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I recently accidentally got chlorine poinoning while opening my pool for the summer. I am curious if anyone knows where I can find info regarding as to how long it might take before it is safe for me to start scuba diving again? My lungs were affected and I went to the emergency room, I have a trip to Cozumel at the end of May and want to make sure that I would still be able to dive. Any Scuba doc's out there point me to where I can find some more info?
ontario Canada, where the water meets the land on Lk. St Clair
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In my opinion..the best relvent answer to your question, can be answered by Lynn, aka TS&M. Find her and PM her. She may post on this thread, but I'd PM her. Why wait?
You need to ask your doctor this question. I think only a doctor who is familiar with the damage to your lungs can answer that.
By the way, around 20 or 30 years ago I had the same thing. I was shocking my pool while opening it up for the summer and caught a whiff of the concentrated chlorine while it was bubbling in the skimmer.
Man did that hurt! I feel for you and hope you have a speedy and complete recovery! & in time for your trip!
I know how you feel. I have been hit with Chlorine twice, one was some dry chlorine that was old and had gotten very powdery and the dust came up when I was pouring it into another container the second was a leak at the chlorine gas cylinder.
I won't go near the dry or the gas chlorine with out a full face mask approved for chlorine.
The risks are not worth not using a mask. In commercial pool operations there is supposed to be a Chlorine rated full face mask available.
You will probably not have any lasting damage if the exposure wasn't bad but you will have some irritation in your lungs causing wheezing and coughing and some shortness of breath.
How long it will last I can't say and if you can dive with it is up to a doctor familiar with diving and the stresses it puts on the respiratory system.
I would guess that it would be similar to diving with asthma.
Pulmonary toxicity from chlorine gas can range from mild mouth and throat irritation to lethal chemical pneumonia. Without a good deal more information about how sick you were and for how long, it's impossible to say whether you would need a formal pulmonary evaluation before returning to diving. The physician who cared for you when you had this injury would be a better source.
If this was a minor exposure, with some sore throat and cough for a day or two, the likelihood that (if you were healthy before) you would be able to return to diving would be extremely high, I would think.
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