Question Ever experienced Nitrogen Narcosis?

[Gone for diving]

I don't know if you learn to adapt or if something else physiologically but it seems to be random...but.... Influenced by factors like heavy breathing, dehydration, decent rate, ect

From my understanding CO2 has a large effect as well.


Some very good reading is this book,
don't know if it a verboten book, but there is very good information.... I highly suggest not to try setting a record on air at 400+ feet. But with practice it seems deep air is possible if acclimatized, and a bunch of other factor have to align...

 

[NothingClever]

From my understanding CO2 has a large effect as well.

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…I highly suggest not to try setting a record on air at 400+ feet.

Yeah, I’ll pass…that would be some chewy air.

 

[Ulfhedinn]

Love your AutoCorrect!

On a related note: I did a high-altitude chamber ride at one point and we got to experience cognitive problems with hypoxia. There were four of us, each with a handler. Each of us was given a task to do; we got to altitude we took off our O2 masks and started out tasks. One pair was playing patty cake. One guy was dealing playing cards, saying the value, and tossing it into a wastebasket. I had a sheet with little math problems on one side and a maze on the other. We were told when we felt weird or uncomfortable just to put our O2 masks back on, or at 4 mins they'd do it for us. I did all my math problems, worked easily through the maze, looked around to see how the others were doing. Suddenly a mask got slapped on me. We "descended," and then watched a video of us. The pattycake pair, one guy was still doing it, the other has just stopped with his hands on his legs, not moving. The playing card guy was saying, "...2 of clubs, 3 of hearts, jack of spades, jack of spades, jack of spades..." He was still tossing the cards in the waste basket, but his mind had stopped. My math problems fell apart about halfway through the page....I was still writing numbers, but they were randomly placed on the page with no relation to the problems; my pencil track on the maze just started at some random point and moved randomly. None of us were aware of anything unusual during the hypoxia.

Would love to have the chance to take a crack at this.

 

[lowwall]

I have many dives below 100', but none below 135'. I've never felt anything I would describe as rapture or drunkenness, but my thinking is normally impaired to some extent at that depth. For example it takes longer to read my gauges and then to comprehend what I've read. It's not a huge difference, but it is certainly noticeable. The best way I can describe the effects on cognition is that it's very similar to what I get when fatigued. Although thankfully without the physical discomfort or the need to fight nodding off.

I deal with it by being deliberate and thinking through what I want to do. You will also want to have enough dives that stuff like checking your computer, SPG and buddy location are all second nature. And you will want to have some kind of plan before you hit that depth. For a warm water multilevel dive that plan may be as simple as "ascend to 80' when NDL hits 5 minutes or gas hits 2000psi, whichever comes first"

 

[BlueTrin]

I can tell I am narced at around 40m.

It is particularly more noticeable during cold and dark dives.

For me, symptoms were that it is harder to focus on the right things and I would fixate easily.

 

[Celt]

No, it's unfortunate but this is not true. Many get narced enough to not remember parts of the dive, which they don't know happened until post-dive discussions.

Only the divers that ignore the first signs of narcosis,light headed, mild euphoria or giddiness, poor peripheral vision ( video footage you can't remember taking) a reluctance to leave the bottom on time. Loss of touch ( solid objects feel soft) and double vision or poor communication with a buddy or the surface. I've experience them all but I've always been able to give an accurate account of my dive to my stand-by. There's always a warning, but you can ignore it or choose to deal with it.

 

[JonG1]

John Chatterton and Gary Gentile have some good insights into the effects of deep air and its symbiotic relationship with co2 and narcosis.

In the mid to late 90s deep air was pretty much an SOP, in the UK we would routinely bounce to 65-70m as practice in quarries over winter.

Then summer wreck diving was air based to 45-60m with higher percentage o2 mixes for deco.

Often the effects were tied in with environmental factors, darkness, bad viz, tidal flow, confusing wreckage. As soon as your exertion level increased the effects would be more pronounced so we worked on moving slowly and performing tasks deliberately.

For me it was never fuzzy euphoria, more tunnel vision and an impending sense of doom and discomfort. Usually slowing down, taking big deep breaths and concentration on a task or bit of the wreck would centre you again.

Other occasions it was just time to go.

We would often have different recollections of what we had seen, but I never felt completely out of control and was always aware situationally in terms of gauges, tables, etc.

It is highly individualistic though and like alcohol can be different in terms of effect from day to day.

 

[Vicko]

I had one case where not only was I noticeably impaired but I also did something incredibly dumb before I actually felt impaired.

I was diving with a friend on a wall that goes down to around 70m, we were both on air, him on a set of doubles me in sidemount. I know that a lot of people reading this just rolled their eyes but I was young and dumb, mostly the latter. I still dive air to 60m no problem but this dive was a formative experience that changed my mind on helium.
We reached the end of the wall and he began to turn the dive but I still had well above 2/3 of my gas, and less than 30min of deco, so I decided to stay down solo for a couple of more minutes and check out some rocks.

The rocks were a part of another wall that was absolutely covered in gorgonias and red corral(the expensive kind), top of the wall was 72m, already 2meters deeper than I planed to go, so I said duck it and I went down to the bottom (that wall even years later is still the best wall dive I have ever done, it's absolutely stunning and looks like something that should only be possible in warm water marine parks)
Well, the bottom turned out to be at 89 meters, and I went there solo on air. I can 100% guarantee that if I had even the lightest trimix in my tanks I would have never done that and the absolute stupidity of what I had done hit me only when I came back to around 50 meters and my head cleared. I still remember the tunnel vision and lack of coordination that I clearly felt but was powerless to solve at depth. Not only did the "little bit" of narcosis that I considered manageable change my decision making and allowed me to do something stupid, but it also led me to "a lot" of narcosis that could have been fatal, even without the added risk of ox tox.

So yeah, i guess that i got narced a bit.

 

[sourdough]

The effect is horrifying, I wish there was more footage exploring the subjects during and after at various depth and time. It's like they're temporarily touched by madness. Alcohol doesn't impair quite like this.

 

[Belzelbub]

That's not done anymore in AOW; AOW now looks at color changes, and the cognitive/dexterity skills are saved for 130 feet during the deep specialty.

No, because that would have been a standards violation (assuming PADI). 100 ft was as deep as my instructor would do.

True. I got my AOW with SSI. So, it wasn’t technically an AOW course. This was during the Deep specialty.