bk94

That's a really good question - I asked the doctors but didn't get a clear answer. I also asked if being too active before the edges of the bones had healed would put me at risk of re-injuring the lung. The answer I got was that it was theoretically possible but they had never seen that happen. I got a clean scan on the lung last week. I may try some hop and pops in two weeks (they say safe to go to 8K 14 days after resolution - that weekend will be 17 days since the clear scan and just over 6 weeks from the initial injury) and plan to wait until at least the first week of August before trying a jump from full altitude.That will put me at a full 8 weeks from initial injury and one month after a good scan. I saved some pain pills for the first weekend back. Does anyone want updates on that? This is all probably too much information but since there doesn't seem to be much data on trauma pneumos and altitude, Im willing to share my experiences....

Hi all, Thanks, thanks, thanks for all the advice. My husband talked the docs into letting me out of the hospital a few nights ago. Another scan today shows a slight improvement in the pneumo so we are hoping that the air there now was caused when they pulled the chest tube and not a continued leak and therefore we are not going to consider surgery at this point. We are going to play the "wait and see" game with another CT scan in about 3 weeks. Glideangle - three different trauma surgeons throughout my stay had three different opinions on course of treatment and they were all with the same group. It was making it really hard to know what to do. Bigorangemd: Don't know the size for sure but everyone keeps calling it "small". Gravitysucks: One of the docs did call an Air Force flight surgeon friend who said that they typically call for a 6-month stand down. Apparently, most of the military research is based on spontaneous pneumos not traumatic pneumos. The docs say trauma pneumos are "different". One study (which is also the most recent study they could find) shows commercial air travel to be likely safe 14 days after resolution of a traumatic pneumo. They figure that a safe time for me might be somewhere in between. One doctor has said that he thinks it might be safer for me to be in an unpressurized cabin under 15K than an airliner cabin due to the rate at which they sometimes pressurize/depressurize the cabins? I'm a little skeptical about that. Sounds like those of you who have waited 3-6 months have been OK. Has anyone jumped sooner than 3 months after complete resolution as shown on an Xray or CT scan? I appreciate the opinions and thoughts. My husband and I are sure learning a lot about lungs! B

Hi all, Im currently in the hospital with a small pneumothorax (and some clinically cracked ribs) that we think was the result of a hard fall onto the chest. I'd be interested in hearing from any other skydivers/doctors of skydivers that have experienced this as we try to sort out what to do. I'm not asking for medical advice but simply trying to see what resources/experiences might be out there as we make this decision. My doctors are great but they haven't found much (if any) published data on pneumothorax issues (particularly trauma not spontaneous) with skydivers. They've contacted a flight surgeon who has given some advice relating to spontaneous pneumos and we have other advice relating to trauma pneumos with non-skydivers but apparently I am somewhere in between. The doctors have said that it is small enough that they would have sent me home to see if it would resolve on its own but that since I'm an active skydiver they reccommended trying to fix it faster. We started with a chest tube which worked until we took it out, then lung partially deflated again. Now we are looking at either doing nothing or moving on to surgery. Skydiving isn't everything...but yet it is! :-) The "go for it" part of me says, let's fix it. The rational part of me says, "Why put your body through that when there are no guarantees and it COULD still heal on its own even if it isn't as fast as I'd like" ;-) I've PM'd Beachbum and read his threads....anyone else? Thanks! Brenda