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The guy I wrote that article with , who is a doctor, is not one here. Wolov
may be and he can answer that , or Hazeltine. The other type of shunt would m
make you short of breath so badly that you would not be worried about diving.
The PFO comes in varying degrees, and the non-invasive way to test for this is
with an echocardiagram with doppler, manipulated in all positions for about
forty-five minutes to be as sure as you can. These machines that they have here
in Ft Lauderdale are incredible, and you can see everything.
Remember that you have to 1) do a profile that generates bubbles ( including
improper deco), 2) have the shunt open and the blood actually shunt, so this is
why we do not see much more of this as a cause. The other side of the coin is
that if you do have a get-out-of-the-water embergency, the penalty is a
cerebral
hit - not too cool, and is called "paradoxical" cerebral arterial gas embolism,
or PCAGE, the paradox being , in my mind , why the risk of paralysis or brain
damage was worth more that the cost of the test, and the fact that virtually
none of the training agencies ever mention this while promoting macho deep deco
diving.
The other paradox is that people spend significantly more money than this
on
dive computers which will do nothing to prevent deco sickness, get bent, and
then blame it on the computer. This is aslo the smoking gun behind that crap
you
always here about "fit Navy divers" getting bent following the tables, and is
part of the "anyone can dive" ( so long as they have a significant PFO in their
wallet) mindset of teh training agencies.
I had the test done ages ago, but then I like the odds stacked severely in
my favor.- G
On Sat, 09 Nov 1996, Bill Elliott <bill@nw*.co*> wrote:
>
>George or any of you medical types,
>
> I know you recommend (in fact "require" I think) testing for blood
>shunting in a PFO condition for WKPP divers. I understand your reasoning,
>my question is:
>
> What is the test for a bubble shunting between chambers and do you
>know if any ole' hospital and doctor can do it, or is it a realatively
>complex proceedure to test for, and only larger hospitals could do it? Also
>do you also get tested for an intra-cardiac shunt or only right to left
>shunting and is this part of the same test proceedure?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Bill Elliott
>
>
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