Ozone as a highly reactive form of oxygen has been in medical use across the world for decades.

In one of the most common methods of ozone therapy, some of the patient’s blood is withdrawn and mixed with a carefully measured dose of ozone gas and returned to the patient.

This method is called major auto-hemotherapy (MAH).

In MAH, a measured amount of blood is withdrawn into an IV bag where it interacts with a specific amount of ozone gas, for a specific amount of time. In so doing, it produces a biological effect which leads to a reduction in inflammation, immunomodulation, enhanced blood flow and nutrient exchange. Think of the interaction of ozone with the withdrawn blood as the first of a series of dominos that eventually produces these effects in a much larger scale in the body. It’s important to note that no ozone is ever introduced into the patients’ bloodstream directly. Rather, it’s the series of events that occur in the body after the ozonated blood is returned to the patient that produces the desired therapeutic effect.

During ultraviolet blood irradiation (UBI), blood is withdrawn as part of a sterile, closed circuit from the patient and uniformly exposed to a carefully calibrated amount of ultraviolet light for a set period of time.

Depending on the wavelength and exposure time applied, different therapeutic effects can be obtained.

One of the most common use cases for UBI therapy is to address lingering, hidden, or drug-resistent bacterial or viral infection and subsequently induce a secondary immune response.

Clinical Benefit Obtained by Combining Ozone Therapy & UBI at the Same Time

There are specific reasons that your physician may recommend just ozone therapy or just UBI, and they will communicate to you if they feel that may be the case.

In most cases however, ozone therapy and UBI supplement eachother to elicit an improved clinical outcome than if either was used by itself.

Ozone is effective in stimulating an immunomodulatory effect, but has not been shown to kill bacteria or viruses in the blood when delivered alone. On the other hand, UBI is able to kill bacteria and viruses in the treated blood, hence exposing them to the immune system. Once exposed in this way, the body is able to initiate a secondary immune response. However, UBI does not modulate the immune system in the way that ozone does.

In this instance and many others, ozone therapy and UBI demonstrate a synergistic effect, a very useful tool in the hands of the trained physician.