Difficulty breathing after helium dives

[DrMike]

An OC buddy of mine has an interesting reaction after deep helium dives in that he always finds it hard to breathe after the dive for a while. He doesnt have pain - just feels a little like he cannt get enough oxygen.

Anyone have experince with this. Could it be the extended time on O2 decoing thats causing it? Lack of humidity in the O2?

He doesnt seem to get it after air dives.

He thinks he may be alergic to Helium :cheeky: but its more like he too tight to pay for it :cheeky:

He is a smoker.

 

[db8us]

Hi DrMike,

i would rather lower the pO2.
We have noticed that some just react more to higher pO2 than others.
For Bottom-time i would lower the pO2 below 1,0.
The deep-Stop gas-switches should be done on 1,4 instead 1,6 until the 70ft(21m) stop. Frome 21m onwards he should also do gas-breaked on appropriate Trimixes.
This "might" help...

I really doubt that it´s the Helium. We felt soooo much better after our last dive
http://www.ekpp.de/projects/doux03/push.html
since we put more Helium in and lowered the pO2.

Michael

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

Dr. Mike,

I'm neither a medical practicioner, nor do I play one on TV, but I can give you some personal experience and you can judge how this applies to this case.

I too was a smoker, for almost 20 years, but quit it shortly after taking up scuba. I quit somewhat gradually over the first several weeks and had help from Wellbutrin for the first few weeks. Not right at first, but several weeks after, I developed a mysterious soreness in my sternum, a non-productive cough, and it seemed like I was constantly struggling to have deep complete breaths - with no smoking! I went to our family doctor who was also a diver, and he couldn't find any cause for the symptoms. In another couple of weeks, the symptoms went away.

Right about when the symptoms went away, my wife and I started our ANDI Nitrox training (CSU-2). When we get to page 38 of the manual, the symptoms of whole body O2 toxicity show up - and we both have light bulbs come on in our heads. The best explanation we were able to come up with was my body, so accustomed to lower O2 levels due to long years of smoking, was suffering the symptoms of whole body O2 toxicity now that I had become smoke free. I've never had these symptoms recur, and I've never taken smoking back up again.

Anyway, not sure if any of this applies to what you're looking at, and I've never dived with helium mixtures (we just finished our checkout dives for ANDI TSD-3 over Thanksgiving on Grand Cayman - as shore dives!). But extended time on higher O2 %'s and ppO2's may have a link here.

 

[SDAnderson]

The symptoms of pulmonary ox tox definitely include more difficult breathing and decreased tidal volume. Decreasing the time between oxygen breaks and reducing the ppO2 may help prevent or alleviate the problem.

 

[padiscubapro]

Dr. Mike,

I'm neither a medical practicioner, nor do I play one on TV, but I can give you some personal experience and you can judge how this applies to this case.

I too was a smoker, for almost 20 years, but quit it shortly after taking up scuba. I quit somewhat gradually over the first several weeks and had help from Wellbutrin for the first few weeks. Not right at first, but several weeks after, I developed a mysterious soreness in my sternum, a non-productive cough, and it seemed like I was constantly struggling to have deep complete breaths - with no smoking! I went to our family doctor who was also a diver, and he couldn't find any cause for the symptoms. In another couple of weeks, the symptoms went away.

Right about when the symptoms went away, my wife and I started our ANDI Nitrox training (CSU-2). When we get to page 38 of the manual, the symptoms of whole body O2 toxicity show up - and we both have light bulbs come on in our heads. The best explanation we were able to come up with was my body, so accustomed to lower O2 levels due to long years of smoking, was suffering the symptoms of whole body O2 toxicity now that I had become smoke free. I've never had these symptoms recur, and I've never taken smoking back up again.

Anyway, not sure if any of this applies to what you're looking at, and I've never dived with helium mixtures (we just finished our checkout dives for ANDI TSD-3 over Thanksgiving on Grand Cayman - as shore dives!). But extended time on higher O2 %'s and ppO2's may have a link here.

Where did you stay?? I usually use sunsethouse to run my classes... The wall there is quite easy to find your way back in and the area allows some nice deco stops.. This is especially nice when you are doing 100m dives and the run time gets quite long.....

BTW who did you do your training with??


Joe

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

We stayed at Cobalt Coast, and our ANDI instructor from the USA (Kelvin Questel of Divers Axis) joined us for what fortunately turned out to be the only 2 days shore diving was open at Turtle Reef for our TSD-3 training. The waves were crashing over the pier at Cobalt Coast, and the staff at Turtle Reef had pulled the ladder up to keep it from being damaged the rest of the week! Cobalt Coast could have billed the place as a surf resort if anyone was hombre enough to surf to an ironshore beach! Then, the next day after doing our tech cert dives, when we weren't going to be diving before flying, the surf really came up again. So, we took pictures of the Turtle Reef entry point with the waves & spray landing on the gazebo there and showed everyone back home "This is where we entered the water for our tech cert shore dives . . .". THEN we tell the rest of the story. The only named storm to form in the Caribbean in November in recorded history occured during our vacation last year!

We spent a week at Little Cayman before going to Grand Cayman last November, so we'd had some very nice recreational dives too. We stayed at The Breadfruit House on Grand Cayman in July 2000 after obtaining our CSU-2 certs and really enjoyed the shore dives at Turtle Reef then also.

I see a number of folks have given advice - but the best advice for the person suffering the symptoms is to quit smoking first.

 

[padiscubapro]

We stayed at Cobalt Coast, and our ANDI instructor from the USA (Kelvin Questel of Divers Axis) joined us for what fortunately turned out to be the only 2 days shore diving was open at Turtle Reef for our TSD-3 training. The waves were crashing over the pier at Cobalt Coast, and the staff at Turtle Reef had pulled the ladder up to keep it from being damaged the rest of the week! Cobalt Coast could have billed the place as a surf resort if anyone was hombre enough to surf to an ironshore beach! Then, the next day after doing our tech cert dives, when we weren't going to be diving before flying, the surf really came up again. So, we took pictures of the Turtle Reef entry point with the waves & spray landing on the gazebo there and showed everyone back home "This is where we entered the water for our tech cert shore dives . . .". THEN we tell the rest of the story. The only named storm to form in the Caribbean in November in recorded history occured during our vacation last year!

We spent a week at Little Cayman before going to Grand Cayman last November, so we'd had some very nice recreational dives too. We stayed at The Breadfruit House on Grand Cayman in July 2000 after obtaining our CSU-2 certs and really enjoyed the shore dives at Turtle Reef then also.

I see a number of folks have given advice - but the best advice for the person suffering the symptoms is to quit smoking first.

November definately isn't the best time to try and dive off cobalt coast or turtle reef... I was there in Nov 2001? right after the island was wrecked (I stayed at CC, and dove with boith DiveTek and SunsetDivers)... MyBar at sunset house was gone, the railings around the pool were history, there was several feet of sand in the pool, and furnature was being found all along the reef..

I do like the hotel and ARIE is the best...

I hear some good things about Kelvin... I know he runs alot of his training in lake Erie...

When training classes are planned I choose sunsethouse because its a very rare day when the "pool" is closed...

 

[DrMike]

Joe,

Does Kelvin ever have difficulty breathing after deep helium dives?


....just wondering. :cheeky:



(what this forum needs is an icon for sarcasm)

 

[Saturation]

An OC buddy of mine has an interesting reaction after deep helium dives in that he always finds it hard to breathe after the dive for a while. He doesnt have pain - just feels a little like he cannt get enough oxygen.

Anyone have experince with this. Could it be the extended time on O2 decoing thats causing it? Lack of humidity in the O2?

He doesnt seem to get it after air dives.

He thinks he may be alergic to Helium :cheeky: but its more like he too tight to pay for it :cheeky:

He is a smoker.

There are quite a number of possible issues, but most divers have no complaints diving He. Here are some possibilities.

Deco diving prolongs exposure to 02 and to depth. It has added hazards for those who are not healthy for such dives. In this case, its a question of the good function of heart and lungs.

I suggest he gets a doc check up to determine his general state of health particularly his lungs before assigning a problem to He.

Some possibilities:

If he smoked for many years, he may have a form of COPD. If he retains CO2 as diagnosed with a ABG and a PFT, hyperbaric 02 for prolonged periods can increase his C02 by decreasing his respiratory drive, making him dyspneic at some point in the dive and later on the surface, until he blows off all the excess C02.

He may have poor lung tissue and gas exchange that are aggravated by prolonged 02 exposures. Include a DLCO in the lung evaluation.

Shortness of breath is a form of the chokes due to excess bubbling from deco. The deco that works for you may not work for him if his V02max is much less than normal due to poor health.

He is healthy but his regulators are insufficient for deep dives, dives he would not otherwise do on nitrox or air, and this depth causes increased work of breathing.

If he indeed retains c02 compared to normal persons, he should give up decompression diving. Continued exposure to hyperbaric 02 and high in-water blood c02 will increase his risk for 02 toxicity, with fatal consequences ... not to mention a potential for c02 toxicity due to hypoventilation even if one purposefully lowers a bottom mix pp02.

 

[rameus]

besides the already mentioned possibilities it might well be that he's exhausted - that simple. that's how i felt after my tec/trimix dives and therefore i just got back to the boat, got rid of my gear and took 5-10 minutes to get back into a normal stadium of breathing. it also depends on the workload you have down there. if i had to fight heavy current obviously my tank was empty faster and when i got back to the boat i did have to focus on my breathing before taking care of anything else.

you can find my general thoughts about tec/trimix diving here.

thom