
Benefits of Ozone Therapy
Below is a short list of some of the ways ozone therapy works in the body. When using ozone therapy at Meeting Point Health in Philadelphia, we are considering all these benefits when prescribing a treatment plan. Ozone therapy:
- Inactivates viruses, bacteria, fungi, yeast and parasites through degradation of their cell walls and inhibiting replication
- Increases production of antioxidants including glutathione
- Protects your mitochondrial DNA from damage
- Stabilizes lysosomes (digestive organelles in the cell that clean up dead cells)
- Produces natural peroxides that create a controlled amount of oxidative stress. This process stimulates your immune system to clean up trash, and thereby reduces inflammation and improves circulation
- Increases production of prostacyline, a vasodilator, thereby increasing blood circulation
- Increased red blood cell glycolysis rate which allows more oxygenation to tissues.
- Stimulates the production of various enzymes which act as free radical scavengers and cell membrane protectors (glutathione peroxidase, catalase and superoxide dismutase.)
- Reacts with nitric oxide to form peroxynitrite, a potent oxidant necessary for killing pathogens and cancerous cells
- Induces apoptosis (programmed cell death) in tumor cells
- Enhances the Krebs cycle (metabolism) and stimulates production of NAD, which is necessary for detoxification and production of ATP (cell energy)
- Releases and activates TNF-alpha (tumor necrosis factor)
FAQs About Ozone Therapy
There are outdated methods of direct intravenous ozone administration that are now considered by the International Scientific Committee on Ozone to be ill-advised due to the rate of adverse effects. For this reason, we use autohemotherapy for our intravenous ozone treatments. This method allows us to administer ozone to the blood with very low risk of adverse event.
The most common side effects of ozone therapy of any modality is a Herxheimer reaction. This is a response to the release of endotoxins from dying pathogens that can cause flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, headache and fatigue. These typically resolve within hours or days after treatment, and can be mitigated with some of our other therapies.
With insufflations, ozone gas passes through mucous membranes in the nasal cavity so one may experience burning inside the nose at times due to production of single oxygen molecules, which is acidic.
When you have an ozone infusion, you are saturating your blood with oxygen and ozonites (ozone breakdown products) that help fight infection and stimulate your own immune system. Ozone therapy reduces the strain on your body when you are in a state of chronic illness.
Ozone therapy is beneficial in those cases involving chronic infection, chronic toxicity and autoimmune issues. If your condition is immune-oriented, you will likely benefit from Ozone therapy. In addition, ozone is also an anti-aging therapy for those seeking hyper-wellness.
Yes, many of our patients travel to our office from out of state or abroad. Your patient care coordinator will help set up your treatment schedule, in addition to assisting you with planning your travel arrangements. The frequency of treatments depends largely on your situation.
Ozone is a very powerful antioxidant, so it works by creating oxidative stress on the disease or condition that you are seeking to improve. It then gets rid of these toxins and restores balance back into your body at the cellular level which ultimately reduces inflammation levels in tissues throughout your whole body! Another benefit of ozone therapy is its ability to reduce pain and improve circulation.
So one of our practitioners has recommended a course of ozone therapy treatments to help push you toward your health and wellness goals. What does that mean? What is ozone and how does Meeting Point Health use it improve patient outcomes? Below we will discuss some of the most commonly asked questions.
If you have been suffering from any of the following conditions, we will likely prescribe ozone therapy either by infusion, insufflation or injection:
- Lyme and other co-infections
- Mold Toxicity and other Biotoxin Illness
- Adjunct Cancer Therapy (ozone helps potentiate chemotherapy)
- Treating skin disorders such as acne, dermatitis and psoriasis
- Easing inflammation from arthritis
- Repairing immune function in autoimmune diseases
- Other chronic viral or bacterial infections such as in PANS/PANDAS
- Lowering chronic pain associated with degenerative spine conditions, herniated discs, and osteoarthritis
If you are unsure whether ozone treatment is best for your condition, be sure to talk about all of the benefits and risks with one of our providers before beginning your ozone therapy treatments in Philadelphia!
QUICK FACTS
- TREATMENT TIME
30-60 minutes
- FREQUENCY
Weekly for 6-12 weeks
- RECOVERY
IV Ozone is often combined with glutathione and other nutritional bags on the day of infusion.
How To Get Started With Ozone Therapy
At Meeting Point Health, we use ozone to treat conditions that are not responding to traditional treatment or for which no other viable option exists. This includes Biotoxin illnesses such as Lyme, mold toxicity, and candidiasis. As an oxidative therapy, it is also very effective in autoimmune conditions, cardiovascular conditions, and as an adjunct cancer therapy to chemo. Ozone can be administered to the body many different ways:
Autohemotherapy
This is the most powerful and systemic way that we administer ozone. First our nurses draw blood, then add it to a bag of saline along with medical grade oxygen and ozone, where the ozone bonds to the hemoglobin in the blood. The hyper- oxygenated blood is dripped back to you via infusion.
Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation (UBI)
We frequently use ultraviolet light in combination with autohemotherapy. Ultraviolet light kills viruses, bacteria, fungi…etc. UBI is a process of exposing blood to this ultraviolet light, to stimulate the immune system, and kill any pathogens within it. We perform this procedure by sending a small amount of blood, that is also bonded with ozone, through special tubing underneath UV A, B, and C bulbs for exposure.
UBI therapy has been used for over 75 years all over the world, and there are no known serious side effects. The end result is a bolstered immune system that is actively fighting off disease and ridding the body of pathogens and toxins.
High Dose UVO3
Comparable to a 10-pass ozone treatment in which 20 ml of blood is ozonated 10 times and readministered back to you (for a total of 200 ml.) Many ozone experts, such as Robert Rowan and Howard Liebowitz, MD, use this technique.
However, the SOPMed group pioneered an alternative version that allows for an automated system to draw 300 ml of blood and ozononated but in one “pass.” We call this HDO3UV and the blood is combined with UV light therapy twice, once as it is being pumped out and again before it is infused back to you. If we make a direct comparison, one drawback to the 10-Pass is that it does not include ultraviolet light. Ozone is much more effective when combined with UV light therapy. In fact, when we use high dose, we often see no die-off reactions in our patients.
Insufflation
Meaning “to blow gas”. Ozone can be given via insufflation into a body cavity where it is absorbed by the blood stream, killing pathogens and stimulating your immune system. If there is an infection of any kind in the cavity in which ozone is being insufflated, it will also kill those microbes and help to break down biofilms.
- Ear – Useful in conditions related to the ear and cranial nerves. Ozone is bubbled into water and the steam is administered via stethoscope.
- Nasal – Useful in conditions related to the ear, nose, sinuses and throat. Also especially helpful with brain fog. Ozone is diffused into oil and administered via nasal cannula.
- Rectal – Useful in many intestinal disorders such as diverticulitis, Crohn’s, SIBO and IBS. Ozone is inflated into a bag and self-administered with a catheter (think of it like an enema of oxygen)
- Vaginal – Useful in conditions such as bacterial vaginosis, yeast infections, fibroids. Ozone is inflated into a bag and self-administered with a catheter.
Ozonated Water / Ozonated Oil
Ozone is bubbled into water or olive oil, then ingested orally or applied topically over a wound. This method of treatment can be used for a more localized area and has been found to be effective in treating wounds, acne, psoriasis and other dermatological conditions. Using ozone or ultraviolet light on these areas will allow for healing without leaving scars by killing off the bacteria causing inflammation.
Ozone Injections
For painful joint and musculoskeletal conditions, ozone gas can be combined with prolotherapy to immediately decrease inflammation and stimulate healing in the area. This is called Prolozone and is done under ultrasound-guidance by Dr. Matta.
Functional Medicine Treatments
Common Conditions We Treat
More FAQs About Ozone Therapy
Ozone is a gas formed from oxygen by electrical charges and carries three oxygen molecules instead of two oxygen molecules in the form of oxygen gas.
Ozone therapy is the use of ozone gas as medicine. The reason ozone gas can be used medically is due to the reactions that occur when ozone gas is entered into the body. (Quick note: ozone gas is, in fact, toxic to our lungs, which is why ozone is not to be inhaled. Everywhere else, though, ozone is awesome. Lungs…bad. Not lungs…good. Got it?…Great). The way I like to think of it is like this. Everyone knows that oxygen is good for us. Besides, breathing it in the air we breathe (room air is normally a little above 20% oxygen), oxygen is a fantastic medicine. If someone has a respiratory problem and you hook them up to oxygen, you can fix a myriad of problems. More oxygen in our blood stream leads to more oxygen to our cells, which does lots of good stuff. Now I like to think of ozone like regular oxygen, except with another oxygen molecule attached, which makes it like super-oxygen. So when this super-oxygen gets into the bloodstream, it does a ton of beneficial things in the body. So, you know in the animated movie “Frozen” at the end (Spoiler Alert: but seriously if you haven’t seen “Frozen” by now, shame on you), Elsa realizes she has the power to reverse everything and then just raises her hands in the air and all of Arendelle becomes beautiful. Great scene, huh? Anyway, that’s how I think of ozone reacting in our bodies. It kinda just makes everything better. I know this sounds like an overstatement, but honestly, it does. It improves our red blood cells, which makes oxygen delivery to cells better. It improves our mitochondria, which gives us more energy. It super-charges our immune system, which allows our body to fight like every kind of infection from viruses, to bacteria, to parasites, to you-name-it. It boosts our bodies Glutathione which is an antioxidant leading to decreased dangerous free radical damage. It boosts something called N-R-F-2 (pronounced Nerf Two) which is our body’s own anti-inflammatory system causing a decrease in inflammation. It helps nerves, joints, kidneys, the heart, the gut, eyes, ears, brain, skin, hormones…yup, just about everything.
There are several ways that Ozone Therapy can be performed.
1. Major Autohemotherapy—MAH
So this sounds super fancy and complicated, and kinda is, but really all it is: we draw up blood from your vein, like you’re giving blood, inject it into a sterile bag or glass container, add ozone gas to the bag, and then infuse the super blood back into your body. For anything internal, this is probably the best method, and it is usually even taken up a couple notches depending on the problem, but we’ll get into that another time.
2. Ozone Injection
Needless to say, since I’m a sports medicine doctor, I really like this one. What we do here is first inject a concoction of vitamins into whatever body part I’m injecting, and then we kind of chase with an equal volume of ozone gas. We do this because the ozone needs something to attach to for the best results. What I like about ozone injection therapy is that it is amazing for inflammation AND it provides healing to the area at the same time. The way I like to think about this is it’s kind of like a steroid injection without any of the harmful effects and it heals the area. So instead of putting a harmful substance into an area, we are decreasing pain, decreasing inflammation, and helping the cells. Can you tell I like this therapy?
3. Insufflation
This is a neat way to get ozone in the body without any needles. So we can put ozone straight up your nose (you gotta hold your breath, though…remember…ozone and lungs=bad), into ears (great for ear infections), and into the intestines via a bag and a tube (yup…just the way you’re thinking). The latter is actually quite effective at getting ozone into the bloodstream and helps the gut at the same time.
4. Ozone Water
For this one, we literally bubble ozone gas right into a bottle of water and then…bottoms up. I hit this all the time at the clinic in between patients and it gives me energy throughout the day. Integrative dentists love this one for oral health.
So we already mentioned the lungs. We don’t need to repeat that one…but we will anyway. Ozone in the lungs=Bad. Other than that, dosage is super important. It’s not so much that it’s going to hurt anything, but it can be uncomfortable if too much is given at once. This is why it’s important to have it performed by someone who knows what they are doing. Also, sometimes ozone can really clean stuff up, very…”effectively.” Sometimes after we do an infusion, people can feel tired initially. I see this as the body fighting off lots of chronic pathogens that have been causing havoc on their system. Usually this is only for a few treatments at most and does not last that long. Also understand this does not happen to everyone. We have several patients that not only don’t feel side effects, but feel absolutely fantastic. I know when I get ozone, I feel awesome and my bike rides and runs after a treatment are absolutely amazing.
Here’s the thing…you shouldn’t do just one. For the infusions we usually recommend starting with one round of ten. Why? Ozone needs to get to a certain dose to work effectively. This is similar to the way antibiotics work. For most antibiotics, you can’t just take 1 pill, right? It really won’t do much if you don’t complete the whole course. Well, it’s pretty similar for ozone. Ozone is best performed as a course of ten. That’s not to say that you won’t feel improvements before ten, but you usually need at least ten, to get to where you need to get. Now, that also means you may need more than ten. It depends on the severity of what you’re being treated for. The good news is, that it really works, and without causing harm like many of the pharmaceutical therapies out there.
For Ozone Injections things are different. We usually recommend a course of at least 4 injections. The injections are normally spaced out 2 weeks at a time. Many feel really good after 2, but will need at least 2 more to get the full benefit.
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At Meeting Point Health, we help you discover the root cause of your disease, dysfunction, or pain. We ask questions, test and dig deeper to understand what’s happening at a cellular level. All of our treatments are personalized around your findings so you get the exact care you need.
