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Sentara expands hyperbaric oxygen therapy to nine sites

Center at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital helps stubborn wounds heal
Sentara expands hyperbaric oxygen therapy to nine sites.jpg

Ed Nixon of Virginia Beach had prostate cancer in 2005, a recurrence in 2012, and, in 2025, blood clots, internal bleeding, and pain from the aftereffects of radiation therapy.

His doctor recommended hyperbaric oxygen therapy to help stop his bleeding without extensive surgery. Nixon is among the early hyperbaric oxygen therapy patients at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital’s Wound Healing Center.

“The treatment is painless,” Nixon said. “I’m on a comfortable bed. I nod off a lot or watch TV or read something. It’s two hours in the chamber, but you get used to it. It’ll be worth it if I’m not bleeding.”

Other patients are also choosing hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

“I give it two thumbs up,” said Curtis Colgate, all seven feet three inches of him. He has osteomyelitis, a chronic bone infection which has cost him his toes and causes repeated infections that hyperbaric oxygen therapy helps reduce.

“It’s phenomenal,” he said. “It improves circulation, it helps my sutures heal, and every time I have this therapy I come out feeling better.”

Sentara Princess Anne Hospital in Virginia Beach, Virginia, is the ninth Sentara site of care to offer hyperbaric oxygen therapy for wound healing. Two new hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers are serving patients in the hospital’s wound healing center, adding the first access in Virginia Beach to high-pressure oxygen therapy.

“Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is an advanced modality that we apply when other wound-healing methods haven’t worked,” said Adrian Adkins, director of the wound therapy program at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital.

“Oxygen therapy often requires pre-authorization from patients’ health plans, but we carefully document our courses of care in wound therapy, follow the protocols, and advocate for our patients when we believe they need hyperbaric oxygen therapy.”

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is used for a variety of conditions, including burns from flames or heat, burns from radiation therapy, diabetic wounds, and skin grafts. It can also treat carbon monoxide poisoning, inhalation of industrial fumes, and painful nitrogen sickness in scuba divers, known as the bends.

“Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can make the difference between chronic discomfort and finally getting wounds to heal,” said Adkins. "We’re excited to make this therapy available to patients in the Hampton Roads region."

Sentara hyperbaric oxygen therapy sites of care:

By: Dale Gauding