Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
I think he should go see a doctor. If the doctor doesn't come up with something I have had similar symptoms when I worked too hard without raising my breathing rate enough. Deep breaths helped immediately once I figured out what the cause was.I am at a loss to understand why several highly experienced and other divers in this thread are providing a new diver with information that "it could be" this or that malady which anecdotally might be no big deal. I worry that their good intentions are giving a young diver like Midu, plausible reasons for his near fainting under water, which are likely to give him a reason to blow off the potentially deadly incident, and not seek medical advice. Perhaps because I am an old guy, I have seen more than a few friends and acquaintances have some very serious medical issues with symptoms similar to what Midu has described. I would hate to read a future Dandy Don post about a diver death that might have been avoided by a trip to the doctor's office. To me, this is a no brainer.
I consider myself a healthy person, I am 30 years old, athletic and have no known medical conditions. I was recently in Cozumel and on one of the dives, a regular reef drift dive at approx. 60 ft, on 34% Nitrox, I was suddenly feeling very dizzy and felt like getting black in front of my eyes.
I was fully conscious and aware of what was happening which scared me and I opened my eyes wider to stay conscious and aware of the situation. Then after a few seconds everything was ok again. I did not analyze the Nitrox percentage myself which was stupid and thought maybe there was a mistake in the mixture but the dive wasn't really deep and blacking out is not really a side effect of Oxygen toxicity like convulsions.
Was could that have been? Anyone experienced something similar?
Hi Midu,
The article Kevrumbo linked has some good starting points, and I concur with the other posters who have advised you to seek medical attention. This could have been anything from a vasovagal response to a transient cardiac dysrhythmia. From the description it does not sound like diving-related vertigo, especially if you were drifting along at a constant depth. There are diving physicians in LA who can take help you you. Dr. Mike Strauss at Long Beach Memorial is well- known in the field.
Best regards,
DDM
Yeah I'll think about going to the doc. I never had any issues and like I said I am pretty healthy so this incident was therefore very surprising/shocking to me.
Thanks for the advise.
Yeah I'll think about going to the doc. I never had any issues and like I said I am pretty healthy so this incident was therefore very surprising/shocking to me.
Thanks for the advise.