Re-beginner (actually just an oximeter question)

[orbitolinia]

Hi all,

I spent a lot of time as a kid and teenager at my local pool and made the poolguard jump into the water a few times. Of course I did everything wrong back then, but read an article in a magazine at a certain time about relaxing and slowing the heartbeat down. And somehow I nailed it - so well that I can still make nurses jump if they take my pulse and I make it go down by 10-15 bpm just for fun. It's less fun though if you are in a maxHR efford in a spinning class, stare at the HR projected to the wall in front of you, and then it suddenly jumps down. Oh well.. you can't have it all.

I've not done much proper diving for at least 25 years but would like to catch up on it again. At the moment I can only hold my breath for about 2 minutes. Yes, not much compared to back then.

I have more of a technical question, really, both for me and a friend who has breathing issues. He bought an oximeter to monitor his sats. I lend it for a few days to see if this is something that might be useful for me, and of course out of curiosity bout what happens when I hold my breath. Though I found that all it does is go from 99% to 100% and stay there for the whole 2 minutes. I guess that's oximeter is a dud?

Other than that: I'll be reading along here and prepare for my first vacation to a warmer and more sunny location. Looking forward to it.

 

[cdavis]

The oxymeter is probably ok; you will not see much decline in 02 levels until 3 minutes or more, unless you do exhale statics. Want to make the nurses nuts, do a couple of full exhale statics, around a minute, then a hold for as long as you can. Your 02 level will plummet, down to levels that the nurses are used to seeing in patients who are nearly dead.

 

[orbitolinia]

Haha, ok. My friend thought it didn't work properly because he always had low sats at the GP, but not at home. So I thought it was worth a few tries. So who knows. But anyway... may I ask what exhale statics are? I mean, when I was young there was no internet or any other source of information around. Just the very rare article in a magazine. I just did something, scared a few people along the way, and got somewhat angry when someone well meaning pulled me up again. So I have a lot to learn basically.

 

[orbitolinia]

Oh, why now? Why not. New life. And many, many years ago I flew with an ear infection (very painful!), went to the local pool the next day as I felt well, jumped from 5m plank - and for once nearly drowned as nobody thought I'd need pulling out. Could not clear my ears until last month when I had another unpleasant flight. So basically I can do more than snorkelling again. Yay!