Intravascular gas “bubbles” may have detrimental effects for the sufferer. Direct pressure reduces the volume of intravascular gas. For more than a century, direct pressure has formed the basis of hyperbaric oxygen therapy as the standard of care for decompression sickness (“the bends”) and cerebral arterial gas embolism.  This treatment is based on the concept of Boyle’s Law that, as a pressure surrounding a gas is increased, the gas volume is decreased—the relationship between pressure and gas are inversely proportional. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy decreases the size of intravascular and tissue nitrogen bubbles that triggered the complex mechanisms of decompression sickness. These gas emboli then move distally where they place a smaller amount of tissue at risk, and eventually the gas bubbles are flushed from the bloodstream. Air emboli are removed in a similar fashion.