Is ozone therapy safe?

From my point of view, ozone therapy is one of the safest things you can do. As long as you do it right and understand two things: first, that some therapies aren't designed for you to do at home, and second, that inhaling ozone will hurt you.

The smell doesn't hurt

I see this all the time. People write that they smelled ozone and now, three days later, they still feel dizzy and nauseous. I can't judge anyone, but the smell of ozone doesn't hurt. You would have to be exposed to a very low concentration of ozone, meaning the smell itself, for a long time for it to affect you. The simple smell is not going to hurt you.

And I can tell you without fear of being wrong: when ozone is enough to hurt you, you don't have to ask anyone. You instantly know you need to get away from there because you inhaled ozone. That's happened to almost all of us, and although it feels terrible, it's not going to kill you.

A strong inhalation of ozone will irritate your respiratory tract. You'll cough, you'll feel like it burns inside, your eyes will water, I don't know what else we feel, but eventually it goes away and it won't leave any secondary effects.

Your pets aren't stupid either

A lot of people say, "but my cat was smelling it." Cats and dogs aren't stupid. If there's too much ozone, they'll leave. They'll get out of the room. Same as us. It's almost impossible to get hurt from inhaling ozone because we would have to be unable to move to keep inhaling constantly.

What's the worst that can happen?

Outside of the potential danger of inhaling it, which is really minimal because as I said, we would notice right away, all the therapies that can be done at home are safe. And the worst thing that could happen as a consequence is a strong Herxheimer reaction.

A Herxheimer reaction is basically your body's healing response. In some cases it can be pretty dramatic and uncomfortable. You might feel tired, get a headache, feel like you have a cold. It's your body processing toxins and it's temporary. The standard advice is to start low and go slow.

Which therapies are safe at home?

This is an important distinction. The basic therapies, and I'm referring to insufflations, cupping, bagging, sauna, and maybe ozonated water, are all safe to do at home by yourself.

But I'm excluding all intravenous therapies. Even though I consider them safe, they need to be done by people who are trained and know what they're doing. There the potential for something to go wrong increases. So injected and intravenous therapies in general are not for you to do at home.

The bottom line

Ozone therapy at home is safe. Your body will tell you if something is wrong. The smell isn't dangerous. A strong inhalation is terrible but not lethal. And the worst case scenario for home therapies is a Herxheimer reaction that passes in a day or two.

Just use common sense. Start slow. Don't inhale it directly. And if you're doing anything beyond the basics, make sure you know what you're doing or have someone who does.

Related articles

For the home therapies I recommend, check out rectal insufflation, ozone sauna, and ozonated water.

If you want to know what all this equipment costs, see How much does ozone therapy cost?.

And for the intravenous therapies I mentioned, I wrote about them here: Why I don't write about intravenous ozone therapies.