Does nitrox make you feel good?

[String]

We are not only talking about blood saturation we are talking about tissue saturation.
Muscles basicly feed on o2 rich blood and return co2 as a byproduct therefore if higher levels of o2 are availiable in the blood then the muscles will have a better supply to feed off of.
If higher levels of o2 are just breathed out.:huh:
Then why would 100% o2 be the recomended treatment for almost any traumatic injury.
Seems like it would have no different effect 21% or 100%
But it does have a different effect.
Also partial pressure would have no effect on a diver if they could not absorb more o2 than the standard 21% provides.
I believe there is a major flaw in your theory.

Just my 2 cents
Milo

You're getting fraction of O2 and partial pressure of O2 confused.

And yes partial pressure would and does have an affect on a diver. Ox tox isnt a factor of amount of absorbed O2 - its a factor of increased reaction rates caused by an increase of partial pressure of the gas there. Pretty much the same theory as any chemical reaction under pressure.

Once Haemoglobin is saturated for a given pressure thats it, it wont carry any more oxygen.

"Muscles basicly feed on o2 rich blood and return co2 as a byproduct therefore if higher levels of o2 are availiable in the blood then the muscles will have a better supply to feed off of."

is fairly meaningless because in healthy tissue and a normal person the muscle already has all the supply itneeds.

You dont make someone bigger/faster/stronger by shoving them on O2 so the muscles work better for example.

100% O2 for injury treatment is a different idea again, that is specifically damaged tissue that has issues with oxygenation and circulation so isnt applicable to a normal diver. 100% and high pressure helps oxygen starved tissues to utilise what little they get thereby preventing their death/speeding up healing.

 

[Charlie59]

Some old guy told me nitrox was better than Viagra for divers. Not as tired or more oxygen to the engine, who knows. There is even an old string about nitrox and libido.

 

[WVDiver]

I really don't want to p*** anyone off here. Everyone is welcome to their opinion, more power to you, but I have to ask. This is not directed at any one person or persons on this thread or this board.

Everybody talks about how "less tired they feel". What's up with that? I don't feel any more tired after diving than any other activity, nitrox or not. It's not just here either, I hear this comment all the time, I have for years. People make it sound as though it is some big drain to do a little diving. Like it is harder to do a day of diving than it is to run, ski, or hike. Where does that come from? Maybe we should strap a nitrox tank to our mountain bikes and we'll feel better after riding.

Usually when I here someone say "I feel less tired when I use nitrox" I ask them in what way or how's that or how bad do you feel after an air dive. No one ever has a good concrete answer that one can positively identify with.

If people feel that tired that they think a little extra 02 is going to make such a big difference, maybe they need to go to the gym instead of using nitrox. Maybe they will feel better for real instead of having some prior notion that nitrox has some kind of magic gas in it.

Maybe it's just me. Thanks for letting me vent a little. I'm not mad or upset about it, I just don't get it ................ at all.

 

[fisherdvm]

How can ANYONE quantify scientifically "how well you FEEL?"

Oh, oh... Sex feels good to me... Maybe it is a placebo effect??

 

[fisherdvm]

Here's the double blinded study I requested, however, I still disagree that feeling good can not be quantitated. Many studies in medicine - ie.- PASI score of psoriasis sufferer, response of actinic keratosis to treatment, etc. relied on subjective assessment - and not on objective means.

I do fault this study cause it is too small, and they did not identify the sex nor the age of the individual.

Undersea Hyperb Med. 2003 Winter;30(4):285-91. Links
Measurement of fatigue following 18 msw dry chamber dives breathing air or enriched air nitrox.Harris RJ, Doolette DJ, Wilkinson DC, Williams DJ.
Hyperbaric Medicine Unit, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia 5000.

Many divers report less fatigue following diving breathing oxygen rich N2-O2 mixtures compared with breathing air. In this double blinded, randomized controlled study 11 divers breathed either air or Enriched Air Nitrox 36% (oxygen 36%, nitrogen 64%) during an 18 msw (281 kPa(a)) dry chamber dive for a bottom time of 40 minutes. Two periods of exercise were performed during the dive. Divers were assessed before and after each dive using the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory-20, a visual analogue scale, Digit Span Tests, Stroop Tests, and Divers Health Survey (DHS). Diving to 18m produced no measurable difference in fatigue, attention levels, ability to concentrate or DHS scores, following dives using either breathing gas.

 

[TSandM]

I used to get VERY tired after two or three dives. I switched to Nitrox about six months ago, and now I'm with you -- I'm no more tired after diving than after anything else I do.

On the other hand, I had a night dive where we did a whole bunch of ascent drills (probably too many) and I almost fell asleep at the wheel driving home. The fatigue was really striking.

I'm in the camp that post-dive fatigue is subclinical DCS, myself.

 

[fisherdvm]

Here's one study that suggests you should not dive with nitrox before your calculus final exam, this one suggests decreased mathemathical skill. But apparently it helps with your grammatical skill, so nitrox would be recommended before that Spanish grammar exam.

Appl Human Sci. 1999 Sep;18(5):175-9. Links
Ambient air, oxygen and nitrox effects on cognitive performance at altitude.Leach J, Almond S.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Lancaster. j.leach@lancaster.ac.uk

The effects on cognitive performance of breathing air, oxygen and nitrox gas mixtures at surface ambient pressures were investigated during an expedition to the Everest region of Nepal. A slight improvement in grammatical reasoning at altitude was found under nitrox (p < 0.05) and mathematical reasoning showed improvement at altitude on air (p < 0.05), oxygen (p < 0.01) and nitrox (p < 0.01). There were non-significant trends towards decreasing mathematical ability, coupled with an increase in variance on both grammatical and mathematical test performance, with increasing pO2 (all p > 0.05). The results suggest that there is a subtle interaction on cognition as indicated by a significant three-way interaction between subject x altitude x gas (p < 0.05).

 

[Charlie59]

I really don't want to p*** anyone off here.

Does anyone start a post like that unless they want to start something? Now I am miffed!

 

[HowardE]

Oh, oh... Sex feels good to me... Maybe it is a placebo effect??

How good does it make you feel? Can it be measured?

I spend 1/2 of my time in a town at 9,600 ft above sea level. People come up here and go to "Oxygen bars" :shakehead if they are feeling "the effects of altitude"

People believe that breathing pure O2 makes them FEEL better. O2 bars even go as far as to call it a "hangover cure"

You might FEEL better while breathing pure O2, but the effects are short lived, and I can't imagine how one would measure that effect quantitatively.

How can Nitrox be different?

If you THINK that it makes you FEEL better, then it does

 

[Charlie59]

How good does it make you feel? Can it be measured?

Did you just ask that?