V like… Valsalva

Definition

Manual operation to balance the internal and external pressure of the ears. Disadvantage: you always have the impression of diving into a wastewater treatment plant, having to cover your nose at regular intervals ... 

Synonymes

Balancing the Eustachian Tubes | BTV (voluntary tubal open bite) | Frenzel | Toynbee

Starter

I feel it's coming ...

Underwater, when we go down, “our ears hurt”, it is well known. Rather hurts the eardrums, these tight membranes which deform under external pressure while the pressure of the inner ear remains unchanged. It is then necessary to proceed to balancing maneuvers, the BA Ba of the “autonomous” diver. 

This maneuver involves forcibly restoring the balance between the pressure of the outside water and the inside pressure of the middle ear by blowing air through the eustachian tubes.

Hard of the leaf?

A relatively traumatic operation for the tissues and in particular the eardrums. It is therefore recommended to avoid performing it too violently, especially if it is not mastered properly.

Apart from the few subjects who naturally master the Voluntary Tubal Obstacle (without the hands), rIt is no longer difficult for the instructor to teach a novice to “balance”. We addressed this issue, still relevant, in the hilarious podcast: "Are you coming for baptism?".

Indeed, how many beginners still find themselves today with over-inflated gills but still not feeling the sacrosanct “squeak” saving, pushing back for a few meters only the implosion of the eardrums in excruciating pain? ...

Main course

Today, most masks on the market have an “outer” silicone nose, which can be pinched to balance. But before, you had to get out of the way ... Think that the first “Compensator” mask from Beuchat was only released in 1958 ... We will reread with a smile the advertising slogan of the time:

“Divers, save your eardrums, avoid premature deafness. To dive deeper, faster, just one mask: The Compensator.
… In fact, despite the indisputable effectiveness of modern diving equipment, a problem of paramount importance remained to be solved: the earache well known to divers ”…

I did not know this antiquity but I dived a lot with its successor: the super compensator! That I appreciated for its “double skirt” guaranteeing a better seal without marking the face too much and for its oblique window offering less volume and therefore a greater visual field. And not for its decompression fins, enjoying from an early age (I enjoyed very early) the mastery of BTV, a technique that I cannot encourage you too much to discover and practice (if you are one of the “noses blocked ”)…

Speaking of a stuffy nose, we've all known “don't go through” ear syndrome during flu-like symptoms or when diving too close together. Not a big deal when it comes to giving up yet another dive at sea. But it is quite different when you find yourself, for example, beyond a siphon. When it's time to dive to regain the day, nada! Impossible to balance to cross this damn low point! The only solution is to turn back and wait, in the air bell, for the natural ducts to unclog. For this purpose, I always took medications that are going well (vasodilators, cortisone sprays, etc.) in a waterproof pocket.

But it also happens that a similar mishap occurs during the same dive, in a completely flooded duct, a deeper section of which prevents the dive towards the exit. You get the picture ? One day I spent more than thirty minutes in a siphon in the Lot before being able to go “wild” my left ear and regain the exit… This is why I avoid, during “recreational dives”, in sea caves for example, to go up all the time in the air bells and other “blue caves” of the most beautiful effect. We must always think of the return ... When I see the number of “beginner” dives around the world that offer this geographic configuration, I shudder. 

Still need a little snout ...

We always need a little snout!

What about the pros? How do they do in their heavy helmets to balance? Apart from distinguished BTVists, this is where the “pif fluff” comes in, a more or less DIY accessory allowing you to block your nose inside the full face helmet, without the use of your hands!

And in space, same fight: en November 2011, the astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA published on Twitter a portrait demonstrating the use of the Valsalva maneuver during the pressurization of its “Sokol” space garment…

Dessert

Dr. Valsalva

Antonio Maria Valsalva was born on January 17, 1666 in Imola, in what is now Bologna province in Emilia Romagna, Italy, and died on February 2, 1723, at the age of 57. He was an anatomist doctor from the end of the XNUMXth century and the beginning of the XNUMXth century. It is to him that we owe this famous Valsalva maneuver which he describes for the first time in his book From aure humana, published in 1704. Initially, this technique was used in certain patients to evacuate the pus, after having pierced the eardrum by paracentesis ... Bon appétit!

The maneuver Frenzel, meanwhile, was developed during the Second World War by fighter pilots who underwent strong variations in pressure during their dive downhill. A very useful “hands-free” maneuver, the latter being tense on the controls ...

Joseph Toynbee, despite his pet name (Toynbee-dog), was an English ear surgeon (1815-1866) who worked on the eardrum among other things. He even developed an eardrum prosthesis in natural “gutta percha” and silver rubber…

See you soon for a new definition of Scuba Bécédaire. The irreverent lexicon of diving, but not only. Because sometimes ...

Francis Le Guen

Café

A luminous explanation of Valsalva by the famous duettists of the PAF… Health!