out of breath underwater

[Sgt Nitrox]

Ok todays dive didnt go any better. What should I tell a non diving Doctor to look for. Oh todays events..... I noticed a change at 32 ft and called the dive at 63. It would seem the deeper I go the harder to breath. I know ...DUH. I swapped regs with my buddy and it didnt make a differance. While we putting away the gear my buddy and I started talking about when this all came about and we traced it back to our last sucessful dive or the very first time I said anything about the problem. Early Nov. paradise springs. 95 ft max :59 min bottom time. Thru out this whole ordeal I have not felt any pain only shortness of breath. What exactly is angina pectoris? Is this something serious or will I only have this if I keep diving? If I didnt have it before I have it now(anxiety ). I dont want to give up diving. Is all of this treatable? My concern now is finding a doc who wuold be able to one or the other. Doc Sandy If you could give me some insight on all of this it would help ease my mind. Thanks,
SGT Nitrox.

 

[Doc_Sandy]

Sgt Nitrox once bubbled...
Ok todays dive didnt go any better. What should I tell a non diving Doctor to look for. Oh todays events..... I noticed a change at 32 ft and called the dive at 63. It would seem the deeper I go the harder to breath. I know ...DUH. I swapped regs with my buddy and it didnt make a differance. While we putting away the gear my buddy and I started talking about when this all came about and we traced it back to our last sucessful dive or the very first time I said anything about the problem. Early Nov. paradise springs. 95 ft max :59 min bottom time. Thru out this whole ordeal I have not felt any pain only shortness of breath. What exactly is angina pectoris? Is this something serious or will I only have this if I keep diving? If I didnt have it before I have it now(anxiety ). I dont want to give up diving. Is all of this treatable? My concern now is finding a doc who wuold be able to one or the other. Doc Sandy If you could give me some insight on all of this it would help ease my mind. Thanks,
SGT Nitrox.

Sarge:

Just tell the doctor your symptoms - he/she will know what to look for. Tell him/her exactly what you have been telling us and the doc will do the rest.

At the very least, you should expect a thorough history taking (the doc asking lots of questions) and a thorough physical exam, followed by at least some basic investigations, including some bood tests, likely a chest X Ray, an electrocardiogram and maybe some cmputerized lung function studies (each of these just takes a few minutes, and can likely be organized in fairly short order). I can only guess at the rest, not having taken a history and done an exam on you myself. Probably not a good idea to ask the doc or worse to tell the doc what to look for (just as you may resent a person less experienced than yourself telling you how to dive) but questions, diplomatically phrased may be useful. Eg. " Doc, I have read about angina - do you think I might have that?"

I have attached an article on angina for your reference. Don't forget that angina is only one thing in a long list that needs to be included in a list of possibilities. We docs start out casting a wide net (the history helps to decide how wide and where to throw it) and then we start narrowing down the possibilities based on the answers and the physical exam. The tests should be tailored to the provisional diagnoses the doc has formulated in his/her mind by the end of the visit.

Yes - angina is serious, but it is treatable. It is a serious warnign sign of lack of O2 to the heart muscle.

But let us not spend all our time speculating - we are putting the cart before the horse. Get thee to an MD pronto and PLEASE let us know how things go.

Best Regards,

Sandy

 

[Sgt Nitrox]

Thanks for the reply Doc. I will call the Doc tomorrow and see if I can get an appt sometime in the near future. I am curious why I dont have any problems when I am not diving. Maybe it is anxiety. Well see.
Dive safe,
SGT.

 

[Doc_Sandy]

Well I hope things go well for you.

Anxiety disorders are wonderful mimics. They can masquerade as many many illnesses, and even though I am constantly on the watch for it, I still miss it form time to time,

I have attached for your reference, an article on anxiety.

Have a great New Year, Sgt!

 

[Garfish]

Been reading above threads and want to wish you the best.
Hope the doc gives you a good medical report.
Anyway, safe diving to ya.....

 

[Sgt Nitrox]

Interesting article Doc Sandy. The more I read and thought about it the more I think you hit the nail on the head. I took my cavern class in Oct. I was a great class. Up until that point I was really comfortable in the water. At one point in the class we had to take off our mask,while sharing air with my buddy on the long hose(he was on my hose) anyway we had to follow a guide line thru a fallen tree and in between some rocks. I was paried up with a far less skillful diver whom I was not comfortable with in the first place. During this excersise my buddy had pined me against himself and a rock and was taking us sometime to get moving again. Anyway I was really uncomfortable at this time and opened my eyes to see what was going on. BIG MISTAKE. All I could see was the yellow pollen suspened in the water and I could not make out any objects. That freaked me. At that point I thought about bolting to the surface and probably would have had the other diver not been on my long hose. I thought that if I had bolted I would have left him in a bad situation and both of us could have been seriously injured. I tiik a huge deep breath and regained my mental mind set and finished the excersie. Te next excersise was using the reel(running a guide line) at the furtherest(sp?) point out instructor gave me the out of air sign. I dipped my head and passed off my primary reg on mt long hose as per instruction, and slipped in my backup on my necklace. I felt pretty good and thought I had passed the test. At that point my instructor shook his, waved his finger back and forth and indicated I was out of air then he grabbed my secondary. Now I really was out of air. This again caught me off guard. I signed to my buddy who is my fulltime dive buddy and he came to my aid and passed me his long hose and we exited with no problems hence we passed the test. I dove the next day and passed the class with flying colors but I was not my old self during the day. I was in fear that I had no idea what the instructor was going to throw at me next.
I am guessing that the cavern class had made me realize that I am not imortal underwater. I have had a few dreams or stayed awake at night thinking about what can go wrong in the overhead enviroment thus not making it out of a cave and sucking water. I am guessing I have developed a fear of drowning. I had suspected that this cavern class had tainted me so I went back to some of the places I was famialiar with and had dove countless times and felt really comfortable in. ie the last 3 dives I have done. Which made me think that I had an equipment problem. I had hoped that diving the living seas would give me a stress free dive and help my mental state and return me back to my old self. As luck would have it we had to use the equioment provided and I was given a faulty reg every once in a while I sucked water instead ofair.
So now that I think and I believe you will agree we have found my problem. What do I do now? Is this something that Iam going to have to mentally overcome? I have thought about getting back in the pool and then doing some simple warm up open water dives to get more relaxed again. Any advice on what I should do now?
Thanks again,
SGT

 

[Doc_Sandy]

So now that I think and I believe you will agree we have found my problem. What do I do now? Is this something that Iam going to have to mentally overcome? I have thought about getting back in the pool and then doing some simple warm up open water dives to get more relaxed again. Any advice on what I should do now?

Sarge:

Same answer as before for starters. It may well be anxiety you are experiencing, but in my office unless I am REALLY, REALLY, ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE that the problem is only anxiety (not "anxiety only"!), I will still do tests to positively rule out other things. When dealing with someone suffering from anxiety, it also helps sometimes to reassure the person that they are NOT suffering from some other disorder.

Then, once confident that anxiety is the cause of the symptoms the patient and I would need to have a talk about management. Since medications **might not** be the way to go in a diver, one might decide to employ certain counselling techniques to restore your confidence or de-sensitize you or whatever.

There are several excellent techniques that psychologists or MDs trained in this area can employ.

So anyway, for now the answer is the same. Broach the topic of anxiety with the doc and tell the doc exactly what you put in your last post about the bad diving experience(s).

You will do fine, Sarge.

TTYL

Sandy

 

[PnL]

I've had similar experiences during my OW certifications and had similar symptoms. I was find during all the pool sessions, but on our first OW dive at a local lake my anxiety level rose considerably - to the point where I wanted to abort. But I knew this was all mental and so we descended to about 20' do complete our skills. As my first OW experience in a lake with poor vis - I felt claustrophobic and anxious. I noticed that my breathing became quicker and I was taking deeper breaths as I felt I wasn't getting enough O2. I got myself to calm down and things got a lot better. On our other OW certification dives in the ocean, I had similar feelings, although they passed very quickly.

I have a fear of the 'abyss' and it still terrifies me. I know its not a rational (or concrete) fear as you can always surface and signal for recovery ... but its still something that makes me nervous until I get in the water. Its one of those mental blocks that I need to get over - and I'm sure I will eventually. I love being underwater and all my fears/anxiety is released once I descend so I think I'm on my way to getting over it.

As far as your symptoms, I would feel much better if you got checked out by a physician just to be sure - it can't hurt any and if anything, it will give you confidence that you are physically okay and that its a mental barrier that you need to overcome.

MHO
Paul

 

[Sgt Nitrox]

Hey thanks for the post ScubaKims, there is some comfort in knowing that some one else has felt the same way. I am looking up the Docs number right now, just to be sure there is nothing medicallly wrong. I guess I can go from there. Thanks again Doc Sandy.
SGT

 

[pescador775]

As a newbie diving instructor I started seeing some behavior that was either anxiety (swimming in circles) or obvious medical (shortness of breath). However, all was not what I thought. The asthma was easy to spot, especially when the student had a history. However, there was that one woman who would surface in the pool in distress with shortness of breath. She would continue to gasp for a minute or two at poolside. There was no problem with her equipment. I sent her back to another doctor for a second opinion. The results were negative for organic illness. I concluded apparent case of anxiety. With additional supervision, she went on to complete the course and eventually became a proficient diver.