Head aches from diving

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Are you clenching your teeth really hard on the reg? A friend of mine was going through mouthpieces like crazy and also getting headaches. That was the problem for him...
 
Plus one for calling Dan. Always seek medical advice from a qualified medical professional such as DAN or your doctor. Seeking medical advice on forums or Joe public can result in severe injuries or death. Just my 2 cents.
 
In addition to headaches... I had a strong head ache right after I had taken a few breaths from my regulator. The tank was rented. The same feeling had my buddy after I had asked him to try. Good thing that I always try to breathe before entering the water. My guess is that the air wasn't good enough in spite of the fact that we rented our tanks from a reputable PADI dive shop and everything... I refused to dive with those tanks... Has that ever happened to anybody else? Would appreciate any comments / insights in this respect as I cannot seem to come up with anythihng else. Thanks.

It is possible that the tanks may have become contaminated with carbon monoxide which is highly lethal on the surface and becomes more so at depth. Another possibility is that if their was rust inside of a steel tank then the oxidation process robs the air mixture of valuable oxygen and this would be a very bad problem if not caught in time as well.
 
Are you clenching your teeth really hard on the reg? A friend of mine was going through mouthpieces like crazy and also getting headaches. That was the problem for him...

hehehe :D Thank you for your suggestion but it isn't an issue for me I guess. My previous 80 dives went OK so I don't think I started clenching and chewing on my reg all of a sudden. :D
 
It is possible that the tanks may have become contaminated with carbon monoxide which is highly lethal on the surface and becomes more so at depth. Another possibility is that if their was rust inside of a steel tank then the oxidation process robs the air mixture of valuable oxygen and this would be a very bad problem if not caught in time as well.

Yes, this is exactly what I thought of (bad gas) but how come a dive shop could miss it and rent such a tank? I am seriously thinking to buy this portable detector that checks filled out tanks' content... You may never know what you get inside these tanks unless you own a compressor yourself :idk:
 
Plus one for calling Dan. Always seek medical advice from a qualified medical professional such as DAN or your doctor. Seeking medical advice on forums or Joe public can result in severe injuries or death. Just my 2 cents.

It wasn't that bad. Went for common sense and safety and simply did not dive using "bad" tanks.
 
Yes, this is exactly what I thought of (bad gas) but how come a dive shop could miss it and rent such a tank? I am seriously thinking to buy this portable detector that checks filled out tanks' content... You may never know what you get inside these tanks unless you own a compressor yourself :idk:

It may not have been evident to the shop they were having these problems. Often times there may be a bad filter or perhaps a car idling too close to the intake. Yes it should in theory catch the pollutants but the problem is a compresser is mechanical. Anything mechanical will eventually have an issue arise.

As far as the shop you have to look at it like a soda machine. When you go to a convenient store most times the clerks dont know the machines are low on syrup until a customer complains about how weak a soda taste. Same with the shop on tanks. They fill so many a day they probably dont check every single tank off the line. In this case there may be a few become contaminated and without actually testing the tanks go undetected. This is why Carbon monoxide testers are becoming more popular with scuba divers. (Hinting to the fact its common enough for manufactures to take notice and market a detector)
 

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