Diving with Robax?

[Alexvizzio]

Hello everyone! My name is Alex and I´m a diving Instructor in Puerto Aventuras, a really nice diving site one hour south from Cancún, right in the heart of the Mayan World.
The reason I´m posting is because I have a question about muscle relaxants and our job. Currently, I´m suffering from an inflammated shoulder, or Bursitis, and I´m taking a muscle relaxant called Robax gold, which is 500mg Methocarbamol and 200mg Ibuprofen.
Since I live off this beautiful sport, I´m wondering if there´s any contraindication for this medicine. I´m risponsable for people underwater and I woulnd´t like to expose anyone to an unsafe situation.
I hope I can find some light here in this forum and, that my question helps other divers with the same temporal condition.

Thanks and Happy New Year!

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

Hi Alex,
Not a dorky question at all. The first question is whether diving and the associated heavy lifting are aggravating the bursitis. If so, you may be better off taking a break and allowing yourself to heal if you have that option. Also, repeated trauma to that shoulder joint will theoretically put you at a higher risk for DCS there.

Regarding the methocarbamol: are you having any ill effects from the drug? Some of the side effects are dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, and somnolence (sleepiness), all of which could cause you problems in diving and either mask or be mistaken for the symptoms of diving-related illnesses like DCS and CO2 toxicity. If you are having noticeable side effects, it may be best to either avoid diving or talk to your physician about the possibility of changing your medication to something like plain ibuprofen or another non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
DDM

 

[Alexvizzio]

Amazing and very helpful answer. Fortunately, I´m not doing any lifting since the crew even hoist my gear out of the water for me and I don´t carry any tanks either (only while cavern diving but that´s, of course, out of the question by now.
Also, I´m not featuring any of the ill effects from the drug. I try to take the right dose and my dives I can tell are shallow (60 feet for 40, 45 minutes the deepest for example) and limiting to two dives a day, usually 40 feet for no more than 45 minutes.
I´ll be careful anyway in case I present noticeable side effects. The answer is very helpful and I´m glad I don´t have to lift tanks nor impact to my shoulder.
Thank you very much for your feedback and help!

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

Alex,
No problem. Thank YOU for being so conscientious about your job! It sounds like you're doing all the right things. Hopefully you'll recover quickly.
Best regards,
DDM