Lung Expansion Injuries
DAN Medics answer your questions about dive medicine.
Alert Diver Category: From the Medical Line
Identifying Skin Bends
DAN Medics answer your questions about dive medicine.
Diving with an Infectious Disease
DAN medics answer your questions about dive medicine.
Decompression Obligations
DAN Medics answer your medical questions.
COPD: Incompatible With Diving
Reduced exercise tolerance is common for those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and poses risks for diving. There can be strenuous activity involved with managing currents, swimming on the surface in choppy seas or pulling yourself and your heavy gear up a ladder and onto an unsteady boat. With COPD, shortness of breath during exertion doesn’t mean you are out of shape; it means you cannot rid your body of carbon dioxide and replace it with the oxygen needed to meet the demand of your exertion.
PFO Concerns in Dive Injury Treatment
If the diver is symptomatic and you are rendering care, then you need to treat the symptoms. Give them the highest concentration of oxygen available, and get them to definitive health care and treatment. Remember that many conditions show symptoms that may mimic DCS. Just because someone was diving does not mean they have a dive-related illness. When creating your emergency action plan, note the location of the nearest emergency room or where and how to access local emergency services.
Laryngospasm and Anxiety
Q: During dive training in the pool, I couldn’t breathe after clearing my mask with my regulator in my mouth. After surfacing, I took six to eight wheezing breaths and then […]
Diving After Brain Surgery
I RECENTLY UNDERWENT BRAIN SURGERY. The surgery was successful, but now part of my skull has been replaced with mesh. My neurosurgeon is brilliant but does not know how the […]
Who to Call First: DAN or EMS?
DAN medical information specialists and researchers answer your questions about dive medicine.
Diving After DCS
DAN medical information specialists and researchers answer your dive medicine questions.