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Skydiving

Thu, 06/29/2006 - 13:05
I have been involved in skydiving for about 3 years now. I've done 121 solo jumps and 3 tandems. Unfortunately, I have had 2 grand mal seizures now (both since I started jumping). I had pretty much written off the 1st grand mal to "bad luck" but now that I've had my 2nd in 2 1/2 years I believe that it is likely to occur again in the future. I am curious if anyone else with Epilepsy is also a skydiver and how it has concerned him or her?

Comments

Re: Skydiving

Submitted by gretchen1 on Thu, 2006-06-29 - 21:21
To be honest my risk of injury from sz'ing is heavy enough. I was involved in some activities that put me at risk for injury but after being injured sz'ing, those activities didn't look so appealing to me any longer. One thought I have had for you. The altitude or atmosphernic pressure changes from a low to a high jump, tandem or solo, are experienced very rapidly. There is a good research paper that was published several years ago that said a move to a higher altitude resulting in atmospheric changes can produce seizures in a person who is predilected to sz'ing, which obviously you are. We moved up in altitude and I started sz'ing the second day, never stopped. This phenomena may or may not effect you but I have sky jumped and the pressure in my ears alone told me I didn't want that kind of pressure in my brain or cranium, central nervous sysem either particularly if you consider that liquids can turn to gas at certain altitudes depending upon the liquid and altitude. This is a simple chemical known. An example is that once I didn't know I had an infected tooth until we flew up in altitude to go skiing years ago. The increased pressure turned the pus inmy tooth to gas and I had a whale of a toothache very suddenly, from the change in atmosphernic pressure I was told. I was also told this is not unusual. Gretchen

Re: Re: Skydiving

Submitted by pccoder on Fri, 2006-06-30 - 06:40
Interestingly enough, the 1st grand mal I experienced was the day after a long day of jumping. I was physically exhausted plus my girlfriend and I shared a bottle of wine that evening. I am not much of a drinker, never have been, so splitting an entire bottle is alot for me. The thing that seems odd to me about the altitude is how I have been able to jump so many times in the past without the slightest incident. How I have flown my entire life (we lived overseas and flew all the time as a child). How I was on a week-long vacation in the mountains of North Carolina only 1 1/2 weeks before my most recent grand mal. I was injured skydiving about a year and a half ago because I got fixated on something on the ground during a landing approach. I have wondered in the back of mind ever since if I had possibly "blacked out" for a few seconds during that landing as I had never made such a critical mistake before. I guess I'll never know.

Re: Skydiving

Submitted by Ramblinman on Sun, 2006-07-02 - 15:35
Why would anyone jump out of a perfeclty good airplane? :)

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