Doppler Bubble Monitor -Do you own/use one?

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Curious to know what came out of this experiment... have you found it useful? Do you still routinely use it, and base some of your decisions on the output?
 
Curious to know what came out of this experiment... have you found it useful? Do you still routinely use it, and base some of your decisions on the output?

Yes, I routinely use it. I really like the device. I can easily tell the difference between being on my carotid or my jugular. That took some practice.

I keep my dive profiles so damn conservative in the winter (solo) that I can't detect anything. Strenuous exercise, yes, I get the occasional click.

More to come this summer with more aggressive profiles...

Dennis
 
lowviz,
I came across this form while doing a search on doppler monitors. I'm curious if you ave done more tests with aggressive profiles. I did a hyperbaric chamer dive last year to 165fsw. There were nine of us and we did three deco stops at 30, 20, and 10ft. During the 10ft deco we all breathed 100% oxygen. A doppler monitor was used afterwards and two of us had formed minor bubbles. I had my dive computer during the dive and noticed that a little over halfway thru the 20ft stop my computer cleared and said it's safe to surface. I didn't form bubbles during that chamber dive but what intrigues me is if it were a real dive. If I followed my computer surfacing after the 20ft stop without the 10ft on oxygen. Would I have formed bubbles? I know the hyperbaric chamber uses very conservative dive tables. It's interesting that two of us formed bubbles.
So I've been interested in purchasing a dopper monitor and was wondering how yours is working out. Thanks.
 
Yes, I've played a bit with it quite a bit. I'll offer two general observations. First, it works. I used the Sonotrac with an 8MHz probe for $99. Second, I've come to find that I don't really need it as the PDC on my wrist works just fine for me. It was fun getting to that realization, though.

If I had a PFO or some other undiagnosed issue that pulled me out of the bell curve, the bubble monitor might have been valuable in alerting me that something is wrong.

Scoring is not straightforward. Audio clip from Doppler

All that being said, I don't regret the effort and it still seems to me that a bubble monitor would be an awesome BME senior project.
 

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