broken eardrums during records

[Erik]

Ok, I take back the dead horse comment :ban
Carry on...
Peace brothers and sisters,
Erik Y.

 

[laminar]

I would agree that in respects to equalizing it is often difficult for learners of which every technique to identify what they are and are not doing inside their head.

I myself found it challenging in the beginning. Learning Frenzel and mouthfill took at least of week of practice and then weeks perfecting in the ocean.

I also second Tyler's comment about the "experts" in this forum falling prone to thinking they have all the answers. May we all have the learner's mind...

Pete

 

[DeepThought]

Taken from http://www.herbertnitsch.com/ :

"My right ear was giving me some trouble and eventually stopped equalizing."

Sorry Herbert, I think not aborting the dive at that moment was a bad judgement call.
This is the reason I think regulations should atleast try to discourage poeple from hurting themselves (because enforcing this might be tricky).
I think people have the right to hurt themselves, I just don't think it should have a place in this sport officially.

 

[cjorca]

Wow........ thats a lot to take in....
Well, for someonewho does not compete anymore ( just recreational freediving).... I find it quite interesting to see where the competative side of the sport has gone....
( quite a bit of bitching, and sometimes hostile remarks )
I guess I'll add my 2 cents in.....
Obviously, with regrds to equalizing, every one is going to equilze in different way... I so envy those who never had to touch their noses to equalize....
I was always told, whichever way you chose to, do so early and often.... even if you don't feel anything, equalize as much as possible to HELP Prevent rupturing an eardrum.... now I guess I was one of the lucky one's in that my ears always gave me fair warning..... and I never ruptured a drum.....
One thing a few of us did find however, is that after several hours of freediving ( and not deep - 60fters ), it would become not necessarily harder to equalize, but that the "squeeze" for lack of a better word would come very quickly. Now there was debate on whether this was caused by the several hrs of equilizing, which cause some minor swelling in the eustacion tubes...., the possibility of slightly more mucus secreation, due to the salt content of the water (Carribean), we discussed alot of what if's..... in the end it came down to, well lets not push it, and stop for the day.
One thing I seem to find on some of these threads is that the "baby steps" approach for training in depth and time advancement, is out the window.... people seem to be pushing " their " limits.... in an attempt to "catch up" to others.... well..... unfortunately problems are going to occur.... lets just hope they end up being "learning injuries" , and no I do not support that type of training, but there is always some who train that way.
As to the EQEX- while I think it is a very ingeneous invention, I have to agree with some that this takes away from the "free" in freediving......
Well, thats if from me.....
safe dives to all

 

[Tazgrilos]

I just think that those of you who have not had eardrum trouble do not really understand how it happens - it seems that you have this vision of us hammering our eardrums and just forcing the last equalisation to get a few meters deeper. It is not like that at all. I have never had to turn or call a max depth because of my ears - they clear just fine all the way down. Its just that a few times, more than two years ago now, they have popped on the way down, or on the way back up - not at the bottom and never out of knowingly forcing an equalisation. I don't believe that it is even possible to deliberately break an eardrum to get an extra bit of depth - for me its just something that has happened occasionally without any warning or being able to do anything about it. Maybe that is hard to understand if it has not happened to you. And the other myth is that it hurts - it doesn't. Not at all. Until maybe if it gets infected or swollen afterwards...... but not at the time it is about to happen. At least not in my head.

I am also not convinced it is any more dangerous than a lot of other things we risk as freedivers - flooding sinuses opens them to infection in exactly the same way a damaged eardrum does for example yet no one has talked about banning that. Diving on exhale squashes your lungs and quite possibly causes barotrauma we can't necessarily see yet no one is debating that, in fact quite the opposite, is a current trend!

Freediving is never going to be entirely safe - we need to make it as safe as we can - but the rules we use to do that need to be both workable and fair. Disqualifying people because of a pin hole in their ear that they had no way of preventing is neither of those - enough from me on this!

S

I just had this experience a couple of days ago; I was going down (too fast to notice I am told) when without prior sign or ache the eardrum of my right ear popped and burst. I stopped the dive and returned to the surface just to verify that blood was coming out my eardrum. As I am still a beginner in freediving and actually in schock that this has happened to me; I am still struggling to find out what went wrong and how could i have prevented it. I ve experienced many times when i cant equalise any more and i stop... but this happened with no warning sign to me...is there anything specific i should have checked after my eardrum (hopefully) heals in a couple of months? Thanks.