Dehydration

[vladimir]

They like to feel they're doing everything they can to minimize DCS risk. Hydration is an easy answer. Avoiding caffeinated beverages is an easy answer. It's achievable. Pound water during that surface interval. Feel good about yourself.

Yes, it's a lot easier than, for example, staying fit.

 

[theduckguru]

Staying hydrated was covered in my dive training and every charter I have been on has at least encouraged fluid pre-dive and during the SI.

Unfortunately most of the water on board these charters taste not so good and I now take my own jug of ice tea.

I don't remember much, if any, discussion during either my OW or AOW training about the importance of proper hydration and SCUBA diving.

I'm fascinated by stories of divers getting bent while seemingly having safe, uneventful dives. I read these and try to learn from them so I, or my buddy, don't make the same mistakes and suffer the same consequences. It seems that a fairly common theme comes back to lack of proper hydration and it scares the crap out of me that I or my buddy could do nothing wrong and still wind up with the bends.

In the 70- odd boat dives I've done I can only think of one instance where the DM was adamant about the group drinking water while going out to the dive site. "Everybody owes me one bottle of water or they don't get wet".

It's sometimes a struggle to get my kid to hydrate and I know he tires of me constantly badgering him to drink up the before we go out. Some days we both get to the point where we hate the taste of water and compensate by mixing in gatorade or flavored water.

Bottoms up!

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Staying hydrated was covered in my dive training and every charter I have been on has at least encouraged fluid pre-dive and during the SI.

Unfortunately most of the water on board these charters taste not so good and I now take my own jug of ice tea.

@theduckguru: But is that decaffeinated iced tea?

 

[seaducer]

This is just false.

If you drink ten glasses of water and sit on the couch for 5 hours then you will need to piss. Yet, if you drink water and are active and sweating and exerting yourself then your body will be using that water. Yet, you do need to start hydrating the night before or that morning. But how much water you drank on Monday will not affect your hydration level on Thursday or Saturday.

I disagree. Assuming we are discussing divers operating on deck in tropical seas, being hydrated for days before hand makes it more likely that the water you drink on board that day replaces the water you are losing through sweat and breathing really dry air, keeping you hydrated.

If however you ignore hydration, continue with the high salt, dehydrated, preserved crappy diet many people eat it is likely you don't have the ideal amount of water in your body, and what you drink on the boat may or may not keep up with the water you are losing through sweat, maybe maintaining the level you have, maybe not.

How important is hydration? I think it is pretty important for overall health and performance. How much if at all hydration effects DCS I don't know. I drink water for many reasons, DCS is not one of them. Understanding what my computer is telling me and being in control of myself and my dive have a lot more to do with preventing DCS than drinking water does.

I go through cycles where I drink a lot of water, and other times when I don't. Mostly when I am most active and in the summer I am drinking a lot of water. That first week or two is miserable as I need to find a bathroom often, but after that things settle out and return to normal. So yes, I do think people who suddenly start drinking more fluids go through a phase where they urinate more frequently, cancelling out at least part of the fluids taken in.

Perhaps the most important reason to stay hydrated, it eliminates or reduces the effects of hangovers, and you just can't put a price tag on that!

 

[Q1988]

Hydrate till your pee is clear.

I do this, as do others, to make sure your eustatian tubes are flexible and can open easily. When you pinch your nose and blow to pop those tubes the snap you hear is the tube coming un-glued. This means the material in the lining of the tubes are like glue. As soon as you release do it again and they may snap again. Repeat for 3 or more times but if they keep doing this you may have some touble getting an equal pressure into your inner ear and then middle ear. The outer ear is at depth pressure.

You must equalize. Hydration makes this easier.

I have been through a damaged oval window and spent 3 days on my back with 3 #6 trips in a chamber under O2. Vertigo and Nystagmis is no fun.

Drink lots of water before the dive and keep away from the caffiene.

 

[FritzCat66]

Just a plain practical perspective on hydration: Regardless of how hydration does or doesn't affect your risk for DCS, one real advantage for drinking enough fluid ahead of the dive so that urinary output is "clear and copious" is that also translates to much less urine smell to wash out of our wetsuits.

I had an instructor whose rule of thumb regarding hydration was: if you're wondering whether or not you're hydrated enough to get in the water, "if you're not ready to go, then you're not ready to go!" :cool2:

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Hydrate till your pee is clear.

I do this, as do others, to make sure your eustatian tubes are flexible and can open easily. When you pinch your nose and blow to pop those tubes the snap you hear is the tube coming un-glued. This means the material in the lining of the tubes are like glue. As soon as you release do it again and they may snap again. Repeat for 3 or more times but if they keep doing this you may have some touble getting an equal pressure into your inner ear and then middle ear. The outer ear is at depth pressure.

You must equalize. Hydration makes this easier.

I have been through a damaged oval window and spent 3 days on my back with 3 #6 trips in a chamber under O2. Vertigo and Nystagmis is no fun.

Drink lots of water before the dive and keep away from the caffiene.

@Q1988: Your post implies that you think your hydration state contributed to an inability to equalize and subsequent perilymph fistula. Is that true? Is that what the ENT cited as the causative factor in round window rupture?

Why not just use ear equalization techniques that don't require pressurization, e.g., Beance Tubaire Volontaire, Roydhouse maneuver? It's possible for people to blow too hard when they use the Valsalva technique to equalize the middle ear space.