Transdermal Carbon Dioxide Therapy: History and Treatment
In this brief history of transdermal carbon dioxide therapy you will notice that there is nothing in here about treating animals. This might lead you to wonder: if Serendi Medical specializes in using medical gases, where are the animals. There have been many clinical studies that used animals but the motivation has always been to deicer how to use the therapy on humans.
It was the people at Serendi who came up with the idea of treating animals with this wonderful therapy and they created the to tools to make it possible. The result is Dioxyfin DXN pharmaceutical carbon dioxide mist that is a portable, safe and effective way to treat an assortment of medical conditions in animals.
Serendipity played a role in the discovery of the therapeutic effects of carbon dioxide applied through the skin (transdermal). For centuries, starting long before the days of modern medicine, Europeans have made pilgrimages to cities that were built around hot, healing baths. These baths were fed by natural springs and were well known for treating rheumatism and other ailments.
These natural springs, like the ones in Nauheim, Germany, and St. Moritz, Switzerland, contain just the right amount of carbon dioxide for healing. Here in the U.S., three years after he contracted polio, President Franklin Roosevelt swam in pools fed by hot springs at the Meriwether Inn in Warm Springs, Georgia. He said it was the first time since his diagnosis that he felt any improvement.
The medical community reproduced these natural therapeutic baths by adding bicarbonate and hydrochloric acid to warm water. This approach to carbon dioxide therapy was first described when it became popular for treating vascular disorders in the early 1900s.
The treatment was so effective that, in 1940, Montefiore Hospital in New York City treated almost 1,500 patients by using carbon dioxide baths. Several studies of this therapy have been published in Europe, but American research wasn’t published until 1942 in the American Journal of Physiology. This research showed that a bicarbonate bath will increase blood flow to the skin.(1)
Although carbon dioxide gas, or “dry” carbon dioxide, has a long history as a therapeutic agent, it also has a history of being difficult to administer - it was neither readily available nor portable, so the patient was always required to go to the carbon dioxide instead of vice versa.
Originally, the gas was drawn from geological formations where it is continually released from past volcanic activity. Even today, hotels in Hungary and Austria offer dry carbon dioxide baths known as mofettas. The Erzsebet Park Hotel in Hungary, for example, has large dry baths in which visitors sit with their heads above the gas layer.
People sitting in a carbon dioxide dry bath
Eventually, dry ice was used to produce carbon dioxide on demand. And over the past 40 years, carbon dioxide therapy has become somewhat more portable. For example, in 2009 a flexible structure filled with carbon dioxide was used to conduct a study.(2) But this is typically a whole-body treatment that requires a lot of space.
Patient undergoing a full body therapy (3)
Carbon dioxide therapy for a single limb or an affected area is relatively new. The earliest study of carbon dioxide gas in a plastic cover over a single limb in humans was in 2015.4
Although there is a positive biological response to carbon dioxide, a long-term response requires a series of 6 to 10 treatments over a few days. Until recently this has required patients to travel to a clinic every day, which is costly, inconvenient, and unsustainable.
This problem motivated the search for a way to treat patients at home, and Dioxyfin provided the answer. This ground-breaking product consists of pharmaceutical carbon dioxide and water in a canister that attaches to a small plastic sleeve that wraps around the affected area. Completely portable, Dioxyfin now makes it possible to safely use carbon dioxide therapy in any location, including the clinic, the barn, or the pasture and one day soon the home.
Dioxyfin mist canister in use
Visit our website, www.serendimedical.com, for more information about transdermal carbon dioxide therapy and ask your vet about Dioxyfin carbon dioxide therapy.
Credits and references:
1. Stein, I.D.; Weinstein, I. The value of carbon dioxide baths in the treatment of peripheral vascular disease and allied conditions. The American Heart Journal 1942, 23, 349-361; DOI:10.1016/S0002-8703(42)90614-8.
2. Fabry; Monnet; Schmidt; Lusson; Carpentier; Baguet; Dubray. Clinical and microcirculatory effects of transcutaneous CO2 therapy in intermittent claudication. randomized double-blind clinical trial with a parallel design. Vasa 2009, 38, 213-224; DOI:10.1024/0301-1526.38.3.213.
3. Used with permission: Fabry; Monnet; Schmidt; Lusson; Carpentier; Baguet; Dubray. Clinical and microcirculatory effects of transcutaneous CO2 therapy in intermittent claudication. randomized double-blind clinical trial with a parallel design. Vasa 2009, 38, 213-224; DOI:10.1024/0301-1526.38.3.213.
4. Finzgar, M.; Melik, Z.; Cankar, K. Effect of transcutaneous application of gaseous carbon dioxide on cutaneous microcirculation. Clin Hemorheol Microcirc 2015, 60, 423-435; DOI:10.3233/CH-141898.
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