Question Compression sleeve while diving?

[happy-diver]

 

[Angelo Farina]

In 2007, during a long flight from Australia to Italy, I got deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in my left lower leg, due to blood stagnation.
After that, I was suggested to always use compression sleeves. These are very useful when standing or seating for a long period. They are useless if you are horizontal (sleeping in bed). Their compression serves to counteract the gravity force, which makes the blood to stagnate in the lower parts of your body (legs).
When you are diving, you are substantially weightless, as the water pressure increases with depth, and this counter-balances perfectly the gravity.
Hence the compression sleeves are entirely useless when being submerged in water.

 

[ScubaJeffy]

This is an interesting topic for me, I don't have circulation issues in my legs, however I had a grade 2 tear of my gastrocnemius ( calf muscle) while snowboarding this past winter. It's been quite a long road of recovery, I wear an athletic compression sleeve when doing activities like running for extra support. Ive not been Ocean diving since this injury, only in a pool a few times and an instructor friend of mine said my injured leg doesn't appear to have the same range of motion as my good leg when frog kicking.
Im at the point where I think I'm ready to get back into Open Water, I live in Pacific Northwest so it's always a dry suit dive here, and I'm curious if wearing an athletic compression sleeve on my calf for support, could have any side effects while diving??

 

[Akimbo]

I did a minimal amount of Internet research on compression sleeves and everything I saw basically says that compression sleeves are useful because they promote faster circulation.

You would think that increasing circulation is a good thing but there are limits. Several commercial diving companies discovered that their DCS rate increased when hot water heated wetsuits were introduced on deep air and HeO2 surface-supplied deep dives. Apparently the assumed increased circulation during decompression either promoted bubble formation or diluent removal at a rate that exceeded what the tables were tested for.

Maybe @Duke Dive Medicine knows more about this.

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For those that don't know what a hot water suit is: Hot water suits are loose fitting wetsuits, more like large coveralls, made out of compressed wetsuit material. They are fitted with small tubing with holes every 4"/100mm that distributes hot water from a manifold at your hip and umbilical supplied from the surface. Typically 2½ gallons/minute at 110° F at the injection point of the suit (9½ LPM @ 43° C) of water is supplied that creates a cloud of water around the body very close to body temperature.

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[duke dive medicine]

This is an interesting topic for me, I don't have circulation issues in my legs, however I had a grade 2 tear of my gastrocnemius ( calf muscle) while snowboarding this past winter. It's been quite a long road of recovery, I wear an athletic compression sleeve when doing activities like running for extra support. Ive not been Ocean diving since this injury, only in a pool a few times and an instructor friend of mine said my injured leg doesn't appear to have the same range of motion as my good leg when frog kicking.
Im at the point where I think I'm ready to get back into Open Water, I live in Pacific Northwest so it's always a dry suit dive here, and I'm curious if wearing an athletic compression sleeve on my calf for support, could have any side effects while diving??

Hi @ScubaJeffy ,

This website offers some information on athletic compression sleeves, including the amount of compression in this particular brand. Depending on your orientation in the water, you could see the same pressure differential between your torso and your legs in a dry suit, so I think the effect on your decompression would be negligible.

@Dr Simon Mitchell : Simon, do you have any thoughts on this?

Best regards,
DDM

 

[100days-a-year]

I can't see how most wetsuits couldn't be seen as compression suits.

 

[Akimbo]

I can't see how most wetsuits couldn't be seen as compression suits.

Foot to ankle to knee compression socks are MUCH tighter than a good fitting wetsuit. It would be hard to breathe with that much compression on your torso.

 

[carlaguardiola]

I have lymphedema in my arm from breast cancer treatment. I wear a compression sleeve on land but not when wearing my wetsuit. There’s no benefit or need for support while diving. Also no swelling when I return to land.

So the diving doesnt have any effect on the preexisting lymphedema?

 

[TTPaws]

When I lived up North where it is fookin cold (North of West Palm Beach) I wore running compression calf socks when I was in a wetsuit (7mm). It helped me keep my calves a little warmer and forestalled calf cramps. It even seemed to help in my drysuit. I've been tempted to wear them again here, because after a 2 hour dive in 84° water in my shortie my calves are starting to cramp. It might look funny, but...