Diving after Angio/stent placement

[giparkjm]

Recovering from angioplasty/Stent placement (coated) with no heart damage. Have read many posts and see that the recommendation is probably to wait 6 months before diving again. Even 30-40 feet?? Anything magic about 6 months?

 

[Dr. Doug Ebersole]

The recommendation for waiting six months is to make sure there is no restenosis (renarrowing of the angioplasty segment). If there is no restenosis by six months, that area is unlikely to renarrow in the future. However, whatever about you caused that area to narrow in the first place makes it likely to develop new areas of problems in the future. Hence the need for control of diet, cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, stopping smoking, etc. -- all of the things we recommend to patients all of the time.

Additionally, it is recommended that to return to diving you should have normal heart muscle function and be able to attain 13 mets on a treadmill (12 minutes on a standard Bruce protocol). Your cardiologist will know what this means.

 

[DocVikingo]

Hi giparkjm,

Prior threads on stents appearing on the Diving Medicine forum
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/search.php?searchid=6230590

Regards,

DocVikingo