Zopiclone and Diving: Any Hard Science Available ?

[Roger Hobden]

According to some Dive Medicine Physicians, taking Zopiclone (a sleeping pill) the previous night would be either a relative or an absolute contra-indication to Professional Diving, and possibly Recreational Diving also.

One of the reasons given is the possibility that Zopiclone may have an effect on seizure threshold in the dive setting.

OTOH, I suspect that many divers around the world currently use Zopiclone intermittently, or on a regular basis.

My question is the following: is there any epidemiological data demonstrating that the use of Zopiclone increases the risk of injury or death in diving ?

Have any studies been done in hyperbaric chambers to explore this issue ?

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

According to some Dive Medicine Physicians, taking Zopiclone (a sleeping pill) the previous night would be either a relative or an absolute contra-indication to Professional Diving, and possibly Recreational Diving also.

One of the reasons given is the possibility that Zopiclone may have an effect on seizure threshold in the dive setting.

OTOH, I suspect that many divers around the world currently use Zopiclone intermittently, or on a regular basis.

My question is the following: is there any epidemiological data demonstrating that the use of Zopiclone increases the risk of injury or death in diving ?

Have any studies been done in hyperbaric chambers to explore this issue ?

Good morning @Roger Hobden ,

Not that I can find. Re commercial diving, the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) standards are purposefully general about medication and diving, just because there's so little research around it. Zopiclone in particular can affect mentation the next day and could be synergistic with nitrogen narcosis. Recreational standards tend to be more descriptive and less proscriptive, so to speak, so you'll probably find more docs who would be willing to work with a diver around taking this medication.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[Roger Hobden]

Thank you for your response.

I was wondering if there were any exiting studies, despite the usual search engines (PubMed, etc) not being able to locate any.

Presumably, the effects of the commonly used hypnotics on diving could be evaluated, at least to some extent, in hyperbaric chambers, if there was any motivation to do so.