The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
I fully agree with Lamont on this. Great description.
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vkalia:For typical recreational profiles, it doesnt make a snit of a difference whether you do deep stops or not - no matter how fashionable they may be. I find it a bit funny when I see loads of earnest - and well-meaning divers - doing a deep stop after a 24m doddle along the reef or whatever.
IMO, deep stops in a recreational context make sense when there is a valid risk of the free gas phase posing problems: 3 or more dives (especially 2 or more deep dives) in a day, reverse profiles, yo-yo dives or such. Otherwise, a normal slow ascent followed by a safety stop works well enough.
Vandit
Look at the analogy of sunburn and just general weather exposure. Both are stresses on the body. There is a continuum in effects from nothing at all, up through mild sunburn / mild symptoms and fatigue from too much wind and cold, up through full blown medical emergencies. Decompression also stresses the body. In most cases it is a mild stress (even though in a high percentage of repetitive dives DANs doppler testing shows that there is significant venous bubbling) and not classified as DCS. It isn't difficult or unreasonble to expect that there would also be a continuum from zero effects all the way up through severe DCS.ArcticDiver:Your #1, by your description, was probably just post-dive fatigue since a nap took care of it and there were no other reported symptoms.
ArcticDiver:Could you explain please? My understanding and experience doesn't support this statement. After I explain, please educate me.
Fatigue, to me, merely indicates that a person is fatigued, i.e. tired. So when I get to the end of my workout at the gym, I'm fatigued/tired. If, like I'm doing now, I'm doing unaccustomed exercise(working out at 5700' instead of my accustomed 435') I'm unusually fatigued/tired.
So, if I'm just fatigued/tired with no other clinical symptoms how is this an indicator of anything else other than I need to rest and nourish myself? One of the tenets of strength training is to work until the muscles won't respond any more(total fatigue) then rest and nourish so the body can build new and stronger muscle.
ArcticDiver:The author has a theory that "may" be true. But while there is some evidence for this among commercial divers there is a paucity of similar evidence among recreational divers. Or, at least that I've been able to find.
Simple Cowboy answer: I always thought that with N2 existing in the body fluides that usually contain O2, we are Oxygen deprived - leading to exhaustion.So the question remains - what is causing this fatigue?
Hmm...H2Andy:maybe it has to do with the energy that it takes for the body to get rid of
nitrogen when it comes out of solution too fast (but not so fast to cause
symptoms)?