Ayisha
Contributor
A friend of mine had a (somewhat) mild lung over-expansion injury over 6 years ago and thought she was having an asthma attack. She had only about 30 dives in five years at that time, was doing a deep dive with current that in retrospect made her feel anxious, did a very abbreviated safety stop and apparently held her breath on the way up. She felt short of breath after the dive and thought she was having a mild asthma attack, although she hadn't had an asthma attack since she was a child. Her self-diagnosis led everyone to not suspect anything else, and she sat out the rest of the weekend, still feeling short of breath. Finally afterwards, she went to her doctor and a dive medicine specialist, and was diagnosed with a mild lung over-expansion injury, and was told not to dive for at least 6 months pending further testing, and then only shallow easy dives. At 6 months, her time off diving was increased to another 3 months. Finally at 9 months, she was cleared to dive only shallow dives with easy conditions, but still has never been diving again.
I suspect at least some degree of a lung over-expansion injury could feel somewhat like an asthma attack, shortness of breath, hyperventilation, etc.
