I have a very good collegue who is the leading doctor on diving with Asthma in the UK, he was recently in Florida doing a semina on the subject. His name Dr Mark Harries and has written a book on diving with asthma, I will ask him your question and let you know.
Astma attack under water
- Thread starter Pam and Stella
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Narcosis,
Do you think you could ask him to post on this thread? I've got a friend whom has asthma, so I'd be very interested to have her check out the answers.
Mario
Do you think you could ask him to post on this thread? I've got a friend whom has asthma, so I'd be very interested to have her check out the answers.
Mario
Dr Deco
Contributor
- Messages
- 2,384
- Reaction score
- 96
- # of dives
- I just don't log dives
Mario:
Sounds like a good plan to me. Please ask him, Narcosis, if he would share his thoughts with us on this matter ......
___________________________
Michael Powell, PhD, aka Dr. Deco
:idea:
Sounds like a good plan to me. Please ask him, Narcosis, if he would share his thoughts with us on this matter ......
___________________________
Michael Powell, PhD, aka Dr. Deco
:idea:
That is the name of the book. Published by Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society Maryland USA. I copy out what it has to say in the case that asthmatics should not dive. OOh its long.There are two main risks for asthmatics.
1. is possibility of impaired exercise capacity due to a reduction in maximum ventilation incurred by increased airway resistance. Increased airways resistance due to asthma will reduce a divers maximum ventilation further, possibly causing an attack at only moderate levels of exertion.
2. The other issue is the risk of pulmonary baratrauma and deco illness. The hypothesis is that airway obstruction , airway closure and gas trapping caused by asthma can preticipate PBT pulmonary barotrauma during ascent. Qver expansion of gases in an asmatic can cause lung to rupture, and release gas into the pulmonary interstitium, pleural space and venous blood stream. Large amounts of intra-arterial air result in the classic clinical picture of arterial gas embolism.
There is load more but those are the main 2 there is also stress related asthma which can trigger it all off.
I have sent e mail to M Harries who is my wifes chest/respiritory doctor and also Britains leading dive doctor, he is a diver himself, or was he is too old now and also the doctor for the british Olympic team this year.
I have given him the address of the site and I have left it up to him to write in I can but try.
Any more questions I got references from both USA and UK here on asthma and diving. Most of it is way over my head. But give me the specific question and symptoms and ill see if its in this book.
Harvey ( Narcosis ) Page
1. is possibility of impaired exercise capacity due to a reduction in maximum ventilation incurred by increased airway resistance. Increased airways resistance due to asthma will reduce a divers maximum ventilation further, possibly causing an attack at only moderate levels of exertion.
2. The other issue is the risk of pulmonary baratrauma and deco illness. The hypothesis is that airway obstruction , airway closure and gas trapping caused by asthma can preticipate PBT pulmonary barotrauma during ascent. Qver expansion of gases in an asmatic can cause lung to rupture, and release gas into the pulmonary interstitium, pleural space and venous blood stream. Large amounts of intra-arterial air result in the classic clinical picture of arterial gas embolism.
There is load more but those are the main 2 there is also stress related asthma which can trigger it all off.
I have sent e mail to M Harries who is my wifes chest/respiritory doctor and also Britains leading dive doctor, he is a diver himself, or was he is too old now and also the doctor for the british Olympic team this year.
I have given him the address of the site and I have left it up to him to write in I can but try.
Any more questions I got references from both USA and UK here on asthma and diving. Most of it is way over my head. But give me the specific question and symptoms and ill see if its in this book.
Harvey ( Narcosis ) Page
Dr Deco
Contributor
- Messages
- 2,384
- Reaction score
- 96
- # of dives
- I just don't log dives
Thanks, Harvey, for the summaries from the book. It is probably easier, however, to simply get our staff writers from Scuba Source to pen a response. The problem with these books is that they are written for the specialist and readers of these forums are not specialists. What is usually needed is the ability to translate scientific material into language that can be understood by the non-specialist.
Often times this will require a considerable amount of time by the writer. Consider the following:
[sp][sp] The effects of viscous adhesion in a highly viscoelastic cytosol would surely precipitate nuclei production whereas Bernoulli streaming could not. However, intracellular gas vacuoles are rare, even in kinetically active systems, as empirical evidence demonstrates.
I just made that up, and it means:
[sp][sp] When surfaces move apart in a liquid, a void (= small empty space) is formed for a moment within the liquid. This gas void is bigger if the liquid is more like syrup than like water. While liquids flowing through a narrowing will also produce void (= gas seeds), the conditions for such streaming (= rapid flow) are not correct within the cytoplasm of the cells. Therefore the gas seeds are never present within cells themselves, as one can find by experiment.
Just an example of what might be in a book as contrasted with what we understand. I feel the same way when I look at a car repair book all Greek to me! :loopy:
Many thanks for your help!
Often times this will require a considerable amount of time by the writer. Consider the following:
[sp][sp] The effects of viscous adhesion in a highly viscoelastic cytosol would surely precipitate nuclei production whereas Bernoulli streaming could not. However, intracellular gas vacuoles are rare, even in kinetically active systems, as empirical evidence demonstrates.
I just made that up, and it means:
[sp][sp] When surfaces move apart in a liquid, a void (= small empty space) is formed for a moment within the liquid. This gas void is bigger if the liquid is more like syrup than like water. While liquids flowing through a narrowing will also produce void (= gas seeds), the conditions for such streaming (= rapid flow) are not correct within the cytoplasm of the cells. Therefore the gas seeds are never present within cells themselves, as one can find by experiment.
Just an example of what might be in a book as contrasted with what we understand. I feel the same way when I look at a car repair book all Greek to me! :loopy:
Many thanks for your help!
OP
Pam and Stella
Contributor
Thank you everyone (IGUESS) LOL
Forgive me for being stubborn and stupid, but I guess no diving period!!!!
It doesn't matter how deep I go I'm sure,being the greatest pressure changes between the surface and 30ft are the most problematic. I can't believe I got clearance from my G.I. I passed all the pulmonary tests but scubadoc doesn't advise it to dive with the meds I am on. I guess I will have to settle on snorkeling. But the meds I am on my doc believes are because of this weather here in sunny Buffalo
Pam
Forgive me for being stubborn and stupid, but I guess no diving period!!!!
It doesn't matter how deep I go I'm sure,being the greatest pressure changes between the surface and 30ft are the most problematic. I can't believe I got clearance from my G.I. I passed all the pulmonary tests but scubadoc doesn't advise it to dive with the meds I am on. I guess I will have to settle on snorkeling. But the meds I am on my doc believes are because of this weather here in sunny Buffalo
Pam
rcohn
Guest
Narcosis,
I've read that conference proceedings from the workshop on Asthma and diving entitled "Are Asthmatics Fit to Dive?" cover to cover and what you've presented is in no way a fair, balanced, or ever particularly relevant treatment of it's contents. Most papers in the book make a strong case for why asthmatics should be allowed to dive. The best the paper presenting the case that asthmatics shouldn't dive could come up with is that until it can be conclusively proven that asthmatics are absolutely safe to dive clearance should not be given.
The conclusion of the conference was to cautiously relax the rules, allowing some asthmatics to dive. The YMCA protocols, to which I previously posted a link, provide guidelines for asthmatics diving which are most closely in line with the information presented in the proceedings.
By the way if you do a DejaNews search on the archives of rec.scuba you will find that there is a pulmunologist who posts there who, after investigating the issues, allows his son who has asthma to dive.
A copy of the workshop on Asthma and diving entitled "Are Asthmatics Fit to Dive?" can be obtained from the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, 10531 Metropolitan Ave., Kensington, Md. 20895. The cost is $20.00 plus $2.50 additional for postage and handling.
I've read that conference proceedings from the workshop on Asthma and diving entitled "Are Asthmatics Fit to Dive?" cover to cover and what you've presented is in no way a fair, balanced, or ever particularly relevant treatment of it's contents. Most papers in the book make a strong case for why asthmatics should be allowed to dive. The best the paper presenting the case that asthmatics shouldn't dive could come up with is that until it can be conclusively proven that asthmatics are absolutely safe to dive clearance should not be given.
The conclusion of the conference was to cautiously relax the rules, allowing some asthmatics to dive. The YMCA protocols, to which I previously posted a link, provide guidelines for asthmatics diving which are most closely in line with the information presented in the proceedings.
By the way if you do a DejaNews search on the archives of rec.scuba you will find that there is a pulmunologist who posts there who, after investigating the issues, allows his son who has asthma to dive.
A copy of the workshop on Asthma and diving entitled "Are Asthmatics Fit to Dive?" can be obtained from the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, 10531 Metropolitan Ave., Kensington, Md. 20895. The cost is $20.00 plus $2.50 additional for postage and handling.
This is the type of thing that can really bite you in the butt if you're not careful with it. We live in a sue happy society and the risk an instructor takes is huge!
Mario
Mario
OP
Pam and Stella
Contributor
Mario,
Is that offer still open?
My trip to Belize is still on!
My doc said I passed the tests with flying colors!!!!! I think perhaps I might go to Roatan instead, bigger fish. I would love to see a whale shark, but must check the literature first to see if it's the season !
By the way, can anyone help? I cannot get all of my smiley graphics to display, nor will they come in the vibrant colors that they should. My HTML code is registering off, is this the problem? My smiley codes are on, as well as the other controls.
Pamelita
Is that offer still open?
My trip to Belize is still on! My doc said I passed the tests with flying colors!!!!! I think perhaps I might go to Roatan instead, bigger fish. I would love to see a whale shark, but must check the literature first to see if it's the season !
By the way, can anyone help? I cannot get all of my smiley graphics to display, nor will they come in the vibrant colors that they should. My HTML code is registering off, is this the problem? My smiley codes are on, as well as the other controls.
Pamelita
Similar threads
- Article
