Commercial Diving and High Altitude Performance

Has anyone read about the effects of (or experienced) regularly spending large amounts of time deep underwater, such as in a dedicated recreational or professional diving scenario and then recreating at high altitude? I know the body is exposed to high partial pressures of oxygen due to depth, which is the exact opposite of what happens at high altitudes. 

Logically it tracks that someone regularly experiencing hyperbaric O2 would have a harder time acclimating to low O2 percentages at altitude, and may over the course of a career see performance consequences on larger peaks. But, I'm no doctor and don't have enough experience to have seen it myself yet. Any thoughts?

you would have to spend A LOT of time under pressurized oxygen to get any sort of degraded performance at altitude. Consider athletes who travel to altitude to train. They often go out weeks or months in advance and run laps around Denver every day to prepare. The body can adapt to 10k altitude living much better than it can 100m depths. Living at altitude is a much “softer” change than at depth. For example, atmospheric pressure is doubled at about 30-35 feet underwater, depending on the water. In comparison, the pressure is only halved once you reach around 16k feet in elevation. At elevation the body eventually learns to produce more red blood cells to carry oxygen, but at depth it doesn’t choose to produce less blood cells.

Tl;dr

Nah. You would have to live underwater a ridiculous amount of time for changes like that.

Source: I’m a flight medic that handles both dive casualties and Altitude illness 

Agree with Anthony.  Not an issue.  I have a fairly comprehensive background in deco diving and dive medicine.  I only wish I could pin my lack of success at altitude on the diving.  

Potential caveat:  are you a professional saturation diver?

Anthony Anglikowskiwrote:

you would have to spend A LOT of time under pressurized oxygen to get any sort of degraded performance at altitude. Consider athletes who travel to altitude to train. They often go out weeks or months in advance and run laps around Denver every day to prepare. The body can adapt to 10k altitude living much better than it can 100m depths. Living at altitude is a much “softer” change than at depth. For example, atmospheric pressure is doubled at about 30-35 feet underwater, depending on the water. In comparison, the pressure is only halved once you reach around 16k feet in elevation. At elevation the body eventually learns to produce more red blood cells to carry oxygen, but at depth it doesn’t choose to produce less blood cells.

Tl;dr

Nah. You would have to live underwater a ridiculous amount of time for changes like that.

Source: I’m a flight medic that handles both dive casualties and Altitude illness 

Good to know! It's hard to find answers about this on google and whatnot so it's good to hear from somebody qualified.

Mark Pilatewrote:

Agree with Anthony.  Not an issue.  I have a fairly comprehensive background in deco diving and dive medicine.  I only wish I could pin my lack of success at altitude on the diving.  

Potential caveat:  are you a professional saturation diver?

No sat diving, I wouldn't turn the opportunity down but not there yet. I would imagine based on Anthonys response a regular sat career would be the only way to meet the hyperbaric time requirements to maybe affect acclimitization.

Yes, the body is exposed to the high partial pressure of oxygen due to its depth. Human skin starts to break down after continuous immersion in water for a few days, but this happens if you are not properly equipped. I live by the sea and work in scuba diving. So that means I have to do scuba diving practically every day. But because I am equipped with a plus size wetsuit properly, my skin does not suffer, and I have no problem. So you don't have to worry. You can't stay underwater for more than 45 minutes anyway because you have to surface with a safe air reserve.

The hardest part about commercial diving is having to wait 12 hours after a dive to take selfies at the Hillary step, but mostly the alcohol abuse.