Perhaps add in some dehydration?
Diver gets DCS on flight home from Bali
- Thread starter Seaweed Doc
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By the way, there is no reason to suffer in silence from suspected DCS on a long flight. Passenger airplanes are required to carry portable O2 for treating sick passengers. Have them turn the O2 up above 10 LPM to help flush the nitrogen out. That, while drinking a liter of water an hour for 2-3 hours or untill you are peeing normally, helps a lot.
If they find a doctor on the plane willing to have a look at you, remember the doctor is an idiot, and has never heard of DCS or how to treat it - you will have to talk fast and use small words untill the doctor understands what needs to be done. Many doctors are like an opinionated 10 year old, hard to teach new things. Others, willingly admit that they have no experience in that field and are willing to learn.
Michael
If they find a doctor on the plane willing to have a look at you, remember the doctor is an idiot, and has never heard of DCS or how to treat it - you will have to talk fast and use small words untill the doctor understands what needs to be done. Many doctors are like an opinionated 10 year old, hard to teach new things. Others, willingly admit that they have no experience in that field and are willing to learn.
Michael
No sense in checking to see if a doctor aboard then. Might just as well tell the airline attendant, drink the water, get on the oxygen, take an aspirin or two and call me in the morning.
It should be noted again, that this young fella was fine until his second flight ling distance flight. That seems particularly unusual for a dcs hit due to flying too soon after diving. Plus being in ICU due to some strange "virus" he picked up in Bali or on the plane, seems more than coincidental to me.
After the doctor starts to understand, you could ask for a saline solution drip IV, and maybe 1000mg of Aspirin (if you don't suffer from ulcers, and are not taking anticoagulants) followed by 325-500mg of Aspirin every 4 hours.
2nd level care would be an extended TT6 in a chamber and maybe LIdocain (which has been shown to work well on the neurological symptoms of severe type 2 DCS, don't ask why Lidocain instead of other anasthetics - no one can explain it but it seems work better than the others for DCS treatment as compared to treatment for pain).
Michael
and no, I'm not a doctor, not even a doctor of divinity. Others will have to sign the Rx's
2nd level care would be an extended TT6 in a chamber and maybe LIdocain (which has been shown to work well on the neurological symptoms of severe type 2 DCS, don't ask why Lidocain instead of other anasthetics - no one can explain it but it seems work better than the others for DCS treatment as compared to treatment for pain).
Michael
and no, I'm not a doctor, not even a doctor of divinity. Others will have to sign the Rx's
It's an 8 hour flight, they fly the same pressurised cabin, same altitudes as every other commercial flight.
According to Dr. Thalmann, symptoms may occur up to 12 hours later, delayed onset is rare but happens especially when flying after diving: Decompression Illness: What Is It and What Is The Treatment? — DAN | Divers Alert Network — Medical Dive Article
OP
It's worth remembering that the "bubble clock" might not start until you're at altitude on the first flight. The diver might have been fine at low elevation, but DCS is initiated on the flight.
On the other hand, the Dengue idea is interesting. I recall reading a case, I thought from Roatan but can't verify, where a very knowledgeable pro and a diving customer thought the latter had the bends when in fact they had Dengue.
there is lots and lots of ocean and very few airports between Korea and the US so there is not many options other than to wait to get to the final destination. Would suck to suffer that long on an intercontinental flight with DCS symptoms
the captain would probably also not want to fly very low on that long of a flight, would consume so much more fuel that it could become a serious issue?
In Dallas / Ft. Worth there used to b a company called Adventure Tours USA. The company offered flights from DFW to CZM flying on Fridays and Mondays. The vast majority of the customers (I used to work for the company) on the flight were divers. When I taught scuba in the metroplex I learned several of my students worked with the chamber. When they found I worked for ATUSA they made note that Tuesday was called Adventure Tours Tuesday or Cozumel Tuesday do to so many divers getting bent after flying back. The nurses, my students, told me many of the people admitted not waiting long enough to fly after diving thinking they would be ok.
This entire case sounds very strange. I suppose the physicians treating him recognised DCS correctly, but I would be very hesitant to draw any conclusions without knowing at the very least the pre-flight surface interval, the dive profiles, and whatever needs to be known about collapsing after the second flight with all joints hurting (which frankly sounds more like a virus infection than anything else).
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