Diving and extreme sleepiness!

[yupito]

I live in Miami, and most weekends (either Saturday or Sunday) drive to Islamorada for dving. Invariably on my drive back I have to fight to stay awake. This occurs after extreme bouts of yawning. It is becoming dangerous as I can fall asleep on the wheel.

I am healthy otherwise, do not have this same issue with the rest of my weekly activities. I don't do drugs or take any type of medication (other than an occasional Aleve). I make sure that I get to bed in time and do not drink alcohol the night prior to diving.

I dive with regular air. Don't exceed 100 ft, and most of my diving is in shallower waters and am fastidious in regards to safety stops.

This problem is a nuisance. I am becoming afraid of driving to dive as I don't want to cause an accident. Any guidance would be helpful.

 

[spectrum]

This post and the thread in general crosses over to you considerably so it's probably a good read.

Safety stops are good stuff. Make the final ascent as sloooooow as possible.

Consider doing drugs...... Just kidding.

How many dives are you making?

Your other activities do not involve moving through a medium 400 times thicker with air while lacing your blood with a narcotic gas.

One other item is hydration. You should feel the need to urinate on nearly every dive. How you act on that need is your matter. If not during the dive immediately thereafter. Otherwise you are not drinking enough. I make it a point to down a 1/2 liter bottle of water in the 1/2 hour before a dive and one after the dive or on the surface interval. You're looking for good volume and as clear as possible when you go. Avoid caffeine.

Pete

 

[TSandM]

How long a day are these diving days? If you're getting up really early, exerting yourself all day, and driving back late, you may just be garden variety tired.

However, I will say that I think ascent rates are key. I had one night where I did ascent drills with my buddy, repeatedly and not well. That night, I drove home about 7:30 pm and thought I was going to get in an accident, because I was so exhausted and unable to stay awake. There was no other explanation for my extreme fatigue. After that night, I got very wary about repeated ascents and about ascent rates. And I dive Nitrox, although the published literature doesn't support it really reducing fatigue.

 

[yupito]

Thank you all for taking the time to respond. Saturday was a four-bottle day, but normally I would only do two bottles and still have a hard time keeping awake. The bottles are regular AL80's so depending on the depth is between 30 to 60 minutes. I do keep hydrated, and normally go through a large Gatorade in each trip, two if I do two trips.

I tend not to wobble too much and maintain my depth but my ascent (to the mid or safety stops) could be too fast, especially the last few feet and my computer sometimes does give the sound alerts, I will try to control that on my next dive and see what happens.

 

[Rick Inman]

How's your stress level before/during the diving? Some people, following a stressful period of time, have a tendency to shut down. Both my son and my wife can literally fall asleep standing in place and you can't wake 'em up after a time of stress.

 

[amascuba]

However, I will say that I think ascent rates are key. I had one night where I did ascent drills with my buddy, repeatedly and not well. That night, I drove home about 7:30 pm and thought I was going to get in an accident, because I was so exhausted and unable to stay awake. There was no other explanation for my extreme fatigue. After that night, I got very wary about repeated ascents and about ascent rates. And I dive Nitrox, although the published literature doesn't support it really reducing fatigue.

I've experienced the same thing multiple times while diving air and making ascent rates that were too quick. Nowadays that I pretty much dive nitrox for anything deeper than 20 feet, shallower than 100 feet, and utilizing minimum deco ascents I feel like a spring peach when I get out of the water. With my limited experience I think it's something to do with nitrogen loading.

 

[drbill]

I thought residual nitrogen could have an effect like this as well. Can anyone verify that? I dive strictly on air, my ascent rates are typically very gradual (especially on my deep dives) and I fall asleep while editing my video footage on my bed.

You might consider diving nitrox to reduce the residual nitrogen in your body after a day of diving.

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

It sounds like possible decompression stress. What are your profiles like, are you pushing the NDLs? If this is the problem, a safety stop won't fix it. You would need to back-off on your profiles, especially if doing 4 dives per day.

With regard to Nitrox making you feel less tired, if you are pushing the limits of Air, and switch to Nitrox, then yes you may feel less tired because you no longer have subclinical DCS. However, if you're diving Air agressively, switching to Nitrox will give you a much larger buffer.

 

[Web Monkey]

I live in Miami, and most weekends (either Saturday or Sunday) drive to Islamorada for dving. Invariably on my drive back I have to fight to stay awake. This occurs after extreme bouts of yawning. It is becoming dangerous as I can fall asleep on the wheel.

Spectrum and TS&M have it pretty much nailed. I had the same thing, (almost drove off the road on the way home, and it was only a 45 minute drive).

Doing longer safety stops (5 minutes), switching to very slow ascents for the last 15 feet (2 - 3 minutes), being very careful to keep my overall ascent rate to less than 30'/minute, doing a deep stop, being very well hydrated (if you don't have to pee during a dive, you're not drinking enough) and switching to Nitrox all helped tremendously.

Now when I get done with a 3-dive afternoon, I feel as awake as when I got up in the morning.

Terry

 

[spectrum]

I do keep hydrated, and normally go through a large Gatorade in each trip, two if I do two trips.

Recent studies suggest that Gatorade and other sports drinks should not be the sole source of diver hyration. Alternate with portions of plain water if you feel a real need for such a beverage. Better still, drink water and eat food. I think this was published a few months ago in the DAN Alert diver magazine.

4 cylinders in a day is a good reason to be tired but done carefully in comfortable conditions need not be devastating.

Pete