fear of losing mask

[eleniel]

I never had an issue deliberately breathing through my mouth and my mouth only - it didn't even occur to me that people would struggle with this until pretty recently.

 

[TMHeimer]

I don't know about you, but I hold my breath when I swim under water. Not so much when I am scuba diving.

Of course, but breathing through one's mouth underwater doesn't change what you do to close off your nose passages. I suppose some very few that take OW simply don't figure out right away how to keep the nose closed off while inhaling through the reg. It's all mental, I guess. I suppose even if you snorkeled a lot before taking scuba you have the mask covering your nose.

If instructed to breathe through one's mouth only on land, would anyone have a problem keeping from inhaling through the nose at the same time as the mouth?
I suppose so.

 

[Angelo Farina]

If instructed to breathe through one's mouth only on land, would anyone have a problem keeping from inhaling through the nose at the same time as the mouth?
I suppose so.

In my experience, approximately 10 percents of students have problems of not being able to close the valve separating noise form mouth (it is called "soft palate"), hence without a mask, if the attempt to breath they inhale water from the nose, as the soft palate is left open. These students can learn howto control the soft palate with some exercising, and after learning they are fine.
A slightly larger percentage of students, say 15%, have the opposite problem: without a mask they close instinctively both the upper valve (the soft palate, separating nose form mouth) and the lower valve (epiglottis, departing mouth from lungs). With the epiglottis closed, they cannot breath at all.
And this is a quite worrying situation if it happens at more than a couple of meters, as, not being able to breath, the student tends to quickly reach for the surface. While doing so, air trapped in his lungs will expand, and can cause ruptures and embolism if he does not exhale. But he cannot exhale, with the epiglottis close...
I remember one such accident while I was teaching a small group of two students at Maldives.
I asked to them, one by one, to remove the mask, make 4-5 breaths, and then reinstall it on face and empty it from water. Depth was 7-8 meters, on a flat sand bottom, crystal-clear water and no current.
The first student did it perfectly. The second one removed the mask, then he could not breath as the automatic neonatal reflex was locking his epiglottis. After a few seconds, he panicked and zoomed to the surface. I followed it on the ascent. As I was sure his lungs were full of air (before removing the mask he did a full inhalation) the risk of pulmonary over-distension and embolism was very large. So I inserted my hand in his mouth and with one finger I did reach his throat. He reacted immediately expiring and coughing, and drinking a lot of water, but the lungs were safe...
After this experience he did gave up and did not want to scuba dive anymore. He did also complain of me inserting by force an hand in his mouth causing him coughing and drinking, he did not understand that this manoeuvre probably saved his life.
After this episode (it was spring 1986) I did research the scientific literature, and I did learn that this neonatal reflex locking the epiglottis is there for avoiding the child to drown if falling in the water when he cannot swim yet, and it usually disappears after a few months of life. But if the child continues being submerged (for example during the daily bath) this reflex does not go away, and you can easily find adults suffering of this epiglottis blockage. The reflex is triggered by some neurotransmitters located around your nostrils. So when you wear a mask the reflex is not triggered, as soon as the mask is removed you cannot breath anymore...

 

[TMHeimer]

In my experience, approximately 10 percents of students have problems of not being able to close the valve separating noise form mouth (it is called "soft palate"), hence without a mask, if the attempt to breath they inhale water from the nose, as the soft palate is left open. These students can learn howto control the soft palate with some exercising, and after learning they are fine.
A slightly larger percentage of students, say 15%, have the opposite problem: without a mask they close instinctively both the upper valve (the soft palate, separating nose form mouth) and the lower valve (epiglottis, departing mouth from lungs). With the epiglottis closed, they cannot breath at all.
And this is a quite worrying situation if it happens at more than a couple of meters, as, not being able to breath, the student tends to quickly reach for the surface. While doing so, air trapped in his lungs will expand, and can cause ruptures and embolism if he does not exhale. But he cannot exhale, with the epiglottis close...
I remember one such accident while I was teaching a small group of two students at Maldives.
I asked to them, one by one, to remove the mask, make 4-5 breaths, and then reinstall it on face and empty it from water. Depth was 7-8 meters, on a flat sand bottom, crystal-clear water and no current.
The first student did it perfectly. The second one removed the mask, then he could not breath as the automatic neonatal reflex was locking his epiglottis. After a few seconds, he panicked and zoomed to the surface. I followed it on the ascent. As I was sure his lungs were full of air (before removing the mask he did a full inhalation) the risk of pulmonary over-distension and embolism was very large. So I inserted my hand in his mouth and with one finger I did reach his throat. He reacted immediately expiring and coughing, and drinking a lot of water, but the lungs were safe...
After this experience he did gave up and did not want to scuba dive anymore. He did also complain of me inserting by force an hand in his mouth causing him coughing and drinking, he did not understand that this manoeuvre probably saved his life.
After this episode (it was spring 1986) I did research the scientific literature, and I did learn that this neonatal reflex locking the epiglottis is there for avoiding the child to drown if falling in the water when he cannot swim yet, and it usually disappears after a few months of life. But if the child continues being submerged (for example during the daily bath) this reflex does not go away, and you can easily find adults suffering of this epiglottis blockage. The reflex is triggered by some neurotransmitters located around your nostrils. So when you wear a mask the reflex is not triggered, as soon as the mask is removed you cannot breath anymore...

Thank you Angelo. Very interesting indeed (and also scary, those situations you were involved with).
It's the first time anyone has explained medical reasons to me for people not being able to do with their airway what I assumed everyone who had decent water activity experience would know.
Am I correct in that for some people, not being able to close off the nose without a mask is not simply a mental matter, but inability to physically do it?
A situation that originally exists to protect a child from drowning that doesn't go away for some adults. Hmph.

 

[EFX]

In my experience, approximately 10 percents of students have problems of not being able to close the valve separating noise form mouth

[see misspelled bolded underlined word above].

In my experience the percentage is higher.

 

[dmaziuk]

[see misspelled bolded underlined word above]. In my experience the percentage is higher.

Only 10%? In Italy? Pull the other one.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Thank you Angelo. Very interesting indeed (and also scary, those situations you were involved with).
It's the first time anyone has explained medical reasons to me for people not being able to do with their airway what I assumed everyone who had decent water activity experience would know.
Am I correct in that for some people, not being able to close off the nose without a mask is not simply a mental matter, but inability to physically do it?
A situation that originally exists to protect a child from drowning that doesn't go away for some adults. Hmph.

Sorry, I was not clear enough: the first problem, leaving the soft palate open, is nothing worrying. You have simply to LEARN how to control voluntarily this valve. Almost everyone can learn, practising some exercise at home. One very simple is breathing through a small pipe, making bubbles in a glass of water and sucking back the water. Or filling a rubber balloon. The final exercise is in the bath tube, you submerge your face while breathing with the snorkel.
Usually all my students managed to learn to control their soft palate in due time (usually 2 to 3 months of daily exercise at home).
The second problem instead is a reflex. So in this case it something happening outside your voluntary control, and closing both valves (soft palate and epiglottis). It is not just matter of getting voluntary control of some muscles, it is matter of de-powering a natural reflex, and this is not just matter of training or doing exercises (they can help, but are not always successful).
A fraction of people never get rid of this reflex, and this people, in my opinion, are unsafe breathing underwater, as some accident can occur impairing entirely their capability of breathing, and more dangerously to expel air while surfacing. The sad thing is that these guys are often very good swimmers, people who spent all their life in water. And this is the reason for which the neo-natal reflex did not disappear, as it was continuously triggered by the fact that these children continued going underwater since their birth. So they are very aquatic, they swim like a fish, they will never drown. Still, they cannot breath underwater without a mask, and they risk suffocating even with a mask, if some water droplet inside it triggers the reflex...

 

[Angelo Farina]

[see misspelled bolded underlined word above].

In my experience the percentage is higher.

In my experience the experience of people closing involuntary the epiglottis is larger. People not closing the soft palate are not so common...
Instead, people unable to close their mouth when they should stay silent is close to 99%...
And I am among them, definitely!

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

@Sam Miller III and Ron Merker taught me to use a mask lanyard 40+ years ago and I have not lost a mask since (well, one time in 1990 when I was standing on the swim platform of a dive boat and took my lanard off before reboarding. Somehow in handing up.my fins the mask dropped into the briny deep.)

 

[EFX]

Angelo Farina,
Just to be clear. I was not directing my response against you personally. Just poking some fun at your misspelled word. What you wrote regarding the mouth/nose breathing problems was interesting.