DCI and hyperbaric chamber experience Cozumel

[vincent54]

Cigautera poisoning will give the same symptoms. Everything from a positive Rhomberg , and other neurological symptoms to paralysis. I have noticed in Cayman the fresh fish of the day is anything they catch. Don't know if you had any fresh seafood, but most people do when they dive the Caribbean.

Did they give you a differential diagnosis?

 

[RJP]

I do not understand 46 minutes @ 96' fsw. I'm showing you incur deco, and that is without consideration of four days of diving. I would say it was VERY aggressive.

Do you have a graph of your dive profile from your computer?

She said dive was 46min with a "max depth of 96" not "46 minutes at 96ft"

 

[Jax]

She said dive was 46min with a "max depth of 96" not "46 minutes at 96ft"

Which is why I asked for a graph. Drift dives tend to be level, in my limited experience.

Sent from my SCH-I605

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

I would never set my computer to air when on EANx - the partial pressures are very different and in the case of severe DCI hyperbaric medical staff should usually be downloading your dive profile from your computer to ascertain exactly what did go wrong. It will make their job potentially harder (and delay treatment) if equipment isn't being used correctly. EANx32 has a pp of 1.6 at 40m/130ft, most people do go for the more conservative pp of 1.4 for an extra safety margin (I hope that I am teaching you to suck eggs and do apologise) Air has a pp of 1.6 at just over 60m/200ft. BSAC limits air diving to 50m/160ft as an additional safety measure and to prevent divers incurring massive safety stops.

Sometimes, it is the nature of the beast in diving that these things will occur, no matter how safely we dive. I would recommend taking a day off every 4 days of diving, and making sure that my 4th day of diving is much easier and shallower than the 1st. Residual nitrogen build up is a pain in the proverbial!!

The main thing to take away is that you are alive and ok, and getting the correct treatment.

Happy diving

There are times when we recommend that divers do exactly that: dive nitrox on the air setting. The computer assumes a higher inspired pN2 and so provides a more conservative profile. I do see your point in that if the computer is set to alarm at a pO2 of 1.4 then a diver could inadvertently exceed the MOD for his/her nitrox mix; one can always do the math and adjust the computer's max pO2 accordingly. Also, it's the rare diver who actually has the computer when they show up here. We usually diagnose based on symptom presentation, onset time, and reported dive profiles.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[KBDNP]

Hi
No I do not have the graph of dive profile---never have gotten to point of downloading data.
My total dive time was 46 minutes, my max depth was 96 feet and no I was not down at that depth for the entire time as it was a drift wall dive.
I talked to the dive master who assured me he had checked my tanks and he had marked them --- still my error not checking
As far as the symptom of the left pinky finger numbness- you are probably right- was probably a random event related to the spines from the sea urchin and then I put it in the mix when other symptoms occurred.
Thanks to everyone for all the great information- had never used this sight although had been signed up for years.
Interesting about PFO - I will need to read up more about it - will see my primary provider anyway when I return to NYC

 

[Divetech99]

I would never set my computer to air when on EANx - the partial pressures are very different and in the case of severe DCI hyperbaric medical staff should usually be downloading your dive profile from your computer to ascertain exactly what did go wrong. It will make their job potentially harder (and delay treatment) if equipment isn't being used correctly. EANx32 has a pp of 1.6 at 40m/130ft, most people do go for the more conservative pp of 1.4 for an extra safety margin (I hope that I am teaching you to suck eggs and do apologise) Air has a pp of 1.6 at just over 60m/200ft. BSAC limits air diving to 50m/160ft as an additional safety measure and to prevent divers incurring massive safety stops.

Sometimes, it is the nature of the beast in diving that these things will occur, no matter how safely we dive. I would recommend taking a day off every 4 days of diving, and making sure that my 4th day of diving is much easier and shallower than the 1st. Residual nitrogen build up is a pain in the proverbial!!

The main thing to take away is that you are alive and ok, and getting the correct treatment.

Happy diving

A bit confused here. Exceeding partial pressure recommendation is related to oxygen toxicity issues. The case here is DCS not OxTox. How is setting the computer to Air will diving EAN a contributing factor to DCS in this case? Anyone?

 

[Lopez116]

A bit confused here. Exceeding partial pressure recommendation is related to oxygen toxicity issues. The case here is DCS not OxTox. How is setting the computer to Air will diving EAN a contributing factor to DCS in this case? Anyone?

Only that your comp will give you less no deco time and also force you to stay shallower on repetitive dives.

 

[KevinNM]

Setting it to air means the computer is calculating N2 tissue loading based on breathing ~78% N2 while you are actually breathing say 67% N2. So it increases the safety margin.

 

[scagrotto]

Given that OP did actually have an earlier run-in with an urchin, my bet is that the finger tingling at 55' was unrelated... but that symptom got tossed on the pile after the fact once she actually got hit.

That's what I'd bet on. Call it an even 4ATA at her max depth, and 2.67 ATA at 55'. Based on the theory that you can reduce ambient pressure by 50% without bubbling she shouldn't have experienced DCS that deep even if she was well into deco at 96'. It's a bit like the cliche about being paranoid - just because she got DCS doesn't mean she wasn't also injured by the urchin.

As far as not analyzing the tank, that's obviously a bad thing but I'm under the impression that most fills in Cozumel come from the same facility and that air and 32% are the only real choices. Short of somebody putting air in a tank labeled for nitrox that would seem to make it unlikely that the tank wouldn't have been something pretty close to 32%.

As for the possibility of ciguatera, I'm fairly sure that a table 6 treatment wouldn't have cured it, so she must not have had it.

 

[Freewillow]

I agree for ciguatera. The symptoms prevail sometimes for a very long time.