After a Heart attack?

[mariodiver]

If someone has suffered from a heart attack, and a stent has been places in the RCA arterie, can that person continue freediving or are the risks too great?

thank you

Mario

[fpernett]

Hi Mario,

In my opinion risks are too great.

Breath hold diving increases the arterial pressure so it increases cardiac afterload, increasing cardiac oxygen consumption, and wall stress of the ventricle. That is the main risk. Of course there are different levels of performance while freediving. But I think is not wise to do it. Even SCUBA diving requires some tests to be taken in order to dive safely.

[mariodiver]

thank you Frank,

Not the answer I was hoping to hear. If there wasn't to much permanent damage do you think its possible maybe after a long period of rest my heart could again become strong and healthy? or just being to optimistic?

[rxcnc2]

Mariodiver, sorry about your problem, really, but if I were you I would ask my physician, and maybe more than one.
Obviously the answer will also depend on what you exactly mean by "freediving".
good luck
Andrea

[monkeyhatfork]

I would try to find a doctor who specialized in dive medicine, maybe contact divers allert network, see if they might point you in the right direction. Your average doctor might not be that great of help with this issue.

[Kars]

Perhabs you should look also into the origens of your problem. Could it be food, stress etc? Another importand factor is also age, yougn bodies can recover better.

If the origen of your Heart attack was due to the above a solid change in diet and lifestyle could enable you body and heart to recover to much of it's original strenght. Though your heart will obviously a weak point to be taken into account.

Consulting docters and DAN sounds like a good way to go. Also be sure to ask the right questions, the awsers are likely to reflect the quality of questions and information provided.

That's what my commen sense gave me, but I'm not a doctrinated into the medical profession.

Love, Courage and water! ( a lot of courage

Kars

[fpernett]

Originally Posted by mariodiver

thank you Frank,

Not the answer I was hoping to hear. If there wasn't to much permanent damage do you think its possible maybe after a long period of rest my heart could again become strong and healthy? or just being to optimistic?

Well Mario, it's difficult to say that you can't do something, but I'll be irresponsible if I give you a wrong advice. If a Stent was put on your coronary artery it means a significant disease. After cardiac rehabilitation you will be able to do many things and even after a normal exercise test or Echo Stress it´s possible to start a guided physical training program. When you get to that stage, snorkeling on surface is possible. But the changes induced by breath-hold, are an unknown territory. Long time ago, it was forbidden to diabetic people to dive, but after many test with diabetics under strong supervision DAN gave a light to that people.

Competitive freediving is not for you, but if you really want to do Recreational freediving I´ll advice you to contact DAN, and ask them if there is any study or trial where you can start diving under strict supervision.

Good luck

[Haydn]

The risks are also to your buddy who has to be even more capable of performing a deep water rescue. You could suffer an instant black out at any depth and not associated with the last 10 meters only. Any black out could easily be at negative bouyancy, so your safety diver will be chasing you down. At the surface, you wont just start to breath because your black out will have nothing to do with running low on O2 but on a major heart breakdown. If you get rescued safely, you would still be virtually dead on the surface (say at Dahab), that means definately dead by the time you get to hospital.

You mention how training might help. I think it might assist you to get into the danger zone, therefore training might be a hinderance to a safe dive.

All your dives will be tinged with danger. If you dive for the spirit, somehow you will lose the point of freediving, if every dive has this cloud.

Then we should look at probabilities. No one knows. Just imagine that after 1000 dives below 30m (so maybe within 10 years), every dive is OK then you feel that all is well, and then it happens. It will have nothing to do with anything, just the risk that the probability of a heart attack at 50m is for you (and me??) 1 in 1000 dives rather than 1 in 20,000. But crumbs, because no one knows, it could be the first time you hit 50m. (will that be this summer, or next)?

So are you prepared to put in place extra special safety cover and maybe settle for just a few more deep dives to say goodbye to the deep, or do you want to pretend nothing will happen and still expect to enjoy your dives.

Same thing goes for dynamic, except the heart will not be subject to depth pressure and the rescue is easy and puts no one else at risk.

For me, I am still uncertain.

[wes]

Mario,

I will go out on a limb here and give you some advice, not really medical advice but life advice. My dad passed away from congestive heart failure so I did quite a bit of research on that to improve his end quality of life (which ended up being great).

First: do some research on heart health, longevity and lifestyle. Do searches on the following: fish oil, Ubiquinol CoQ10, resversatrol, zero resistance living, heart rate monitors

Next: Get a team together to support you as follows:

- get a lunch buddy who you can have lunch with most days and go over what's up in your life with them.

- get a health care professional you feel good about, they should be healthy, smart, take time and be able to listen to you. If you have an appointment with a new cardiologist and they are 50 lbs overweight, just walk out and tell the front desk you aren't paying, this person cannot help you (period).

- get an excercise buddy or motivator, could be a friend or online support group, I like Mathew Fury myself who is online coach and sends out free e-mails every day.

- Set goals, if you want to go freediving and are worried about if its healthy or not, set a goal that says "I want to go freediving in a way that is safe and enhances my physical condition and life experience". Set goals for everything you want to do and if you aren't sure you can do it or not set a goal to figure out if you can do it or not.

- Create a vision board, I use magnets on a white steel backed whiteboard and make my visions all photos or sketches as they are easier to "see" then words are. Then get a banner calendar for the whole year and when you achieve a vision tape the picture of the vision and put it on your calendar. Also put on your calendar when and what you do for excercise.

Enough for now, you can PM me if you want on the above.

Cheers Wes Lapp

P.S. My lunch buddy was diagnosed with prostrate cancer 3 years ago and it was the best thing to happen to him, after his successful cancer treatment he stopped worrying about all the little stuff and worrying about the future and started having fun and enjoying life. He makes alot more money now and does things and buys things that he wants like new motorcycles, kiteboards etc, dates younger women and is really a much happier guy.