Hi All,

We are about to go to Spain on holiday and my some wants to do his advanced diving course having completed PADI open water last year.

However, he has been having a number of nose bleeds recently which we are putting down to hay fever.

Is there any reason to be worried apart from attracting sharks?!

dOGSBY

Nope. He might surface with a bloody mask.

Worth checking on medical requirements for spain though, ive got a nagging suspicion they ask for one.

Is your son aged about 16? I had a lot of nosebleeds at that age and my son has also gone through a spell of lots of nosebleeds; he’s 17 now and it seems to have stopped.

I guess from a medical perspective it may be worth getting this checked out. From the diving side, simply having a nose bleed isn’t a massive issue and the there will be blood present after surfacing. Of more concern is if the blood is originating from his sinuses. If the lad gets a blockage in one of the passages that drains any of his sinus cavities he’ll find he can’t equalise on the way down. More worrying would be is he gets a bung up whilst at depth. Reversed sinuses are excruciatingly painful and can halt the ascent back to the surface.

D.

Many thanks for the advice. The boy is much happier as it looks like he can dive (we are getting a medical in Spain) and I am happier to let him go!

I used to get a lot of nosebleeds from hayfever. Does he also get congestion? A blocked nose/sinuses will make equalising pressure when diving difficult or impossible (eg when you have a cold).

I can’t remember whether my nose streamed or got blocked with hayfever!

May make him more susceptible to picking up a sinus infection which can be extremely difficult to treat (sinuses are infection-friendly warm, moist cavities with poor air circulation and comparatively poor blood supply).

of course there’s also a good chance that whatever pollen he has an alergy to won’t be present in that part of Spain so within a couple of days he could be suffering less anyway.

Probably fine* – these guys give free advice** if it’s not covered on this page.

http://www.londondivingchamber.co.uk/index.php?id=advice

* don’t take the word of some random on the internet about it…

**it’s possible that advice will be “see a doctor”.

I’m not a diver, but am nearly sure there’s no pollen underwater or in the oxygen provided in the tank.
Why would he get a nosebleed whilst diving if they are pollen related?

I’m not a diver, but am nearly sure there’s no pollen underwater or in the oxygen air provided in the tank.
Why would he get a nosebleed whilst diving if they are pollen related?

It depends on how good the dive centre pollen filters are.

If you’ve got hayfever when you start a dive, it’s probably not going to go away by the end of it.

That said, it isn’t a total no-no to dive with hayfever.*

* don’t take the word of some random on the internet about it…

I’m not a diver, but am nearly sure there’s no pollen underwater or in the oxygen provided in the tank.
Why would he get a nosebleed whilst diving if they are pollen related?

The nosebleeds don’t come directly from the hayfever. The hayfever irritates your nose linings, you sniff, sneeze, blow your nose etc etc a lot. You get nosebleeds. At least that’s how it used to be for me.