No Spleen

[theatomicpickle]

Hey everyone,
I'm new to the forum but I've been casually freediving and spearfishing for a few years. I've never really gone much deeper than 50 ft and usual down time is around a minute. I can do a little closer to 1:45 but I like to keep it closer to a minute usually.

So my question is, when I was 13 (I'm 19 now) I fell skateboarding on a half-pipe and ruptured my spleen to the point that they had to completely remove it. Do you think that my absence of a spleen is going to affect my diving abilities and progression from here? Do you think it should have little to no impact on my diving or is it a major component?

I know the spleen contracts and releases oxygen rich blood that has been stored in it. But how important is this and anything else that the spleen would usually do?

Thanks everyone,
Luke

 

[trux]

There several studies about the influence of splenic contraction on the performance. Especially Erika Shagatay wrote several of them. Some of them are listed here:

spleen @ APNEA.cz

If I remember well, the influence was around 5%. So if your dives are around 100s (1'40"), then you would theoretically do 5 secs more with the spleen.

 

[theatomicpickle]

Wow! Thanks for the quick reply! The articles are really thorough which is what I've been looking for. Confidence builder for sure

 

[Rik]

To add to Trux's remarks, you probably know that if you don't have an spleen, you are a bit more likelier to get infections. While breath-hold diving isn't an sport with an high infection risk, it might be worthwhile to check if you have all your vaccinations current, and refrain from actively snorting sea-water and similar ideas.