Decompression sickness?....

[itch808]

Last weekend after some diving I noticed I wasn't feeling too great. I figured it was the result of me getting sea sick (as usual) from the boat. To keep the nasty details to a minimum, let's just say that I did my share of feeding them fishes. But I ended up feeling pretty bad quite a bit after I had hit solid land again. Into the night I had an aching headache and felt really weak (my body ached). By the next day I had stomache cramps along with everything before. The stomache cramps were absolutely horrible, it was a mixture of feeling bloated and a twisted knot sort of pain. It lasted until just about this morning when I finally woke up feeling better.

I did the two consecutive dives (relatively deep 105' & 70' using air) on Satruday. Also did a single shallow shore dive on Friday, but I don't think that would matter much though. Does this sound like symptoms of decompression sickness? I googled it a bit for more details but everything about it seems rather vague since it can vary a bit between people. Nothing I've read says how long it takes for such symptoms to go away and mine lasted quite a bit ~48-72hrs.

I wasn't sure if I just happened to come down with a cold/virus at some coincidental time, but thought it was strange that my symptoms weren't accompanied by a fever of any sort.

 

[El Orans]

Call DAN.

 

[itch808]

Well after lying in bed for days...I feel a lot better today! But if my symptoms were a result of diving, it would be REALLY good to know so I could avoid it next time.

 

[justleesa]

Hard to say. A call to DAN wouldn't hurt.

There was a diver on the boat one day, on a world trip. His dive profile was good, but took a hit anyway. Turn out he was dehydrated and exhausted, making him more susceptible to a hit. There is a lot more to it than depth and duration.

 

[Wildcard]

It does sound very possable. Telling us how deep you went does not help as much as telling us how fast you came up. It could also have been the nasty flu going around. The trick to doing many deep dives is your asscent. Slower the better. Going from 105 to 15 in two minutes and then doing the min 3 minute safety stop is asking for trouble.
Typical dive for a DM on Oahu looks something like this: Bounce to 20 and right back up with the bouy. 10 minutes later down to 125 for 10-15 and back up. Right back down with a 30 min surface interval to 80 (one hundred foot hole or San Pedro) and right back up. Back down to 80 for 20 minutes. Five minutes at the top and bounce to 80 to untie.
Slow asscents are what it's all about!

 

[ScubaAndDreams]

Slow asscents are what it's all about!

So true.

 

[Cacia]

I really doubt DAN has a crystal ball.

I would dive conservatively for awhile and note how you feel.

Take your half depth stops and pay special attention to being REALLY hydrated. Make your last stop as long as you have extra air to burn, and notice if you feel better, the same, etc. I use fatigue to gauge how well I did decompressing. It takes a bit to be able to read this, but I am now convinced. Try and note if you are narced, even a tad and when it happens (at what depth). I can now say I get muddy mentally after 5 minutes over 100 ft and I do asscociate this with malaise for the rest of the day LESS if I make my ascent slow enough.

One question I like to ask myself is

how long has it been, am I in a state where I could effect the outcome?

what will I change if they say "yes, you probably had DCI"?

I had a mysterious thing happen once where I was out of it and slept for 24 hours. I will never really know....

Stay in tune with your body and back off your profiles a bit.

 

[Wildcard]

"I can now say I get muddy mentally after 5 minutes over 100 ft " or one beer

 

[itch808]

Well I usually aim for 30ft/minute or less, but both dives my buddy was low on air and didn't really let me know until the end. She was back on the boat with <500psi, while I was at 1200psi. So on our ascents she freaked a bit and tried to zoom up the line, so i'd guesstimate that in reality we ascended somewhere closer to 60ft/minute. We did however do a 3 minute safety stop on the 1rst dive and a lengthy 6 minute safety stop on the 2nd dive. Also since we were diving air while everyone else was on nitrox, we tried to be the first ones in on dive one and last ones in on dive two. Surface interval was pretty lengthy IMO, 1:24.

Conditions look and sound pretty good all around the island right now too, very tempting. That past weekend we had amazing viz ~150ft+ @ Keanu Reef, a site I've never heard of or been to before.

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

If you had DCS you still need to contact Dan regardless. Treatment can still be issued even at this late date.