A friend of mine has mild asthma and wants to go diving

[spectrum]

jonniex,

You have had some good advice and some encouragement. The message is clear, there is hope but you need the input of a dive savvy physician. Dive savvy is important to avoid an error in either direction.

Base on my wife's experience and what I have read along the way asthma triggerd by exertion or cold are apt to be an issue, alergens or other triggers less so. Severity and effective comntrol also play a big part in it all.

Good luck to your friend.

Pete

 

[jonniex]

wow thanks for all the advise my dive friends! we are going to check with mass general hospital for advise!

Jonathan Bryan
DiveSummit.com

 

[robertarak]

joniex,

You have had some good advice and some encouragement. The message is clear, there is hope but you need the input of a dive savvy physician. Dive savvy is important to avoid an error in either direction.

Base on my wife's experience and what I have read along the way asthma triggerd by exertion or cold are apt to be an issue, alergens or other triggers less so. Severity and effective comntrol also play a big part in it all.

Good luck to your friend.

Pete

This has been exactally the case when I have certified divers with asthma. If the type and triggers are identified and the doctor believes if safe for her to dive, I would seek an instructor who understands and is aware of the condition and would urge her to consider private instruction where she would have the full attention of the instructor.

 

[zugbug99]

HI Jonathan,
The real risk with asthma is bronchial hypersenitivity if a sudden and severe episode of bronchoconstriction were to occur from something innocent like inhaling a small amount of seawater during a underwater aspiration and cough the result could be disasterous, and lethal. A ruptured bleb could result in a air gas embolism, and pulmonary infarct. Your GF could be in excellent physical conditioning, even a world class triathelete. But even with pretreatment with albuterol and inhaled corticosteroids or prednisone, antihistamines, and decongestants the risk is great. And will always be there.
Could you convince her to be a snorkler or freediver? Any doctor that would medically sign off on a medical statement of health, or "clear" someone with asthma for compressed air diving (scuba) is ignorant of diving physiology. Or they have a great desire to be involved with litigation, lawyers, and the courts.
With that being said, there are a lot of divers that have pre-existing lung disease (asthma, COPD, fibrosis) that continue to dive daily and enjoy the sport immensely. It's like rolling the roulette wheel, somewhere sometime there could be terrible trouble.
Dr. Alfred Bove is the dean of diving medicine and physiology. His text Diving Medicine is still the standard used around the world. DAN is a great resouce, for the small cost of a evaluation with pulmonary function tests a better evaluation of just how mild her Asthma is could be better evaluated.
Best Wishes

 

[TSandM]

HERE is a nice little piece from DAN on asthma and diving.

There is surprisingly little good literature on diving and asthma. The theoretical risk is that air can be trapped in areas in the lung, and when the diver ascends, it can expand and create lung injury or arterial gas embolism. There are well documented cases of that occurring with mechanical obstruction, like tumors. It is harder to find even convincing anecdotal information about this happening with asthma. I have wondered myself whether asthma sufficiently severe to cause it would render the patient symptomatic enough that they wouldn't consider diving, but I certainly do not know that for a fact.

It used to be that any degree of asthma was considered a complete contraindication to diving, and that's easy to understand, since arterial gas embolism is often fatal. This judgment has been relaxed to say that people who are truly normal between episodes may dive safely. Such patients will have no symptoms at all between attacks, and are on no maintenance medication. They have normal pulmonary function testing.

Your friend needs to consult with a doctor who is familiar with the guidelines for safe diving. If she is on maintenance medication, it is likely she will not be approved to dive.