Many people take sleeping pills including divers who travel to various destinations for a dive vacation. If you do not handle flying in an airplane well, taking a sleeping pill may help you get through your flight. If you do not sleep well in a strange place, chances are that a sleeping pill will help you get a good night's rest. Sleeping pills may help you alleviate insomnia or ensure that you fall asleep early so that you can get up early enough not to miss the dive boat, but is it safe to dive when you have been taking sleeping pills?
Sleeping pills, otherwise known as sedatives, work by depressing the central nervous system (CNS) so that the functions of the body slow down. There are two families of sedatives, benzodiazepines and barbiturates. Benzodiazepines are often used as anti-anxiety medication. They include medications such as Valium, Xanax, Librium, and Ativan which are addictive and cause drowsiness. Barbiturates are used more often as a sleeping pill and are commonly used as an anesthetic. There are short-acting and long-acting barbiturates that are effective in bringing on sleep. There are new forms of these medications that are commonly used and these include Sonata, Lunesta, Rozerem, and Ambien. These are considered to be non-addictive and have a number of potential side effects, including constipation, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, burning or tingling in the extremities, changes in appetite, dry mouth and throat, gas, headaches, heartburn, difficulty keeping balanced, weakness, uncontrollable shaking in a part of the body, and stomach pain. A more serious, although rare side effect is parasomnia, which is when a person sleepwalks and does other things while sleeping, such as eating or driving.
When it comes to diving, taking medications of any kind is a serious matter. Medications are wrought with potential side effects that can become a nuisance on dry land, but can become a hazard underwater. Of course, not all people suffer side effects nor do all people suffer from them to the same degree. The key is to know whether or not you will experience side effects from the prescribed medications before you dive. No controlled tests have been conducted to determine the effects of sedatives on divers while diving, but the biggest concern of taking them while diving is the potential effect on the level of alertness of the diver. A diver must remain alert at all times during a dive to ensure that he or she is monitoring the environment, their gauges, and their dive buddy. Should a diver be too drowsy, he or she might miss something important, might run out of air, go too deep, or not be able to respond quickly enough when an emergency situation arises. In addition, the increase in nitrogen in the blood stream can actually increase the drowsiness experienced by the diver and some of the potential side effects often mimic the symptoms of decompression illness, which would make diagnosis difficult.
If you are taking sedatives or have had them prescribed and you wish to dive, then you need to take certain steps to ensure that you can dive safely. First of all, consult your doctor and read the package label to ensure that you are thoroughly familiar with the medication prescribed. You will need to examine how the medication affects you and be mindful any side effects you may experience. If you do experience side effects that are uncomfortable, abnormal, or in any way contraindicate diving, then you can ask your doctor to prescribe a replacement. Divers should allow a few days for their bodies to get used to any new medications and to determine what the side effects will be, if any, before diving.
Diving is a risky business. When an emergency happens underwater it is crucial that a diver is able to respond promptly. A situation that would be easy enough to deal with on land could be fatal if it happened underwater and adverse side effects of medications can easily cause this to happen. Be sure to consult your regular physician or a dive doctor, take any prescribed medicines as directly, be familiar with the side effects of such medicines and know how they affects you to ensure that you are safe to dive. This will keep you safe and enable you to function properly as you take the plunge into the big blue.