The days and months after gender affirmation surgery are a time of excitement and, often, anxiety. Gender affirmation surgery is extensive, requiring time for your incisions and altered physical structure to heal, smooth, and become natural in appearance. At 8th Element, we use the hyperbaric oxygen chamber in San Francisco to help you achieve just that.
Hyper-Oxygenation: The magic of oxygenation supersaturation
Within our state-of-the-art hyperbaric oxygen chamber in San Francisco, the oxygen molecules are compressed to become more soluble. This phenomenon allows the healing oxygen to dissolve in the plasma of your blood, easily cross the cell membranes, thereby saturating all body tissues. In a “normal” oxygen environment, oxygen is delivered to injured tissues solely by the red blood cells. In a “hyperbaric” oxygen environment, the oxygen delivered to injured tissues is increased by up to 18-fold. In doing so, collagen, the body’s healing mechanism that triggers new tissue growth, is deposited in post-surgical tissue in a more organized fashion, creating enhanced elasticity and tensile strength, thereby improving that tissue’s cosmetic and functional qualities.
