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Hi Mike, As you know there is no such animal as an "underserved" DCI hit. An incident may indeed be unexpected but there is usually an explanation, whether it is dehydration or simply statistical. (Every table has a measurable margin of error.) I, for one, would suggest that it is only the...

Interesting how funding affects management, Dr Vikingo. I must again repeat that my position holds considerable bias but, if I knew earlier what I know now, I would have happliy paid of the $1,000 or so for a TEE. On reflection, I might have been satisfied with the carotid doppler promoted...

Hail Oh cold one! Such atrial septal defects are mostly symptom free and do not have a major effect on an individual's physical fitness (Despite my PFO I was passed fit for RAF aircrew and I completed British Parachute Regiment selection twice, on the second occassion I was 32 years of age)...

Hi Arctic Diver, It really is a matter of clinical judgement and risk:benefit analysis, I suppose. A stroke caused by the patient's new heart valve would not be such a good outcome. Certainly in the case of metal heart valves long term anticoagulation is pretty well standard practice.

Hi Arctic Diver, This is the occlusion device my cardiologist used. I doubt many defects found in adults would now be closed by a primary suture as this is "open heart surgery". (In paediatrics it is another matter entirely.) As the device is made of inert material, as with hip...

. . . was also considered a heretic! Fascinating stuff! (I wish I had studied advanced maths!)

Hi Diver0001, Yes, I got the pfo fixed. I am the proud posessor of a Cardia occusion device, "fitted" last December As for the final ascent, it certainly cannot have helped and suprisingly, perhaps, I was not recompressed, but they must have though they were bringing/sending up a body...

'fraid so! Back at work now after proving to the-powers-that-be that I had not turned into Fred Shipman and also back on line! (In case our American readers have never heard of him, we Brits can claim to have the dubious honour of having had the worlds most prolific peace-time proven mass...

Hi captainR, So sorry to hear your sad tale, which proves I am a very lucky man having nearly died in 2002 after losing consciousness from a cerebral artery gas embolus. The vast majority of strokes are caused by a blood clot somehow getting into the arteries of the brain. This blocks...

Hi Swankenstein, Being as pedantic as I can! - You ask about "the bends". Strictly this is DCI affecting the limb girdles and the back (joint, and possibly CNS DCI) causing the sufferer to curl up into the fetal position to ease the pain. Hence the name bends, originally given to caisson...

Hi Tom, I can understand your point of view. Let me try and explain mine a bit more. In clinical practice we see many, many patients suffering from paroxysmal thromboembolic events - or "strokes". These can range from a transient ischemic attack, which completely resolves within 24 hours...

If you sign on to this service reuben, you will get a full explanation! TEE - transesophageal echo cardiogram.

Hi Snowbear, My point exactly. I think is is just too easy to believe that the only cause of AGE is Pulmonary Barotrauma. This article by scubadoc is quite enlightening. And this is the gadjet I am now walking around with inside my ticker!

I have the greatest respect for fins awake but tend to agree with Detroit diver on this one. It is difficult to be entirely dispassionate when one has nearly been been a statistic but I think it was Sherlock Holmes who said something like "If you exclude the impossible the answer can only be...

Hi Steven, I, for one, am not knocking this study but a one hour dive is by no means a long dive in the UK technical diving scene and as I think I made clear, measures of comfort and skin temperature are limited. Until we restudy changes in metabolic rate we will not get the definitive...

Hi again Jeff, I have no doubt you suffered salt water aspiration syndrome and that was the main diagnosis but what puzzles me is your description of what appears to have been acute pulmonary oedema. I wonder if this was the initial pathology? I doubt we will ever know. I am just so...

Hi Mandy, Problems with equalisation of the sinuses is VERY common when they have not had much exposure to the violent pressure changes associated with scuba. Many novice divers get "a bloody nose" and as Wristshot states, it soon settles as you do more dives. However, it is not something...

So keep pp O2 below 1.4 bar!