Hi All, I had a second primary (soft palate) back in November, first time was tongue cancer in 2002. Now I am having lots of problems with my teeth, I had 7 weeks of radiation first time, I have an abscessed tooth that is not healing and the abscess is quite large. The endo dentist has given me two rounds of medicine directly into tooth, today he said he will make a decision about the root canal next Wed. Okay, my question is, has anyone else experienced this and had to have a tooth pulled or did HBO help out with this problem....Thanks!

Carol:

HBO will help you to heal much faster. After going thru cancer treatments, you body cant heal as it used to. Thats probably why you are having problems with your tooth.

My dentist and HBO doc both said for dental work 20 dives before and 10 after the dental work is the norm. Ive been doing HBO to fix my sore jaw, which it has.

Ive completed 42 HBO dives with 8 more to go. Ive been having some trouble clearing my ears. The problem is especially my left ear, which is also the side my cancer and radiation tx was on. I do have sinus problems and take prescription nose spray Advil cold and sinus for the congestion. This is probably due to the radiation as I dont have a cold or allergies and this has lasted now 6 weeks, last time my sinuses bothered me for 5 months. I couldnt dive about 7 times due to not being able to clear my left ear. Has this happened to anybody else? Any suggestions?

I recently completed 45 HBO treatments. I had trouble clearing my ears at first, but my ENT put me on prescription nasal spray twice daily. Also used Afrin spray about one hour before treatment. He also suggested �tubes� if I continued to have problems clearing my ears. Fortunately I didn�t need them.

I found out a few years ago that I have allergies with were causing my frequent sinus infections. Started on allergy medication and since then I haven�t had any sinus infections. The sinus infections were the only sign that I had allergies � I did not have the typical sneezing, running/itchy eyes, etc., so never thought I had allergies. I also kept our air conditioning on to minimize my exposure to the pollen, which did cause some congestion.

I also did the �ear clearing� techniques for the entire time on the dive down, and most of the time on the dive up. When I had problems with my ears, they would take me back up a little, and then take me back down but at a slower rate.

You�re near the finish line! Good luck getting through the remaining HBO treatments.

I'm a Certified Scuba Instructor and my wax build up is so productive that before every dive of a depth greater than 50 feet I visit my doctor who cleans out my ears. Since I started that practice 20 years ago my clearing problems are over. Perhaps you might want your ears examined for wax build up?

I had my ears cleaned by my doc last week and still continue to struggle sometimes while going down. I do use prescription nasal spray and advil cold and sinus for congestion. I only have a few to go and want to finish and move on. I am starting to be concerned because its the ear on my radiation side and also thats where my sheech therapist and physical therapist work on.

Clearly, you do not want your ear plugged up with wax.
But this is not the problem (nor is it normally when you have ear problems while scuba diving). It is the eustachian tube (connecting the middle ear to the pharynx). This is not accessible from the ear unless you ear drum is ruptured.

If the eustachian tube is closed and remains closed you cannot equalize the pressure and there is the problem. You are on decongestants and you are doing the equalization tricks swallowing, wiggling your chin and holding your nose and mouth closed and buld up pressure (i.e. exhale). If none of that works then it might be time to go for the tube solution mentioned above.... although it is pretty late in the game for this. I assume that it is not a big procedure, some HBO centers require this for all patients.

Best

Markus

20 years ago an ENT that I taught to scuba dive was the one that examined me and told me to have my ears cleaned out due to excessive wax build up before I dove any substantial depth. It worked for me then and every time since and perhaps it's a coincidence but the possibility that I was given bad advice ticks me off because sometimes it was a real inconvenience to get my ears done before a dive. UGH

Could there possibly be scar tissue from the rads? I don't know if this happens in the ear but I'm sure it sustained damage from the rays and I know Cisplatin can cause damage.

Sue

David,
it is a matter of plumbing! Joke aside.
You cannot equalize pressure through your ear canal no matter how clean it is (as long as the ear drum is intact). IF the ear canal totally plugged that may be a problem too (different story).

M