Freediving With a Cold or Blocked Sinuses: Why You Shouldn't

Freediving with a cold is a bad trade. The swollen lining of your nose and Eustachian tubes makes equalising hard on the way down and can trap air on the way up, which is how divers end up with ear barotrauma, sinus squeeze or a reverse block. A few days out of the water cost you very little. A damaged eardrum can cost you the season. Sit it out, rest properly and test your ears on land before you go back.

Every freediver knows the temptation. You have waited months for this trip, flown to Port Blair, sat through the ferry, and woken up on day two with a scratchy throat. This post is for that morning.

What a cold does to your ears and sinuses

A cold inflames the lining of your nose and throat. That lining runs continuously into the openings of your Eustachian tubes and your sinuses, so when it swells and fills with mucus, those openings narrow.

On a normal day a gentle Frenzel opens the tubes easily. With a cold, the same effort meets swollen tissue and nothing happens. Pressure keeps building as you descend, and the gap between what your ears need and what you can deliver grows with every metre.

The risks of diving congested

Middle ear barotrauma

If you can’t equalise and keep going, the eardrum is pulled inwards. Small blood vessels leak, fluid or blood can collect behind the eardrum, and in worse cases the eardrum tears. Recovery can take weeks.

Inner ear injury from forcing it

Congested divers tend to push harder. A forceful Valsalva against blocked tubes is linked to inner ear barotrauma, which can cause vertigo, ringing and hearing loss. This one needs an ENT quickly.

Sinus squeeze

Blocked sinus openings can’t equalise either, which leads to pain in the forehead, cheeks or teeth and often blood in your mask. Our post on mask squeeze and sinus squeeze covers the symptoms.

Reverse block on the way up

This is the sneaky one. Sometimes you do manage to equalise on the way down, but on the ascent the expanding air in your ears or sinuses can’t get out through the swollen openings. The result is pain and sometimes vertigo, near the surface, at the end of a breath-hold. Our post on reverse block explains what happens and why.

Some ENTs also caution against forcing air from an infected nose and throat up into the middle ear, as it may encourage an ear infection.

Why decongestants are not a shortcut

Many divers reach for a decongestant on the morning of a dive. Diving doctors generally advise against using them to make a dive happen, for a few reasons:

• They can wear off mid-session. Tubes that opened on the way down can swell shut again by the time you come up, which is a classic setup for a reverse block.
• Nasal sprays can cause rebound congestion. Used for more than a few days, some sprays leave your nose more blocked than before.
• Side effects don’t mix well with breath-holds. Some people get a racing heart, jitteriness or drowsiness from cold and allergy medicines.

None of this is a reason to avoid medicine your doctor prescribes for an illness. It is a reason not to self-medicate so that you can dive. If you are unwell enough to need something to clear your nose, you are unwell enough to skip diving.

Monsoon colds and the Indian diving calendar

June to September brings rough seas to the west coast, and for many of us it brings colds too: soaked commutes, damp offices, AC on full blast, and sudden temperature swings between the street and the metro. Winter has its own trouble in the north, with smog and dust that leave plenty of noses stuffy for weeks.

The upside of a monsoon cold is timing. Most west coast dive sites are out of season anyway, so it is a good stretch for land training and pool work, as we suggest in our post on monsoon freediving training. When you do book a trip, build in a buffer day or two, especially after a long day of travel, so one bad morning doesn’t wreck the whole plan.

What to do while you are ill

• Rest and sleep. Your training will wait. Good sleep and recovery bring you back faster than pushing through.
• Drink enough water, especially in the heat.
• Keep it light. Gentle stretching, relaxation work and reading are fine if you feel up to it.
• Skip hard breath-hold tables, and skip breath-holds entirely with a fever or chest symptoms.
• Leave your equalisation drills alone while your nose is blocked. Forcing air into congested ears on land doesn’t help.

How to know you are ready to dive again

Before your first session back, check that:

1. You have been free of symptoms for at least a day or two.
2. You can breathe easily through each nostril when you close the other.
3. A gentle Frenzel clears both ears easily, sitting up and with your head hanging off the bed.
4. Swallowing gives a normal click on both sides, with no lingering fullness.
5. Bending forward doesn’t cause pressure or pain in your face.

Make the first session easy: shallow, slow, feet-first descents and long rests at the surface. Stop at the first hint of difficulty. If your ears still feel blocked or your hearing is muffled a couple of weeks after the cold, see an ENT before you dive. Our guide to ear pain after freediving covers the signs worth getting checked.

Safety: Don’t dive with a blocked nose or blocked ears, don’t force an equalisation, and don’t use medication to make a dive day work. If you develop vertigo, ringing, hearing loss or ear pain that lasts after a dive, stop diving and see a doctor or ENT promptly.

If you catch a cold on a dive trip

Tell your instructor or buddy early, before the boat leaves. A buddy who can’t descend can’t help in an emergency, so a congested diver shouldn’t be acting as safety either. Our post on the freediving buddy system explains what that role involves.

Be careful with the morning test on the jetty. Ears that clear once, sitting upright in the sun, can behave very differently after twenty minutes head-down in the water. And if you flew in with a cold, your ears may already be irritated from the landing before you have done a single dive. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Use the days for what land allows: stretching on the beach in the morning, going through videos of your dives, sleeping more than you thought possible. An online community for Indian freedivers is on its way here at freediving.in, so stay tuned.