Did I "Bonk"?

[Don Wray]

That sounds like the same question I used to ask my room mate the morning after frat parties. Usually, unfortunantly, the answer was no.

 

[lamont]

So...the other day, I dove the Corsair, and thought I dove to my NDL. I began my ascent at 0. (110 FT) I was in bed for 24 hrs from fatigue, no pain. I started thinking about Johnny P., my partner, having some deco and how I thought we dove similiar profile. So..I checked my Suunto and had a dive time of 36 minutes. I was on air.
On the boat, my cohorts were laughing commenting "Are you really THAT cold?". I had been very still, taking pics from one spot on the bottom and wore an old 3mil...more like a 2, max. I began shivering after being on the boat for ten minutes, until about 40 minutes later.

Do It Easy is so smart...wish he would post more. When I described the whole thing, the first thing he asked was "were you cold"? I have been reading a lot lately about "bonking" on the cycling forum. Evidently, if you deplete your glycogen stores, it takes about 24 hrs to recover. He suggested it could have been this...as opposed to decompression phenomena. My symptoms really fit the descriptions I have read.

Anybody have any experience with this?

The GI3 explanation is that you gave yourself DIY sickle-cell anemia by the nitrogen in the bubbles in your bloodstream causing rigidity in your red blood cells and causing fever/fatigue symptoms. The prescription he calls for is to stop diving air and to add helium to the mix, and that air should never be dove and cannot be decompressed from:

There's a gavinscooters thread that starts here, which should explain this position:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gavinscooters/message/1392

I don't know if I believe GI3s explanation, but I've certainly found that the prescription works. I largely stopped diving air and started diving EAN32 or 30/30 fairly religiously. When I was still diving 21% I would start doing 1 min deep stops at 60 fsw or so and spend 10-15 mins decoing up from 20 fsw. Simiarly I do deep stops on EAN32 and add more time shallow. On 30/30 I try to do that, but I've done dives that were reasonably aggressive and done 5 mins of 1 min stops from 50 to the surface and gotten out and felt very good on multiple occasions. The only times I've had fever/fatigue symptoms like yours have been dives on 21% with only 3-5 mins of decompression (although I think I've had the symptoms on dives that were multi-level with basically large deep stops, so I think the slow ascents from 20 fsw are more important to avoid this).

I don't believe its related to cold. For example, I did a dive a few weeks ago up in Nanaimo on the Dodd narrows which was the 2nd dive of the day, I was still a little wet from my semi-dry suit, the bottom temps were 45F and the surface temps were 42F and my argon bottle had been filled with air and I was *freezing* the whole time. Lynne noted that I took off like a rocket, and that actually wasn't due to 'scooteritis' but just because I wanted to keep moving to stay warm. No fever/fatigue or subclinical hypothermia post-dive was noted. I've also done 100-120 min dives in ~50F where I've been notably cold for the last half hour and not gotten any fever/fatigue symptoms and generally haven't gotten those symptoms ever since I stopped diving 21%.

And I just got a color doppler echocardiogram (due to pericarditis that I came down with on friday) and it didn't see a PFO. I'm going to try to get my cardiologist to order a bubble test to look specifically for a PFO. But GI3s explanation is that this isn't due to the same mechanism as being bent or due to a shunt, but simply to high ppN2s affecting RBCs which happens to everyone.

So far based on my experience its plausible and GI3 at least seems to be describing observable symptoms and has the correct cure, irregardless of if his medical description of the mechanism is correct.

 

[do it easy]

Later on in that thread you posted, GI3 talks about the symptoms if sicke cell anemia

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gavinscooters/message/1417

the joints hurt, the flu like symptoms are present, and the consequences are necrosis at the ends of the bones

Granted, their might be difference between the symptons of SCA and "air injury," but if they are attributed to hardening of the RBCs, then I think the symptons that Catherine described would more closely match. I think the SCA symptoms match the symptoms for type I DCS.

When I was fatigued, I didn't have aches or flu like symptoms, and Catherine says that she had no pain. I don't think this a direct comparison between her symptons and what you described.

 

[lamont]

Later on in that thread you posted, GI3 talks about the symptoms if sicke cell anemia

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gavinscooters/message/1417
Granted, their might be difference between the symptons of SCA and "air injury," but if they are attributed to hardening of the RBCs, then I think the symptons that Catherine described would more closely match. I think the SCA symptoms match the symptoms for type I DCS.

When I was fatigued, I didn't have aches or flu like symptoms, and Catherine says that she had no pain. I don't think this a direct comparison between her symptons and what you described.

Well, you're entering dangerous territory by treating GI3s medical information as being 100% correct... =)

The 'fatigue hits' or 'air injury' that I've felt in the past matched Catherine's symptoms with fatigue and feverish chills, although they didn't last for 24h and usually resolved in a few hours. I also had no joint pain at all.

I can't tell what to make of GI3 statements about SCA or what to make of the medical information on the internet about SCA since the latter is directed at the kind of life threatening crisis that we're definitely not talking about. Its all very medically speculative.

I think there is a compelling argument for the existance of 'air injury' as something distinct from Type 1 DCS. I don't think its hypothermia and based on the helium profiles that I've done which should have been much more aggressive and should produced more free-phase bubbling than nitrogen profiles I've done, it seems to be linked to nitrogen free phase gas rather than free phase gas alone. So the 'clinical' picture I find to be at least mythbuster-level "plausible". The explanation of DIY SCA I think is highly speculative...

 

[Teamcasa]

yes...but I need to look good first.

Vanity – Does this really require starving yourself?
Even to the detriment of your health.
Does this classify as an eating disorder?

I'm sure you look pretty good now.

Dave

 

[H2Andy]

you know, whenever i've bonked in the past, it's been pretty clear that i've bonked, and thus i've never had to ask myself if i've bonked

and usually if i have to ask myself if i bonked, it's because i haven't

 

[Cacia]

Vanity – Does this really require starving yourself?
Even to the detriment of your health.

yes. The detriment has not been apparent, unless I bonked. But yes, eating only a little, is something you have to gut through to lose weight. Then your stomach *shrinks* and you don't need as much food. In my house we refer to it as "auto-regulate" not diet. maybe that is a sign, when you talk in code?

Its all very medically speculative.

I like that! Actually, I guess the bubbles interfere with the Hg binding to O2 then?

Lamont: Thanks so much, was hoping you would weigh in. Very interesting. Spoke to Lynne about it last night, she too thinks it was DSC.

I did a half depth stop and took another 15 minutes to surface, according to my computer. But something happened.

Pericarditis? that smarts.

secondary to a flu?

I think larger POF's can be seen without the bubble study, can't they? (flow patterns or turbulence) I thought I was told that...good to kill two birds with one stone if you are having the echo anyway.

Careful with those bubbles now....don't be trying that at home.

Andy, my clothes weren't inside out, so I am assuming I did not.

 

[lamont]

yes. The detriment has not been apparent, unless I bonked. But yes, eating only a little, is something you have to gut through to lose weight. Then your stomach *shrinks* and you don't need as much food. In my house we refer to it as "auto-regulate" not diet. maybe that is a sign, when you talk in code?

I like that! Actually, I guess the bubbles interfere with the Hg binding to O2 then?

Lamont: Thanks so much, was hoping you would weigh in. Very interesting. Spoke to Lynne about it last night, she too thinks it was DSC.

I did a half depth stop and took another 15 minutes to surface, according to my computer. But something happened.

How deep was the 15 mins? If that was from 20 or 30 fsw, I'll amend what I just said and suggest that it might be DCS and you might want to do a PFO check.

Pericarditis? that smarts.

yeah, woke up on friday AM with chest pains and shortness of breath and had to go to the ER and hurt all day. not a good day.

secondary to a flu?

cold virus. but i was over the cold for 2 weeks before the pericarditis hit -- but my cardiologist still said that the infection was the 'smoking gun'

I think larger POF's can be seen without the bubble study, can't they? (flow patterns or turbulence) I thought I was told that...good to kill two birds with one stone if you are having the echo anyway.

yeah, but if I've got a smaller PFO that only opens under strain there would be no reason they'd see it on the color doppler AFAIK and those could still cause a CAGE. i'll have to talk with my cardiologist about it more, though, to make sure I've got that right...

 

[Cacia]

Well...good luck with that.

you don't have any reason to suspect it do you? (maybe I missed that?)

I ascended and paid 2 minutes at 60 ft and the remainder of the TDT-NDL=x 36-15=21 minutes

21-2=19 minutes. So..19 to the surface from aprox 60 ft.

more or less. That's the extent of my math skills.

So..is the "sickle cell" phenomena a binding site crowded issue for the 02 molecule?

I plan to read A13 post havent just yet.

Curious...are you on antibiotics? (viral, no point, unless prophylactic I am guessing) How about steroids, or anti-inflamatories? Any pleurisy or rib pain?

Was this something a flu shot could prevent, or from a common cold?
There are some ant-inflamation supplements I take. Inflammatory response is big on the horizon for breakthroughs, I believe, based on perusing nutritional research.
You should check out some of the new research out there...

I notice your friend George Bush even has C-reactive protein now on his cardiac work-up.
For sure, knock off consuming trans fats..and CoQ10 would be nice..even my UCLA cardiologist takes it

 

[Divedoggie]

This is a really interesting thread.
It sounds like there is a combination of things going on.

Lying very still in 73 degree water, in an old 3mm, will get a person pretty cold.
The colder you get, the more calories you burn.
If your eating less than normal, and there is nothing left to burn, it is very likely that you will react by being very tired, not thinking straight, and definitely shivering.

The aggressive profile may have worked just fine in the past, but the above stated conditions changed things and made you more suseptible to DCS than usual. IMHO there is a good chance that there was mild DCS adding to your feeling so exhausted.

Hopefully you won't feel like this again, but if so, getting some O2 in you might be a good idea, and have a Doc, who's familiar with DCS, check you out.

Take care!!!
From another SB Catherine admirerer