Bends??? or drunk???

[glennome]

Dear divers, I just posted this question in the dive doc but thought I would try here as well. My husband 4days ago did 2 dives - 1st - 30mins @ 30 mtrs - 2nd 26mins @ 27.8mtrs. Surface interval 1hr 3mins. dive on computer - Sunto Viper.. Hot day 32c everyone was sweltering. food brekky 3 coffee's 2 pieces toast. lunch 1 salad roll. 600mls water all day. Dived on Notrox 32%ean. No guage to check air, dive shop did nitrox blend so didn't check. Did dive with 4 others all on regular air.
My problem is ...
After the dive guys went to pub and all had a few beers about 4pm.. Drove home 1hr drive (no drinking in car) had 2 beers cooking bbq and eating about 8.00pm.( not sure if had anymore to drink - if yes only 1or2) 12midnight went outside and chatted then I went out (i couldn't dive due to hurting ear day before)to see if he was coming to bed and he was extreamely drunk. I didn't realize he used Nitrox, having only been a casual diver, have never experienced "bends" or dci or dcs. Was the last thing on my mind and was just extreamly upset. He became very abusive and violent (very rare) the other guys drank almost the same as him yet were no where near drunk. after the dive the others were pretty tired, yet my husband said "I feel buzzy" he felt really great and was on a real high all evening. No symptoms of drunkedness till later on after he went outside then seemed to just hit him all at once. He has no memory of what happened. He does not have a drinking problem. Had a rather bad time 3yrs earlier due to drink and is extreamly careful now. Nothing even remotly similar to overdrinking.
I am not sure exactly what I am looking for, but due to this very bad situation, would like to find out if it could of been related to deep or nitrox dive, dehydration, or just simply drunk???
If the case is not drinking, would like to be able to explain to friends and hopefully mend a rather bad memory, that it was due to something out of his control.

Needless to say, drinking before or during a dive has always been a no no, now we will also include it as after a dive for at least 24 -48hrs. Did not realize that it is not good to drink AFTER a dive, till doing reasearch on all this.

Thanks in advance and sorry its so long, just wanted to be sure you all got the info necessary. If there are any books or web sites I could go to get more infor I would be very grateful if you could include this in any replys.
Regards Naomi.

 

[CheeseWhiz]

...it sure seems like your husband did a good job of pulling water from his body: the heat, the 3 cups of coffee between dives (coffee's a great diuretic), the dry air in the scuba tanks, and then the alcohol. The stomach draws water from body tissues to dilute alcohol consumed. With the heat and the dehydration, he may have even had a mild case of heat exhaustion (the "buzzy" feeling?).

If someone is going to drink after diving (or any time for that matter), it's a good idea to consume a glass of water for each beer/wine/mixed drink. This keeps the body's fluid levels high and helps dilute the alcohol in the stomach and prevent dehydration.

Hope he's better now.

 

[Dr Deco]

Dear Naomi and Readers:

The long time intervals do not seem to indicate that this is a decompression problem, but it is difficult to say with certainty since considerable alcohol seemed to have clouded the situation.

Not wishing to be preachy here, but drinking beverage alcohol (for relaxation) and other activities does not really mix. I believe that we can all agree that one or the other is more than sufficient. Nevertheless, we all hear instances of divers feeling that dive time is also wild party time. We all really know that this is not correct. Work reported since the early 1940’s has indicated that DCS risk is reduced with increases in fluid intake. Diuretics counter this effect.

As I have indicated on numerous occasions, there is not a “bends/no bends” limit. It is a progression of risk that increases with increasing inert gas loads in the body. Anything that is done to:

- increase the tissue inert gas loads,
- prevent the gas from being quickly eliminated from tissues, or
- causes an increase in tissue microbubbles

will exacerbate the probability of DCS. Alcohol is a bad dive buddy.

Dr Deco :doctor:

 

[sharpenu]

I agree. See my post on this topic in the dive medicine forum. Did I miss anything? There are alot of factors here that may have contributed to what happened. For example, the mix was never checked. What if he got an air fill?

 

[glennome]

Thanks again Sharpenu and everyone else. Looks like we have both had a real learning curb. Unfortunately, even though we are both divers, and my dh has done quite a lot of extra courses on his was to become an instructor/ dive master, neither of us have had the no alcohol AFTER a dive stressed to us. Definately we both knew not to before or during a dive, but thought that after a dive that all is over and ok to drink. Guess some have to learn from their mistakes and this is one we will definately not be making again.
Regards to all
Nay.

 

[Dr Deco]

Dear sharpenu:

The reason that I am not going with DCS is the time delay of several hours in this instance. If it were a neurological event, most likely one would have seen something within the first hour.

Certainly an air fill would have been an error, but I would have expected a different time scale for the events. It is possible that DCS problems can be delayed, and one can never say never.
Dr Deco :doctor: