Ofcourse the amount of N2 in the lungs is limited and probably can't cause much in the way of supersaturation (what about fast tissues of small volume though?). My understanding is that whales employ an additional DCS prevention mechanism. I seem to recall that some whales collapse their lungs...
I have been wondering a bit about psychosomatic effects lately myself. More and more I see technical divers talking about using the degree of post-dive fatigue to tinker with their decompression schedules. Some have mentioned that upon introduction of deep stops this fatigue was significantly...
Hi Dr. Deco
>>. I once heard a presentation by Dr. Ward at an Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society meeting in which he found a difference in complement activation between bubbles of helium versus bubbles on nitrogen.<<
I was just curious how he arrived at that conclusion. Clearly the...
I've never looked terribly deeply into narcosis, particularly once I entered the world of trimix and never had to worry about having a clear head anymore, but I'll make a stab at a post anyways. I can see the confusion - if oxygen and nitrogen are equally potent then diving nitrox shouldn't...
Hi Mario,
My general understanding is that the "optimum" scenario is really to be cold on the bottom (slowing perfusion and hence uptake of inert gases) and warm during decompression (to speed offgassing). Ofcourse the opposite is almost always true in my frigid Canadian waters, we're warm...
Hi Maggie,
Practically speaking I suspect it isn't a concern, though I haven't crunched any numbers on this. The simplified version of the nitrox story is that oxygen is transported to tissues in both red blood cells and as dissolved gas. Usually the tissues use up the oxygen in the red...
My understanding is that this research has been discontinued, primarily because it would be such a hard sell for the divers involved (those saturation chambers are awfully cozy). Bottom line is if the divers won't do it then it doesn't matter if it works. I'm not sure who I heard this from...
Could someone explain to me what the "bend a friend" tables are? I've never heard of them.
As for the question of how to "reality check" a dive computer, probably the best way is with desktop dive planning software. I would usually have a rough multi-level profile planned out which gave me...
Gas Density is probably more important in terms of CO2 removal than for O2 transfer. It seems that as gas density increases there is a tendency to not breath sufficiently for CO2 exchange (but there is plenty of oxygen being exchanged). My understanding is that this is either a conscious or...
Hi Pam,
I'm not a doctor, but I'm completely confident that breast implants will not rupture at depth. Just as in the rest of your body, the fluid transmits the pressure equally. Only if the implants were rigid and contained 1 atm of air would there be any risk (i.e. if they were...
Hi Sharkfan,
I'm not going to pretend that there is a right answer. Consider for a moment that during decompression two competing incentives are occuring. The shallower you are, the better your body can get rid of excess inert gases. However the downside is that the shallower you are the...
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