Folks,

I come from a medical family and, quite possibly as a result of that,
I am a serious disbeliever in drugs. I use them only if obliged to.

Let me explain that:

Today, at my age (soon to reach 62), I am obliged to take two drugs to
control what is happening to my heart. As an aside I find today's
medical technology absolutely astounding. I have no problems with that
technology  and I have carefully checked whether I can, or can't,
continue to dive. Fortunately the experts have decided that I can
continue to dive.

I also suffer, a lifetime complaint, from something called "Acne
Roseata" which it appears is incurable and which can be, well, sort
of, "controlled" by a drug called Doxycycline. The downside to this
drug is that it makes your skin sun sensitive, but nowadays I'm pretty
careful of that anyway, especially since I'm pretty fairskinned.

Regardless I periodically take myself off the Doxycycline, and suffer
the consequences, to my embarrassment.

No, although I wish I could, I cannot take myself off the other two
drugs (although I am assured that they are not otherwise harmful, have
no discernible side effects).

The point? Apart from the fact that I hate drugs (well, I *do* like
wine and the occasional beer) it seems to me that many now look on
them as some kind of panacea. Not so! IMNSVHO especially not so where
Sudafed is concerned.

There is one person on the dive boat that I usually go out with that
uses Sudafed routinely, as in before EVERY dive. Two others on that
boat use it if they feel congested. I have never used it. I have also
never cried off a dive because I felt congested (to my knowledge).
It's just not happened. No, I'm certainly not superhuman, but yes, I
make sure that I use a very reliable version of the compensation
process. All I know is that it's not the Valsalva. I find that it
works safely, and reliably. I'm not prepared to argue which other
method it might be, I *am* prepared to state that I can "clear my
ears" at will, without recourse to anything physical other than my
breathing. It's a pretty useful trick.

Many years ago I was told, no idea who told me, that the Eustachean
tubes actually have muscles attached to them (as used by aquatic
mammals) but that ours have atrophied to an extent because we no
longer need them. I was also told that with practice they could be
made stronger, re-employed as it were, and, indeed, that is what has
happened in my case. I'm quite certain that I am not the only one but
I suspect that not everyone can regain that advantage and of course it
means that the Valsalva is no longer required. Oh, there's a problem
associated with this. I make quite certain that if I'm with, sort of
looking after, novice divers, I ensure that they can see me performing
the Valsalva, and often. I made that mistake once and once only.

There is another advantage to this method of compensation. There is no
potential (cannot be) brute force involved, unlike the Valsalva.
Disadvantage? You don't know that you're performing it, it becomes
automatic. Therefore it does not "warn" you if you are going deeper as
the "physical", hand to nose, Valsalva tends to do. I make *very* sure
that I set my Aqualand to the maximum depth that I intend to go to,
especially on walls. Been there, made that mistake also.

Personally I believe that the Valsalva should be taught as the initial
method and students should then be encouraged to try to adopt more
advanced (and advantageous) methods. Does this happen? I don't know.

Tom Mount (even), some years ago now, wrote very negatively about
Sudafed and I on-forwarded it to the Tech Forum. Sorry, the Tech
archives seem to be in disarray on a quick search. But then I was
never good at searching archives anyway.

Whatever, what he said made sense and I don't always agree with that
man or his philosophy on diving.

Cheers,

Christian