I have Asthma and I want to Scuba dive!

[sdiver68]

The Army no longer accepts recruits with any history of asthma because they have found that even asthma that has not been an issue for years has come back in the desert.

Not true. It is true that Desert Storm caused a re-evaluation of Asthma diagnosed candidates, but since they have relaxed the requirement. If current spirometry and methachlorine challenge tests are negative, the results are interpreted to waive the prior diagnosis of Asthma.

Exactly like DAN's "new" advice, get tested for specific issues and evaluate based on risk.

 

[pasley]

Not true. It is true that Desert Storm caused a re-evaluation of Asthma diagnosed candidates, but since they have relaxed the requirement. If current spirometry and methachlorine challenge tests are negative, the results are interpreted to waive the prior diagnosis of Asthma.

Exactly like DAN's "new" advice, get tested for specific issues and evaluate based on risk.

I stand corrected. Since I retired in 2008 (US Army & Army Reserves 36yrs 21 days, they figured that was enough) I have not keep track of the asthma rules. So I will take you word for it that they have again relaxed the rules. I do know that when I ran an ROTC program 2004-2005 a memo came down that said no waivers period for asthma if you had it past age 13. This was still true in 2006 and 2007 when I was in Iraq. Asthmatics need not apply as dust is a trigger. But the standards are constantly adjusted based on recruitment goals and how they are being met. I would am surprised though that in today's highly deployed Army they would relax that standard as they would be very reluctant to deploy them to the sand box.

 

[sdiver68]

This was still true in 2006 and 2007 when I was in Iraq. Asthmatics need not apply as dust is a trigger. But the standards are constantly adjusted based on recruitment goals and how they are being met.

First of all, thank you for your service!

Dust might be a trigger. Different people have different triggers. As you say, part of the equation is recruitment goals. Back when I applied for the service academies in the 80's, asthma was a disqualifier but waivers could be applied in certain circumstances. However, they would absolutely not waive for pilot training as they had far more applicants then open spots. Same thing with perfect uncorrected vision, though I understand entrance to military flight training programs is somewhat less competitive today and corrected 20/20 vision can be acceptable.

 

[purbeast]

well i went to my allergist today and all seemed well from him.

we did the pulmonary tests and everything came back normal.

i don't have the actual numbers with me here at work but if anyone is interested I can post them later on.

he signed off on the waiver and thinks I will be okay.

he did however also recommend that I see the guy that DAN lead me to so he can do the dive physical, just because he thinks it won't hurt anything to have that done as well and have 2 doctors sign off on it.

so I'm going to go see him sometime next week as well just so I can have some more in depth analysis done on me, but I think, and so does my allergist, that everything will be fine.

EDIT:

and guys not to be a jerk cause i'm a noob here, but this thread had no intention of this whole debate about what is wrong/right in asthma and diving. i simply was looking for some advice and thats it, so can we get it back on track please thanks

 

[Crowley]

For arguments sake, I assume you are trying to say that the dive shop would have refused him anyway (as opposed to the physician). This is my big problem with how dive ops do their medical waivers today. More and more, individuals are losing their ability to make a decision for themselves. I believe in making an educated, individual decision specific to the situation. There are risks associated with everything we do, and if someone makes a well-informed decision to perform an activity, that is their choice and it should be respected.

It really would make more sense for a dive op to know that someone was epileptic and plan for it, but if you make it known that you are going to not take epileptic divers, even with a doctors release or make people jump through 20 hoops, people simply wont disclose their health problems.

No - my dive centre would not have refused him if he had the proper medical clearance. There are guidelines from DAN which if I remember correctly - I didn't look it up right now - say that if the person has been symptom free for 5 years or more without medication, then this is acceptable. By PADI standards, yes, we could have still refused the diver, however since we worked closely with DAN Asia Pacific, the likelihood is that we would have accepted him. This was an individual case and the individual concerned was, sadly to say, not as concerned about his well-being as others. I won't go into details.

As already posted - how do you plan for a condition which might cause somebody to die underwater? Inform the DMs and instructors that this person *might* have an accident therefore we should all be prepared to watch them die?

A recent case in point (published last year in the Undersea Journal) was a married couple, both who would have been clinically defined as morbidly obese, where the male half of the couple suffered a heart attack underwater and sadly lost his life. The wife tried to sue the dive operation because they did not have a crane to lift the guy out of the water, and tried to sue the divemaster because the deceased should not have been allowed to dive in the first place. If the dive op had refused them they might likely be sued under disablitity discrimination acts; yet they were sued because the partner felt that a morbidly obese diver (which is classed as a disability under various countries laws) should not have been allowed to dive when they had stated they were fit to do so.

One might complain that dive ops "think they know better than the doctors", but then evidently, so do many divers. Taking personal responsibilty for your condition is fine, but sadly a number of individuals who thought they knew better really didn't, and that's where the crux of the problem lies.

So when one questions a dive centre as to why they were not allowed to scuba dive because they had a prior history of some medical condition, don't blame it on the dive op, blame it on the hot-coffee-suing idiots who brought about this whole litigious nightmare in the first place.

The long and short of it (but mostly long, I appreciate) is that we can't tell who is right, and who is wrong. We are dive instructors, not doctors, and whilst some people may be honest, decent and up-front about their medical status, many people, quite simply, are not.

Safe diving,

C.

 

[purbeast]

well this sucks

i talked to the doctor who does the dive physical today and he told me since i'm leaving so soon there is no way the test results would be back in time so he wouldn't clear me.

just by talking to him on the phone he also sounded pretty negative about actually clearing me, even though I told him my history. he said that he wasnt sure if i would really want to go through the tests and spend the money (cause he isnt sure if blue cross blue shield covers dive physicals) because he didn't think i would pass.

he said when i get back if i'm still interested to contact him again and he can run me through the actual physical.

this is kind of a bummer though because i really was looking forward to doing this.

i mean i still do have my medical clearance thing from my allergist doctor, but this guy seemed so negative about it that it kind of worries me to even try diving w/out the physical, even though my allergist cleared me. granted, he isnt as knowledgable as this guy, but still, it is kind of disheartening.

 

[Splash-X]

At least he is being up front about it and doesn't want to get your hopes up.

If all you did was talk to him by phone he doesn't have much to go on other than the majority of the cases he's already seen. You may very well be cleared to dive after a face-to-face meeting along with proper tests. As we've already established, every situation is "case by case", no two situations are exactly the same.

His reaction may just be a result of having done this with several other potential divers and not a reflection on your actual case. On the flip side, your situation may fit a text-book case he often sees.

If diving is something that you want to persue I would suggest doing the tests or at least finding out if the tests are covered or not.

 

[izibo]

i mean i still do have my medical clearance thing from my allergist doctor, but this guy seemed so negative about it that it kind of worries me to even try diving w/out the physical, even though my allergist cleared me. granted, he isnt as knowledgable as this guy, but still, it is kind of disheartening.

If you have medical clearance from your allergist, why not try some confined water dives and see how you do? There isn't much harm in giving it a shot from 7 feet under.

 

[purbeast]

At least he is being up front about it and doesn't want to get your hopes up.

If all you did was talk to him by phone he doesn't have much to go on other than the majority of the cases he's already seen. You may very well be cleared to dive after a face-to-face meeting along with proper tests. As we've already established, every situation is "case by case", no two situations are exactly the same.

His reaction may just be a result of having done this with several other potential divers and not a reflection on your actual case. On the flip side, your situation may fit a text-book case he often sees.

If diving is something that you want to persue I would suggest doing the tests or at least finding out if the tests are covered or not.

yea I'm definitely going to pursue it when I get back for sure. i did not realize the dive physical involved lab tests (sounded like blood work almost) and xrays of the lungs.

i thought i would go there and run a few tests and he would be able to tell me if I could dive or not.

but you are right, this guy doesn't know me at all other than a quick phone call, and i'm sure he has seen his share of bad asthmatics before as well.

it is just kind of disheartening because my allergist/asthma doctor was so confident that everything would be fine, and how well my lungs are (from the pulmonary tests), but hten i hear this from this other guy. and i don't know the next time I will be somewhere that I can go scuba dive in blue waters.

the fact that i have a medical waiver signed already too is making me want to just go do a beginner dive (probably not very deep) but again, this doctor made me wonder if it's safe to even do that w/out a proper dive physical.

 

[TSandM]

You always have to realize that doctors are EXTREMELY risk averse. Nobody wants to give you an offhand clearance to dive, and then have you get a gas embolism and be injured or dead, because then it would be their fault for having cleared you.

An evaluation for fitness to dive in an asthmatic would involve at the very least pulmonary function testing (where you breathe into a machine, and it records flow rates and pressures and volumes) to see if there is evidence of obstruction. That's the big risk with asthma, that air can get in but can't get out, and then you embolize.

From your history, I think there is a reasonable likelihood that you will pass PFTs. But they should be done, and no physician is going to give you clearance until they have been.