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Philip, you wrote: >While I agree with your ultimate conclusion/advice that Drew would be >better off making the dive in question on air to begin with, I am going >to take issue with some of your facts and conclusions along the way. >(This is based upon the "I thought I knew that......" premise so feel >free to argue with my facts and/or conclusions). >Oxygen is believed to have an equal or greater narcotic potential to >nitrogen. Thus, the only real benefit of EANX mixtures is the >decompression advantage. The often discussed narcosis reduction does >not exist. Dust your flame proof Nomax suit off mate! Right or wrong, you are about to be descended upon by a lot of nitrox users. So you are suggesting that the END calculations used by trimix divers is meaningless ? If Nitrogen Narcosis is caused by or a direct result of an increased partial preasure of Nitrogen how could reducing that partial pressure not effect the degree of narcosis ? The increased nitrogen effects the myelin sheath chemistry and thus the electrical characteristics of nerve cells and the speed at which they transmit impulses. Maybe other stuff too, but this is enough. I have been meaning to do some more looking into this claim of a narcotic effect associated with Oxygen because several divers I respect insist it is so. I suspect that it will be somewhat different from the effects of N2 and will probably have to do with the oxidation of some vital protine or enzyme. Please enlighten me/us further if you will. I have noticed no such effects from oxygen but then, we often don't notice the effects of nitrogen either. >I have not heard much about the blackout syndrome associated with sudden >drops in ppO2 but gut feeling makes me doubt if the change from 32% O2 >to 20% would be sufficient to bring on this problem (100% to 20% during >"air breaks" I can understand). I agree ! As I mentioned, it is a rare effect even then. However, the cause of the ultimate final effect (blacking out) is still there to some extent and added to the multitude of unsual physiological events ocuring at the time is worthy of at least a cursory consideration. Many bodies have been lost under unexplainable circumstances and considering that we know too little as it is we can not afford to discount any tiny bit of knowledge about something that may contribute to our demise either independently of other factors or as a contributing factor. Chuck -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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