A personal account of DCS...or is it just a trapped nerve?

[DocVikingo]

An item of curiosity...what about symptoms that start underwater...?

While the vast majority of cases of DCS proper do not have onset until after surfacing, in severe cases signs/symptoms can & do appear before that.

Arterial gas embolism (AGE), the features of which can be confused with Type II DCS, is more likely to occur while still u/w, or extremely shortly after surfacing. This entity presents with almost exclusively (and sometimes very serious) neurological signs/symptoms, and not simply with muscular aches/pains on the last few deco stops or the like.

Cheers,

DocV

 

[IWantToBeAFish]

While the vast majority of cases of DCS proper do not have onset until after surfacing, in severe cases signs/symptoms can & do appear before that.

Arterial gas embolism (AGE), the features of which can be confused with DCS proper, is more likely to occur while still u/w, or extremely shortly after surfacing. This entity presents with almost exclusively (and sometimes very serious) neurological signs/symptoms, and not simply with muscular aches/pains on the last few deco stops or the like.

Cheers,

DocV

Thanks Doc! So then I could infer from that someone who disregarded those muscular aches/pains at that point in the dive as not being DCS would be right in doing so? Unless of course they subsequently developed severe neuro symptoms of course.

 

[DocVikingo]

Thanks Doc! So then I could infer from that someone who disregarded those muscular aches/pains at that point in the dive as not being DCS would be right in doing so? Unless of course they subsequently developed severe neuro symptoms of course.

Well, as stated, I couldn't with full confidence & comfort say, "Yes."

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

An item of curiosity...what about symptoms that start underwater - muscular aches and pains on the last few deco stops (9, 6 and 3)? I have heard people talk about these before but have claimed that given a reasonable profile, there is no way that this would be DCS. How accurate can that statement be? How severe would a DCS incidence have to be to cause symptoms at this point during the dive? Cheers!

You'd have to look a little closer at the differential. Specifically, I'd be asking if the diver had had any history of injury to the area, and if he/she could have possibly injured it on the bottom. For example, if your elbow hurts at your 20 foot stop but you spent the entire dive re-cocking your spear gun and you had twisted the same elbow in a bicycle accident two weeks before, I'd lean toward mechanical injury. If it was a benign wreck dive and you had no history of heavy use or injury of the limb, I'd lean more toward DCS, but as DocV said, so-called "pain under pressure" is very unusual and is often a precursor to more serious symptoms.