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Speaking of bubbles wandering around in your bloodstream, I'm curious about the effect of a patent ovale foramen, a hole between one side of the heart and the other, allowing some amount of blood to get back into the body without going through the lungs. At first glance, it seems like a bad thing for divers, since you would expect the lungs to aid a great deal in polishing bubbles out of the bloodstream ;). With the current thread, however, it seems like even without a patency, bubbles persist for a while, longer than it takes for blood to run a complete cycle through the circulatory system. So, do the lungs not remove all the bubbles coming past, or are more bubbles coming out of solution to keep the blood carbonated? (ok, I know that's the wrong word. I just like the image.) Are the lungs not removing bubbles because the complement system has formed a shell around them or is the system overloaded? So anyway, these bubbles might be running around with or without a patency. I can imagine a scenario where a large bubble might go through the patency to the brain or block a critical vessel instead of being removed or reduced by the lungs, but otherwise, is the situation that different? I suppose the degree of difference depends on the size of the hole. Any comments? any data on divers with patencies? Any insight on bubble flow or removal based on this data? Hope I used all the fancy medical terms right, but then again, I hope I used all the regular English words good. ---------- I'm not a physicist, but I play one at work. ======================================================= Roger Carlson w 310-812-0430 somewhere off Hermosa Beach, CA f 310-812-1363 roger@ch*.sp*.tr*.co* h 310-frogger =======================================================
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