dry suit diving

[ags1013]

New to dry suit diving and I am concerned about 'immersion enuresis' I'm not one of those divers who "lies about peeing in the wetsuit"---I do it. Now with a drysuit, I'm concerned that my dives will be too short. Is it true that most people wear a 'depends' or whatever???? Thanks for the help.

 

[whoji]

Ive never really been 'caught short' in my suit.
I suppose it depends how many times you usually attend the call of nature during the day. If you go quite often it might be worth having a P-Valve fitted to the suit, otherwise just cross your legs.

 

[Mo2vation]

New to dry suit diving and I am concerned about 'immersion enuresis' I'm not one of those divers who "lies about peeing in the wetsuit"---I do it. Now with a drysuit, I'm concerned that my dives will be too short. Is it true that most people wear a 'depends' or whatever???? Thanks for the help.

Dry Suit diving changed my diving forever. Longer dives, more comfortable dives, safer dives, more fun dives - I love it.

You have 5 options:

1) The Jessie Owens method. You're first one from your team up the swim step and you high-tail it to the head. This has been my method for the most recent 2 of the last 6 years.

2) Depends. Well, uh, yeah.

3) Pee Valve. I just put one in (after 2 years of convincing myself to punch a hole in a perfectly good suit...) Working very well.

4) Under-hydrate. I've been doing this for the first 4 years of the last six years, but over the last two years I've been more focused on a healthy lifestyle and under-hydrating is not compatible with that - so I've moved to number one, above.

5) Do shorter dives. Not an option. My DS lengthened my dives. No way I'm gonna cut them short.

I needed a better solution than numbers 1, 4 and 5. This left the only practical options 2 and 3. I choose 3.

Get the suit and see how you feel. You may find your need to pee actually diminishes once you aren't surrounded in water and you may be trying to solve a problem before it even exists.

Get the suit.

Dive the suit.

Pick an option.

Have FUN!!!


---
Ken

 

[dave4868]

I'll just add that if you wear enough insulation to really keep your body warm, including your extremities, I'll bet you'll have almost normal non-diving levels of urine production.

Also, if you achieve normal levels of adequate hydration a day ahead of time, rather than trying to overhydrate on the morning of the dives, you won't create the "overload" effect and resultant increased urine production and distended bladder.

Even when doing long, cold dives, prior to my first dive, I'm probably well-hydrated by most measures, then I eat and drink moderately between dives and yet rarely feel an urge to pee until after the second dive, usually with no particular urgency.

YMMV, but keep warm in the drysuit and drink fluids moderately and you'll probably be producing less urine than in a wetsuit!

Oh, and alcohol has an overall dehydrating effect on the body, in case that's a factor for some....

Dave C

 

[TSandM]

I've got about 400 dives in a dry suit, and so far, no depends, but I definitely have done the full bladder high speed waddle after a few dives.

By the way, your concern is with immersion diuresis. Enuresis is bed-wetting.

 

[Fyshebait]

Most of my diving is drysuit, except for the very warmest part of the year. (And when I travel) In my experience, I have to urinate much less in a drysuit and in a wetsuit anyway...something about not having that cold water flowing around the kidneys maybe? I do a lot of multiple dives, and I stay hydrated between the dives (I can practically live on Gatorade during dive season) and don't generally have trouble waiting for the end of a typical 60 minute-plus dive. However, I dive solely on SCUBA with regular air, no gas mixes, no decompression diving, so I never get into the 2 hour and longer dives.

One thing I will never be without again, though, is a pee zipper in my drysuit...when you're doing 4 or 5 dives in a day, peeling a drysuit off to the waist between each one gets old fast.

I honestly can't speak about the pee VALVE; I've heard they work well, but I just haven't felt the need for it...the pee ZIPPER seems to be good enough. If I got into doing longer dives in the 2 hour range, with decompression stops, it might be different. So it really depends on yourself and the diving you plan to do.

 

[Fyshebait]

By the way, your concern is with immersion diuresis. Enuresis is bed-wetting.

So would peeing in the drysuit be "neoprenesis"?

 

[pir8]

So would peeing in the drysuit be "neoprenesis"?

ROFL

But seriously, all the women I know that wear a drysuit basically are just good at holding it. Of course depends is always a posibility if you can't.

 

[spooky1]

If you find yourself limiting dive times, the pee valve is certainly your best option.With a little practice and preparation it becomes a non-issue. I'd also recommenda quick disconnect fitting. They make the whole suiting up process much eaisier.

 

[pir8]

If you find yourself limiting dive times, the pee valve is certainly your best option.With a little practice and preparation it becomes a non-issue. I'd also recommenda quick disconnect fitting. They make the whole suiting up process much eaisier.

I've never heard of a female version of the P valve