Does diving cause medical issues

This may be an odd question, but here it goes...

All 5 of the wonderfull instructors I have had the past month are around 45-55 years old, each with 1500+ dives. I noticed that all of their legs (it is impossible to miss), from the ankles to mid thigh, have EXTREMELY SEVERE vericose veins. Just cutious if this is a long term side effect of diving.

Varicose veins are more common in women than in men, and are linked with heredity. Other related factors are pregnancy, obesity, menopause, aging, prolonged standing, leg injury, abdominal straining, and crossing legs at the knees or ankles. Less commonly, but not exceptionally, varicose veins can be due to other causes, as post phlebitic obstruction and/or incontinence, venous and arteriovenous malformations.

-Wikipedia (It's your friend)

I haven't noticed this, and I've seen my fair share of old and long time-teaching instructors. Might be more of a regional thing rather than a scuba instructor thing.

Cramps and varicose veins--my heredity. Potassium pills took 70% of the cramps away. The veins seem to cause no concern-I'm 57 with 6 yrs. of diving (244 dives). They don't like to "cut them out" like they did decades ago.

4subsmittt:

This may be an odd question, but here it goes...

All 5 of the wonderfull instructors I have had the past month are around 45-55 years old, each with 1500+ dives. I noticed that all of their legs (it is impossible to miss), from the ankles to mid thigh, have EXTREMELY SEVERE vericose veins. Just cutious if this is a long term side effect of diving.

Click to expand...

Uh, excuse me, I am 57, I used to run 24 miles a week (until broken femur and non union), I swim 5 miles or more a week and I cycle upwards of 75 and even 100 plus a week average and I do my elliptical (substitutes for running) at least 3 and sometimes 5 hours a week and I do not have varicose veins and I have been an active scuba diver since 1966 or was it 68, don't remember exactly, OK, it was a long time ago. Oh, and I have broken just about every scuba rule there is, I have gone deep, I have gone long, I have gone up and down and all sorts of bad stuff. If they got varicose veins, I doubt it has anything to do with scuba. I have legs of steel, well, actually, one is titanium now (bear with me, I am tongue in cheek here).

The answer to your question, does scuba cause medical issues and the answer is NO, it does not directly cause issues.

N

Long term saturation diving (ie living and working at deep depths) can produce long term health effects. These particular problems don't present even in long-term non-saturation divers. Specifically I am thinking of Dysbaric osteonecrosis. The Saturation Diving wikipedia entry is here for your perusal.

Michael

You might want to check this thread out.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/diving-medicine/378848-diving-may-damage-blood-vessels.html

Varicose veins are linked to heredity and in the long list of possible causes I never read scuba diving. They are made worse by being inactive and overweight. Since nearly 75% of the American population are overweight and 34% are obese and very few participate in any real fitness program I suspect these and other things like AGE, large distended bellies, drinking, sun exposure, diet, occupational things like standing for long periods or sitting in a cubicle all day etc.

Oh, scuba divers are about as unfit and overweight as the population at large is my general observation. Scuba diving is not a fitness activity, it is an activity that benefits from fitness but scuba diving in and of itself, other than being active at least, is not a fitness program.

A lot of this stuff is simple DNA, my grandparents and relatives all live long lives, several into the triple digits. And my grandmother never hit a lick of exercise as that was unladylike and ate what she wanted and was one heXX of a cook and smoked and drank her way into an early death at like 101. We are what we are and what we are is what our parents are and our ancestors were. If they had varicose veins then likely you (generic) should take precautions to avoid them and there are things you can do including wearing supporting leg wear. We need a doc in the house.

But, OK, lets suppose that micro bubble formation can damage the valves in the blood vessels that normally prevent back flow and hasten circulation? Could this be the linkage?

N

The only condition I get from diving is depression when I have to go a week with out doing it.

I don't know about vericose veins.. But I can say without a doubt that scuba does cause me ear infections. Never had one in my life until I started diving. Now to go back to the doc because I am too lazy to use preventative drops/drying solution... When will I learn?