Dcs ?

[cavemanxxx]

Yes Wazza........ you had a great point !

thanks.......

Got some great pics from Burma too......

 

[Laurence Stein DDS]

Caveman,

After reading your initial post, I'm not sure if:

1) The headaches only occur following dives.
2) The vomiting only occurred following the headaches.
3) You've had bad headaches for years and only recently have begun to become nauseated while suffering from the headache.

Your description of the symptoms can be taken several ways. It's not clear if you have suffered from bad headaches for years and only now have had them associated with vomiting or associated with diving.

Alternobaric vertigo, i.e., unequal pressures in both middle ears can lead to nausea and vomiting. CO2 build up can cause headache as can sinus congestion/infection problems.

As Wazza pointed out, contaminated air can be a problem and if your tank was filled once with bad air, the tank itself can recontaminate future fills.

Your headache description also would be consistent with a vascular/migraine or "sick headache".

Often there is pain behind one eye and after several hours (or longer) you may become sick (nauseated) and vomit. Many sufferers report an "aura" preceeding the onset of the headache. Frequently, following the vomiting, the headache starts to go away. Men suffering with migraine headaches are more likely to have the Cluster Headache type.

Finally, there has been a positive correlation between nocturnal contraction of the temporalis muscle ( the one that tightens at your temples of the head) and both stress and migraine headache. This has dental implications and there is now a device that is FDA approved to reduce the force of clenching. It is called an NTI-tss or NTI device.

An ill fitting scuba mouthpiece may fatigue already fatigued facial. and chewing muscles and cause a headache.

If it turns out to be that you have migraine type headaches, please be aware that the medications used for treatment can cause problems diving--taken before a dive.

I would certainly see a headache specialist or neurologist just for a proper diagnosis.

BTW, as a long time sufferer of migraines I can relate to the problem.

Hope they go away.

Laurence Stein DDS

 

[cavemanxxx]

Thanks a million for your efforts and long write up.

To answer your questions :-
Question#
1)Yes, I very seldom get head aches which are not diving related. I would say I suffer more from "brain freeze" after a very very cold drink or ice cream. Other than that, I am happy I rarely get them
2)Yes, in every case of vomitting, it was preceded by the diving related head ache. I have never vomitted without the head ache. Actually, over 700 - 800 dives I have had maybe 5%-10% of the total dives which end in head aches, but only this year has vomitting occured.

As mentioned earlier, there are not alot of ENT doctors in this part of the world ( asia ) with indepth knowledge of the effects of diving on the ear / physiology. The advice from specialist I have sought out in the past is " if you have problems, I recommend you not to dive". They failed though to pin point why, and my impression is that there was not alot of facts to base this recommendation on ( Based on the statements that they could not find anything wrong after several X-rays and checks ) . It was more like the commonsense recommendation that staying fit is good for you.


I have suffered a constricted E-tube at times in one ear, but over the last year or so it has been good to me, and clearing has not really been an issue.

The mouth piece was bright to my attention once, and I changed to one of them expensive ones which you need to warm up, and fit your mouth. Did not really help. It would let a little water in unless you bit hard, and I was worried that maybe salt water aspiration was maybe the cause, and then move back to the Standard APEKS mouth piece.

Last trip in Burma, head aches and sick again ( so obvioulsy not the mouth piece ).

I think as you have pointed that maybe the same symptoms could be caused by different things at different time. i..e maybe lack of sleep in on case, a month later, maybe sinus, next month maybe something else.

Being an ex-Engineer, I have tried new things to try to eliminate potential causes, and to date I have tried about 20 different suggestions with little sucess. I will try over the next few months to bring my own tanks from a "trusted source" and see the results, and if I get head aches again, well, then it aint that.

I have some Dimetapp which was recommended by a Head of Cardiac center here in Thailand who loves to dive, and that should settle the sinus issues.

Conclusion :- trying new things one by one, with the hope that I will be able to nail down the root cause by elimination.

Thanks again fro your time

See ya