Helen, Jims girl friend, has been diving in Australia following Jims demise at the hands of a street sweeper. She was consoled by the fact that Jim being asthmatic couldn't have come diving anyway. She had a great time.

On the way back she thought why can't Jim dive? Someone could add a valve to dive masks so that asthmatic drugs can be taken while under water.
-- madness, Jan 24 2003

Asthma & SCUBA http://www.scuba-doc.com/asthma.htm
Some background. The answer is not cut and dried. Good links at the bottom. [krelnik, Oct 21 2004]

You can't get away....... http://www.motionpi...rer.com/brent.6.gif
......from the street sweeper....... [normzone, Nov 25 2004]

At least put these in more appropriate categories, please.
-- snarfyguy, Jan 24 2003


hint: Jim can't dive because he's dead.
-- lurch, Jan 25 2003


*THIS ANNOTATION IS CONJECTURE AND DEFINATELY NOT QUALIFIED MEDICAL / SCUBA ADVICE*

It is very dangerous to scuba dive if you can't breathe. Failure to breathe out can cause lung embolisms and other nastys. Severe asthmatics are therefore banned/ crazy to dive. Mild asthmatics can dive only with medical approval.

An asthma attack could be helped by inhaled B2-agonists, eg. Ventolin (salbutamol), but underwater, you'd have many technical difficulties:

(1) Normal inhalers mix a metered dose of spray with ambient air (comes in the top of the inhaler), so you'd have to make sure there was an air source (equalised for pressure) venting into a mixing chamber

(2) Ambient pressure can be many atmospheres at depth. The more mildly pressurised container could actually be crushed by greater ambient pressure

(3) You'd have to make sure your inhaler has a way of adapting to the cold and pressure so as to give the exact same dose of drug no matter how deep or cold it is.

(4) If anything goes wrong, you could die - or worse.

An alternative halfbakery-style solution could be oral tablets, in a blister capsule, itself within a pressurised container (so the blister doesn't implode). If the diver felt a mild attack coming on, he/she could go for the tablet, crush it in the mouth for quick release and swallow. The problem is that the oral route is not quick acting and not recommended for relief of acute attacks. Maybe there's something that could work. Still, there's no guarantee.

A more practical solution is the taking of a long-acting B2-agonist like Serevent (salmeterol xinafoate) a few hours before the dive. I have no idea if this would work in all cases and there's always residual risk.

*SPEAK TO A QUALIFIED DOCTOR WITH KNOWLEDGE OF ASTHMA AND DIVING PHYSIOLOGY BEFORE YOU DIVE. DISCUSS AND OBTAIN APPROVAL FOR ANY MEDICAL PRECAUTIONS YOU PLAN TO TAKE.*
-- FloridaManatee, Jan 25 2003


Hmmm that seems like well qualified advice... Perhaps the underwater inhaler could be trialed on mice? Can asthmatic symptoms be induced in an otherwise normally health mouse?
-- madness, Nov 25 2004


No idea... I am pretty sure there is no legislation against someone with Asthma diving... I believe that some dive companies make more checks than others --remember if there is an incident the company could be liable for damages so they need to cover themselves.

At the end of the day there is nothing stopping someone buying dive equipement and attempting to touch the bottom of the ocean. It is just a matter of risk...

Jim being dead does not need to concern himself with such trivia...
-- madness, Nov 25 2004


I want to know more about Jim and his street sweeper incident. Was it a senseless killing ( a random drive-by ) or was he working undercover? [link]
-- normzone, Nov 25 2004


[Tabs] There you go... I fixed it.

[Normzone] As for the street sweeper... Jims death was the subject of a short story I posted in some movie category. It was a statement about our behaviour being mimicked by machines. Basically a punk kicks a robotic street sweeper that starts to "malfunction" and kill people...

Just a funny story...
-- madness, Nov 25 2004


Thanks for the clue, [madness], I appreciate your bringing me up to speed.

But I have a low opinion of Jim's intelligence. Kicking a robotic drum feed shotgun [link] strikes me as foolish at best. I've heard they've a tendency to jam, but it sounds like this one had bigger problems.
-- normzone, Nov 26 2004



random, halfbakery