Oxygen Ozone Injection Therapy is a topic that I am very passionate about. Aside from the fact that it is effective, safe, and long-lasting, the main benefit is it doesn’t change the natural anatomy. That is an extremely important point.

The goal for any physician is to get their patient better. They want to help their patient; they want to heal their patient. So, the objective is the same whether you are considering surgery or oxygen ozone injection therapy. It is just that an ozone procedure approaches it from a completely different point of view.

With oxygen ozone injection therapy, you are not changing your anatomy. It is geared towards improving the situation, keeping your normal anatomy, healing what is damaged, and preventing further injury.

Surgery is invasive and all surgeries cause physical trauma and acute inflammation. We can understand a surgery as a deliberate injury. Whether it is sticking a scope in a joint, or cutting the joint open, or replacing it with hardware, any surgery is very invasive, it involves disrupting the anatomy.

Let’s take the example of arthroscopy of the knee as a surgical procedure. Unless it is just a purely diagnostic arthroscopy, there is going to be some degree of disruption of the anatomy. It depends on the condition obviously, but there might be scraping of the bone surface, there might be partial removal of the a torn cartilage (meniscus), there might be suturing of, or replacing a ligament, or suturing a torn cartilage. There is some intervention that changes the anatomy of the joint. That is just the nature of the surgical procedure. That’s the way the surgeon tries to help and heal the patient. But that changes the anatomy of the joint. It’s not just my opinion or my experience, but a review of the medical literature concludes the same that it is better to keep the anatomy that you have, than changing it. Once you change the anatomy, you can’t go back. Ozone injections are different not just that it does not cause physical trauma to your anatomy, the therapy can be repeated without known side effect.

Let’s talk about the knee, after arthroscopy. If you re-injure your knee, or if the invasive procedure only gives you 50%, or 60% improvement, and you want better results, or the procedure doesn’t work at all (no treatment known to man works 100% of the time), then you are stuck with the changed anatomy. And well, what do you do? It is a problem.

With ozone injection therapy, let’s talk about the scenario if it doesn’t work. You’re no better off, or worse off than you were before. Your anatomy has not been changed. If you opt for surgery, you can still have the surgery. In terms of oxygen ozone injection therapy, let’s take this scenario…now the procedure worked 50% and the patient wants to have more improvement, the ozone procedure could be repeated. There is absolutely no downside to repeating the procedure. In fact, the positive effects are cumulative.

In addition, oxygen ozone injection therapy helps prevent further injury. That is a very important point. We already discussed the unique quality of ozone to super-charge or ramp up the body’s ability to cope with oxidative stress, in a previous podcast interview. That is extremely important to understand, because oxidative stress is one of the main stresses that the human body will be exposed to. So by having that super charged ability to cope with the on-going oxidative stress, an ozone injection procedure not only helps the joint heal, but also it helps the joint cope with new trauma. Joints are always subject to trauma. It might be a tiny trauma that is clinically insignificant and has no bearing on your life at the time, but over years those tiny traumas start building up, until you have a real problem. This is true of any joint, not just the knee.

If we use the knee as an example, think about the fact that in your daily existence, except when you are sleeping or sitting, you are using your knees. We have all probably heard of the Fitbit bracelet that people wear which reports how much you walk during the day. With all that walking every single day, you’re putting stress on your knees. Most of the time everything might be fine. Most of the time if there is a tiny little trauma, it heals or heals partially and your activities are not affected. But over 20, 30, 40, 50 years, those traumas start to add up. So, it is great to have a treatment that not only is safe to repeat, but also helps prevent future injuries. In my opinion, ozone injection therapy is the first treatment of choice for joint injury other than fractures or dislocations.