Does nitrox make you feel good?

[Wayward Son]

pirate, do you not have to pay for the O2 to blend with?

 

[ffestpirate]

pirate, do you not have to pay for the O2 to blend with?

No, I don't. Benefit of helping with classes and around the shop.

 

[SKTIDH]

I got Nitrox certified during my AOW about a year ago. I dove a lot after my OW cert. I used to feel really tired and sometimes nausea would set in after my dives. After I got Nitrox certified I wasn't tired anymore after my dives and I didn't feel sick after my dives... you might want to check into it. I mean it helps lower your nitrogen level anyways so it wouldn't hurt you to get that certification

 

[Charlie59]

The result from this simple scubaboard survey suggests that the result of this well designed double blinded study need to be seriously questioned.
QUOTE]

What the heck does a random survey of people not blinded to nitrox tell you?

The same thing a survey of herbal eating, vitamin chewin diluded goofballs tells you, not much.

Again, see my thread that convinces everyone that the sun rises in the West and that Hawaii is a great place for budget vacations.

 

[fisherdvm]

What the heck does a random survey of people not blinded to nitrox tell you?

The same thing a survey of herbal eating, vitamin chewin diluded goofballs tells you, not much.

QUOTE]


I beg to differ, random surveys are done every day.... Do you like Bush or Clinton? What's your favorite food? Do you trust chiropractors?

If you did a survey of how many of our readers believing in holistic medicine, chiropractic medicine, ecchinasia, vitamin C, voodoo medicine, etc... It would be a very small fraction.

However, here, you are staring in the face of a nearly 60 % believing in the nitrox over 40 % who don't survey result, you are blasting it off as worthing not very much??

I could start a survery - Do you prefer sex with Sadam Hussein vs. Pamela Aderson among our male readership, and I can guarantee you a 99 to 1 ratio preferring Pamela Anderson... Will you blow it off as "unacceptable", because we did not have the men wearing blind folds, having sex with each subjects fully cloaked??

Oh, come on, where are the statisticians when we needed them most.....

 

[Charlie59]

"I beg to differ, random surveys are done every day"

And published with a qualifier stating that it is random and NOT scientific, these surveys are for entertainment and not objective.

Your question on sex (anderson vs sadam) might have a different outcome in Playboy versus "The gay Iraqi necrophiliac.com", and neither would tell you much.

 

[Charlie59]

Asking "do you think vitamin c makes you feel better" and conducting a study to objectively answer the question are not equal in their information. Or maybe leeches do cure scurvy.

 

[fisherdvm]

I am not necessary going to buy the argument that nitrox will make you less tired.. However, we often take lightly the effect of anxiety on the individual's physical performance.

My second theory is, a significant number of divers have an intrinsic fear of DCS. Afterall, the most dreadful part of OWC course is the wicked dive tables.

Therefore, we go diving with anxiety. However, when we dive with nitrox, that anxiety is lessened.

Less anxiety, less stress, less muscle tension, lower blood pressure --- perhaps that is the physiologic basis why diving with nitrox make us feel less tired.



Lets face it - we always want to lower our anxiety - that's why we have disability insurance, catastrophic medical insurance, malpractice insurance, boat insurance, car insurance, etc....

We even bank our sperm in case we suffer from testicular cancer in the future!!

Why can't our divers honestly admit that nitrox makes them feel less tired, and not be blown off as goofball suckers??

You double blind the tanks, we no longer have that reassuring "you now lowered your DCS risk" tag on our tank...



Lets not ignore the psychology of risk management.

 

[JTJ]

When I took the Nitrox class I had less then 10 dives and it did seem to make a difference in how I felt after a day of diving. The rest of my dives have been on air and I have not been as tired as I was when I first started diving. I do not know if my body has adjusted to the diving or is it that I can control my bouyancy better and have made better ascents.

 

[bperrybap]

Oh come on. You walked away from the study thinking they were biased? The design was very good and tested thoroughly for anything that could OBJECTIVELY define a difference between the two. First people complain that the study couldn't be done due to lack of "average dive" then they gripe that this controlled environment is not "real world", give me a break.

The most reasonable criticism is the low number of subjects, otherwise the study is pretty good.

The fantasy of nitrox and feeling good is goofy. As others have stated the advantage to nitrox is extended bottom time, especially when doing multiple dives on multiple days. Otherwise you guys do it to look cool, I guess.

I didn't mean to state that I thought the test was biased.
I don't think it was. What I was trying to say was that
the testing parameters were so limiting (single dive,
near perfect dive profile) that it wasn't really stretching very
far to conclusively prove if there is or isn't a benefit under
certain circumstances.

I think it was a very valid scientific study. Yes it was a good
experiment and was designed to be very repeatible which is a requirement
for a true scientific study.

I think the experiment does show that for a single
dive done with good dive practices (slow ascents etc...) that
there is no measurable value in using nitrox and while people may
report "feeling better" there is no scientific evidence to support such
feelings.

My issue was that it didn't test for repetitive dives in a day,
which is where most folks have said they feel a difference.
So this study, while it was a good test methology, doesn't answer
the question one way or the other about whether the use of
Nitrox on repetitive dives makes people feel better.
Use of Nitrox on repetitive dives was outside the scope of this
study.
Also, outside the scope of this study was non perfect dive
profiles or some amount of repeatible randomness or even seasawing.

So while we have a scientific study that concludes
that Nitrox doesn't have a measurable benefit over air, the
tests used are not testing the primary instances that people are
saying they feel a benefit.

I don't know about the other folks that say they feel better
after diving nitrox, but for me, I completely agree with
the findings of the the study: I don't
feel better after doing a single dive with Nitrox vs doing a single
dive with air.
But for 4,5, or 6 dives in a day, I do feel less tired after nitrox.

--- bill