Breast Pain After Diving

[chardiver]

Breast Pain After Diving

I am a 60-year old woman who has been diving for 23 years and have made about 975 dives. For the last 8 or so years I have had a problem that develops after diving. I develop severe pain, swelling, and a very full feeling in my normally large breasts.

It is as if the breasts are engorged. The skin becomes very stretched. There is some itching under the breasts also. I have contacted numerous dive medicine specialists including DAN and they have not heard of this post diving problem. None of their numerous suggestions (looser wetsuit, sports bra, women's style BC, antihistamines, change in blood pressure meds, and Sudafed) were of any help in preventing or in alleviating the problem.

I feel this may be a symptom of impending bends as I have had two occurrences of DCS in the last three years. Both seemed to be undeserved hits. They both required hyperbaric treatment. The breast pain however was not alleviated either by breathing oxygen or by the treatments and took about a week to subside.

I am concerned about other women who might be experiencing this symptom and are not reporting it, as I did not for a number of years. If there are others, we women may be able to convince the doctors that it is an unreported precursor to the bends. So far, they are skeptical. If you have had this symptom or have any second hand knowledge or experience with it, please contact me:

Phone (920) 734-2479
E-mail chardiver@aol.com
Snail mail: Char Sigman, W6589 Fire Lane 7, and Menasha, WI 54952

Thanks for your time and attention to this problem.
Char Sigman

 

[Norm]

Dear Char,
It obviously isn't any type of suit squeeze but you really need to find out what the problem is. I have never heard of this but I am sure if ANYONE in the world can help DAN can. PALEEEEEEZE contact them immediately! They will be more than happy to try to help you! When you mentioned "two undeserved hits" THAT really scared me. I have a friend that has received a couple of undeserved hits and the last one nearly killed him. He surfaced bent and embolized! Please talk to DAN before diving again! Sincerly,
Norm

 

[old_mike]

breast tissue is mainly adipose (fatty) tissue and that of course, has the highest capacity out of all the tissue types, for N-uptake. That capacity coupled with perhaps, post menopausal changes in one's physiology might be the culprit. This is just a guess of course, but when more individuals step forward, more data will come in and there might be a detectable pattern. At any rate, this is pretty #$%$#% serious and as more of us divers head toward them golden years, this problem may become more and more widespread. Keep us posted, cuz we might be there someday!

 

[Ladydiver]

Hi Chardiver,

Does the swelling and pain occur in both breasts? One thing that comes to my mind in this situation is possibly a cyst of some type that is aggravated by the pressure. But that would not explain pain on both sides, unless you happened to have a cyst in both breasts.

Please keep us posted on any other information you find out about this problem. As a female diver, this situation concerns be greatly.

Take Care,

 

[missy]

i dont know weather this will help you at all but here goes.

i am not quite pamela anderson in the chest department (understatement!!!!) and never usually get any pain, but when i was pregnant and my chest was a lot bigger i used to get this horrible ache whenever i went swimming. It used to start about 10 minutes afer swimming untill about 40 minutes later. The pain was as you say was like engorgement and felt as if my chest was about to explode it was also very painfull to the touch. i spoke to my doctor about this and apparently it is quite common for pregnant women to get this because of their enlarged breasts.

i dont know wether this sheds any light on the problem but i thought that you might like to know

thanks

 

[octodiver]

Char,

That sounds exactly like Type I DCS to me. I know, because I went through a similar "run around" with my own symptoms. We called it "itchy belly" for years - thinking that it was possibly an organism in the water causing it (it originally appeared only after night wall dives at Molokini, Maui).

It was only after watching a friends "itchy belly" symptoms turn into "traditional Type II" DCS that we finally put it all together. I personally know two other women who've experienced these symptoms after no deco diving (all of us 40 years old and up).

Unfortunatley, as women, we haven't been taught the basics of keeping ourselves DCS free. I should know, I'm an instructor! Being taught to "dive conservatively", and that if we get DCS, it's our fault, has contributed to the problem of women getting DCS but not recognizing it as such. I have found some published guidelines for "diving conservatively" and now share it in every class I teach.

I have a lot of info and advice I can give you (and anyone
else wanting to learn about this!)

Rene

 

[Ladydiver]

Hi Octodiver,

I didn't realize the symptoms of DCS could manifest themselve in such a way. That is kind of a scary thing to contemplate considering apparently even people who are supposed to be "in the know" about these things didn't recognize it as such.

You mentioned you had found some literature for diving conservatively. I take it this is in addition to the usual info you get during your classes.

I would be very interested in finding out more about the guidelines. Can you tell me where I might get ahold of a copy?

Cheers,

 

[old_mike]

well, given that for the longest time, men were the ones studying women's health issues, it is not surprising that so little is known about this.

I suspect that the problem could be a bit more widespread and it may affect both sexes to varying degrees. All i can say is, keep us posted.

As a lot of us divers age, indeed, as 60 and 70-something divers become common sights on dive boats worldwide (Last week in Indonesia, four out of six divers on our boat were 50+ and Last August in Borneo, There were four divers over 55 at our uncrowded resort, and in So Calif, a half dozen senior citizens on the boats scarcely turns any heads), we will be running into these hitherto "unknown" maladies more and more and more.

 

[vr]

Don't be so quick to lay the blame on men, Mike. There are many more likely reasons so little may be known. For one thing, the percentage and number of women diving has been much lower in the past. For another, and for a variety of reasons, many women have tended to be more conservative in their dive profiles, and would have lower incidents of even mild DCS as a result of their caution.

Some tissues, like fatty tissues, retain nitrogen more than others (like muscles). Larger (natural) breasted women might possibly experience, or be at an increased risk of DCS, and it may even be related to hormonal changes as well including those that result from pregnancy).

All things considered, it's not surprise that this is another area of medicine about which little is known by either male or female doctors.

The situation is not made better by sexist remarks, regardless of how casually they are made. Ignorance is not gender specific.

 

[octodiver]

Ladydiver,

I e-mailed you a copy of my DCS & Women blurb - I hope you received it. I have so much to say on this, and this problem involves so many different angles...

I think I'll just ramble... I think part of the problem is that most women who've had this think they were diving conservatively/within the limits so they can't be bent. While in truth, they have several predisposing factors that needed to be factored into bottom time calculations.

Unfortunately, unless they've read (and taken seriously) John Lippmann's, "Deeper Into Diving" most divers just don't know what diving conservatively means to them as individuals. Even DAN's, "Dive & Travel Medical Guide" gives better advice than most manuals: "Experienced divers often select a table depth of 10 feet/3 meters deeper than called for by standard procedure."

What kind of message is being implanted into every new divers mind when all the instruction manuals' knowledge reviews, quizzes, and tests ask for maximum NDL's, minimum surface intervals, etc...

Rather than reinforcing the idea of diving conservatively and taking responsibility for themselves by factoring in their own personal predisposing factors to DCS (via some sort of % formula like Lippmann uses) they're being taught through example that it's OK to dive up to the limits!

Or what about the manuals that state over and over that if you get bent it's your fault!! So when divers do "everything right", (don't go into deco, ascend slowly, do a safety stop), but have these symptoms afterwards, they think it can't be the bends becuase they didn't do anything wrong ("besides, everyone else is OK...")!!!

And then the doctors agree with them.... "no, it's not DCS - you're PMSing" (that's my feminist talking... I just want the doc's to start paying serious attention to this!)

Ok, so that's one issue... I'm also talking about this in a
Diving Medicine Thread
where other important issues are being expressed/exposed.

Mike: I like your feminist perspective, and I agree with vr. Along with the question of who's doing the studying, is who's in the studies. Since more men dive than women, most of the information that's out there pertains to men - let's add to that - YOUNG MEN - let's add again - YOUNG MEN WITH SHORTER BOTTOM TIMES THAN WOMEN (I'm not saying all men have shorter bottom times, but you know what I mean.... I've yet to meet a man who can out breathe a confident/experienced female diver!

vr: This is where your idea about women being more "conservative" than men gets interesting, since our air consumption can allow us "to get into trouble" with longer saturation dives...) So, in a nutshell, using this "science" that's more relative to men than women, (in many ways) is presenting a problem to some women (and I agree, probably some men, too)!!

This whole thing has been astounding to me - as an instructor, diving and sharing information with other
instructors and divemasters - it seems like there are some pretty serious gaps that need to be addressed!

Let's continue to share info and ideas and get the word out... this is a real threat to women divers safety...and it is preventable!!!

Aloha,

octodiver