Could not breathe out

[rfwoodvt]

Interesting experience a few weeks ago.

Stepped off the ladder into the Gulf of Mexico. Water temp 62f surface 60f bottom (28-feet) 7mm FJ with a 3mm hooded vest.

Hit the water, bobbed under and came up. Took my first breath and then, couldn't breathe out. My body simply fought me. It was almost like having the wind knocked out of me but without the associated abdominal tension.

Unlike getting the my wind knocked out, no matter how much I tried to relax and breathe out I could not get any relief; I could only gasp a little air in and not fully breathe it out. .

Needless to say, I aborted that dive.

An hour later I attempted another dive, similar physiological response but was able to get enough control to attempt a descent. Ended up finishing the dive an hour-plus later (0.45 sac for entire dive). Dived two more days no recurrence.

I'm sure there was a healthy dose of psych factors that played into that but I'm more curious as to what sort of physiological response might have been at play. Perhaps some level of the mammalian diving reflex?

I welcome both definitive and speculative thoughts!

 

[Robert H. Diver]

Could be that when the “cold” water hit your face your brain had a negative reaction to it?? I honestly have no idea.

 

[Wibble]

Anxiety is a strange thing. Mind over matter? After a while you'd have to breathe out but anxiety was preventing logical actions? Back on the boat you relaxed and you had the second dive.

 

[VikingDives]

I train a lot of students in 62 degree water, and while I can't say that I've seen this response, it's my experience that if the students get their heads wet before they head out into the open water that seems to lessen problems.

That kind of sounds like what you experienced...

Your mileage may vary.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

A long time ago I had something strange happen that was similar. I was in Australia on the GBR on a day boat that was one of those high speed 48’ cattle boats filled mostly with asian tourists that give you a little aluminum 63.
I remember it was high tension and they were throwing us off the boat like we were jumping off a plane parachuting. They needed to keep a schedule so everything was timed and every minute counted.
I was trying to manage all my camera equipment, check and double check my gear, etc. and they kept pressuring me to get in the water since I was one of the last ones in. I remember being really stressed out about all the pressure and when I finally got in the water I couldn’t breath in or out. It seemed like some sort of panic reaction hit me. The DM on the boat looked at me with concern, so I put my hand up in a gesture like “I got this”. I relaxed and finally got my breathing going then began to descend.
I think I probably had 50 dives at that point and thought I pretty much had the basics down, but the stress of the situation must have really worked on my head.
I have never had that happen since because I refuse to let anybody stress me out about a dive I’m about to do. I ground myself, go through my mental checklist, relax, and then begin the dive.

 

[Diver With Altitude]

Clipped from a Wikipedia article on cold shock response:

Diving Reflex[edit]​

Cold water immersion is partly affected by the mammalian diving response, which consists of a series of adaptive reflexes after submersion. The physiologic purpose of the diving reflex is believed to be oxygen conservation, a quality evident in diving mammals, in which the response is most pronounced. The diving reflex encompasses bradycardia (cardiac parasympathetic control), expiratory apnea (respiratory control center), peripheral vasoconstriction (vasomotor control center), adrenal catecholamine release, and vascular splenic contraction.[3]

And the reference to the journal article it came from:
Farstad, David J.; Dunn, Julie A. (September 2019). "Cold Water Immersion Syndrome and Whitewater Recreation Fatalities". Wilderness & Environmental Medicine. 30 (3): 321–327. doi:10.1016/j.wem.2019.03.005. ISSN 1545-1534. PMID 31178366.

"Expiratory apnea" means you can't breathe out. Seems like it was a cold shock response. I'm surprised it occurred while wearing all that neoprene, but apparently it was just from the cold water hitting your face.

 

[Angelo Farina]

It looks like as a typical example of Mammalian reflex. Nothing pathologic.
One of my colleagues at the University suffers of this reflex in a strong way. Even in warm water, if he looses the mask, he cannot breath anymore.
The neural receptors are around the nostrils.
If this happens again, try pinching the nose with your fingers and scratching the skin around it. Over-stimulating the neural receptors usually solves the reflex. This is the trick I suggested to my colleague, and it did work for him!

 

[Monkeey911]

Scary! Glad you're OK. I definitely get very anxious on the boat as we approach our spot, I do some calming self talk and breathing exercises to get any "weird thoughts" out of my head!

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

This may sound like a strange question.....but did you both inhale and exhale off of your regulator several times right before striding into the drink? On my APEKS ATX200.....2nd stage, if it has been sitting clean and dry for awhile, it sometimes takes a bit of an extra "push" on my first exhale to release the purge diaphragm..

 

[rfwoodvt]

This may sound like a strange question.....but did you both inhale and exhale off of your regulator several times right before striding into the drink? On my APEKS ATX200.....2nd stage, if it has been sitting clean and dry for awhile, it sometimes takes a bit of an extra "push" on my first exhale to release the purge diaphragm..

Great question but it wasn't a regulator issue.

It was a physiological issue, my body was simply holding its breath, no problem inhaling and I could force the exhale but my body was forcing a chest inhalation (as opposed to diaphragm)

Ran into a similar problem doing a routine stress test recently and linked it to a physio manifestation of a mild panic attack.