Four hits count em

[Seadreamer]

Thanks for your compassionate responses.

Here are my dive profiles. I used the same computer, a Sherwood Wisdom, for all the dives. I don't have a cable to download full information, but here are the basics. By the way, when there is any depth involved, I never do square dives. I always end up with a comfortable margin remaining of allowed bottom time.

When I dive nitrox, I usually leave the computer set on air, for an extra margin of safety. I also make sure not to go deeper than 111 feet.

I always wear a lycra dive skin under the wetsuit, so I don't know if we could consider a neoprene allergy, as nice as that would be.

The shingles was a light case on my forehead, which had already started to clear before Ii dived, and disappeared within a week.

1. First hit.
9-30-05
Logged dive #67. Dive #29 in an 8-day period, almost all were on nitrox. (Deepest dive on the trip was #19, to 121 feet on air, stayed only 5 minutes at depth, with gradual ascent, accompanied by a friend who is an instructor. 50 minutes bottom time. 860 psi left in tank; .98 PO2.)

Other dives that day:
#64
On air
SI 13:58
Depth 118 (5 minutes)
Bottom Time 53
Beginning/ending psi: 3000/980
0.96 PO2

#65
32% Nitrox
SI 1:14
Depth 94
BT 53
Beg/end psi: 3000/1080
Ascent - red (which was probably a brief incident of a few feet, because it was a slow, careful dive)
Nitrogen - green
O2 - green
Did long safety stops

#66,
SI 1:36
32% nitrox
When I reached 22 feet my computer said TOO DEEP, and the indicator for deco was flashing on red. I aborted the dive at 6 minutes.

#67. SI 1:53. Computer was happy.
32% Nitrox
BT 79 minutes
Maximum depth: 40 ft, mostly much less.
That evening, about 2-3 hours after dive, developed pain in right ankle, and then left. There was considerable swelling. Attributed to possible injury on a difficult surf entry on dive #65.

2. Hit #2
9-17-06
Wreck dives on air.

#72:
Depth 98
Bottom time: 52 minutes
Beginning/Ending psi: 2800/510
Mask leaking profusely

#73
SI: 2:07
Depth 73
Bottom time: 50 minutes
Beginning/ending psi: 3000/910
Mask leaking profusely

A few hours after the last dive, developed painful, itchy rash on fronts of upper legs, which faded after several hours. Attributed to reaction to medication. In any case, the only way I could have reached a chamber was by air.

Hit #3:
12-1-06
Boat dives on air

#79 SI several days
Depth 52 ft
Bottom time 58 minutes
Beg/end psi: 2900/1180

#80
SI :59
Depth 56
Bottom time: 65 min
Beg/end psi: 3000/1230

About an hour after dive, developed painful itchy rash on front of upper legs; subsided in 1-2 hours.

Hit #4
12-6-06
Boat dives on air

#81
SI 5 days
Depth: 79
Bottom time: 53 minutes
Beginning/ending psi: 2800/890
Swam with turtle for quite a distance
Very cold after dive, on 3/2 wetsuit in 81 degree water

#82
SI 1:06
Fell while getting on boat and cracked a rib. Pain subsided within an few minutes, and did not bother me on the dive. However, it is extremely painful now.
Depth 58 (for about 1 minute; mostly at around 40 feet)
Bottom time: 58 minutes
Beginning/ending psi: 3000/980
At end of dive, saw a whale shark and swam very enthusiastically with it for maybe 10 minutes.

An hour after dive, began to develop painful itchy rash on front and back of torso, with horseshoe shaped bruises. Also pain in sides and back of thighs.

That night: Chamber ride 5 hrs
Next day: Chamber ride 3 hrs

Other questions:
I don't smoke and don't drink alcohol. I am not on any meds.

Hydration: I do try to keep hydrated, although I know I could do better. I think this was a contributing factor. On the last day, I drank about .75 liter of water before the first dive on the boat going out. Now I realize it should have been earlier in the day, although I had taken liquids earlier, as well.

Another contributing factor could have been that I got about 6 hrs sleep the night before the last day of diving; which is not uncommon.

PFO: I don't know if I have that, although I have been wondering. I'm not sure where to start to get it checked out, and from what I've read, I'm not sure what good it will do to know if I have it. I guess it would be one more nail in my diving coffin.

I am slender, and get at least some exercise almost every day.

I'll look through your comments, and answer any particular queries individually.

Seadreamer

 

[*Floater*]

Have you considered reading up on deco diving or taking an advanced nitrox course (up to 100%). Then if you decide to dive more you could carry an O2 bottle and basically do planned accelerated deco even for your rec dives to make sure you are extra clean every time you surface. Throw in a few deep stops as well, slow ascents, etc. Also, if you have a PFO then I think sometimes they can be closed which might help things - it's expensive though unless your insurance covers it.

 

[Seadreamer]

Diving Doc: Sure, use my story if it would help. I know it would have been helpful to me to know that DCI can manifest itself in the skin or bones. It was just my own gut feeling, and all the people I talked to said it couldn't be.

 

[Seadreamer]

How long did you have the pain in your ankles, that you just had to deal with?
And did you use you computer with all those other dives? Any problems with it?

The pain lasted a couple of weeks, and then subsided completely.

Yes, I used the same computer with all dives. No other problems except it is very touchy about ascents.

 

[Seadreamer]

"North of wheat fields, south of glaciers, east of the Atlantic, west of the Pacific." Must put you somewhere in Scandinavia or Siberia??? (Sorry, couldn't resist).

Oops, I posted too late at night. I've fixed it now!

 

[*Floater*]

Just saw this in another forum about a PFO closure operation. It may be premature to talk about them, but it's a nice link where someone talks about his PFO closure operation and includes some great diagrams. For future reference, just in case...

 

[Cheekymonkey]

Thank you for the informative post with so much information for us to review on it. I'd be interested to hear if you find out 100% what the issue is at a later time, if had to do with your rescent sickeness, an allergie, or if in fact it was DCI.

 

[JessH]

Yes, I used the same computer with all dives. No other problems except it is very touchy about ascents.

Your profiles do not seem to be out of the ordinary for what a lot of divers are doing, but they do seem to be pushing things a bit and it seems that you may be much more susceptable to DCS than most people. If you plan to continue diving you shoudl get checked for PFO and anything else that may be a contributing factor. After all that if you decide to continue to dive there are some things you can do to minimize your chances of getting hit.

If you do any more diving you may want to slow your ascents way down. Instead of 3ft at 15ft or whatever for your safety stop you might want to try something like 1minute at half max depth, very slow ascent from there then 2 minutes at 20ft, 3 minutes at 10ft and then an entire minute to ascend to the surface from there. You can pad this even more for additional safety, but I wouldn't spend more than a minute at the deep stop and would make sure as you get shallower your ascent is progressively slower.

Also from your profiles it seems like you are relying entirely on your computer and not doing much in the way of planning. This seems to be what almost all divers are doing these days, but it sounds like you would benefit from some dive planning.

Dive #66 stands out to me. It makes me think that you were pushing the NDL. You might want to switch to using tables for a while. You won't be able to do anything near the repetative dive profiles that you have been doing, but in your case that sounds like a good thing. It will also help you get a feel for dive planning and how various things effect your residual nitrogen level.

Also, when you decided to abort dive #66 how quickly did you ascend and exit the water? Even if you didn't spend long in the water you still had a lot of residual nitrogen so a quick ascent would cause bubbles. The red ascent in #65 also stands out. A quick ascent in any portion of your dive could cause bubble formation. Bubbles don't offgas as quickly as disolved gas.

If your computer is bending you then I would not continue using said computer. If you decide to continue diving then you need to be much more conservative. As I said I think using the tables might be a good idea. If you decide to use a computer I would get something that allows you to adjust the conservatism and set it as high as it goes. I would also get something that allows you to plan your dives in advance so that for example you would know that you couldn't go below 22ft on dive #66. You may also want to extend your surface intervals between dives.

~Jess

 

[DandyDon]

Gradual ascents are great, but nothing like DEEP STOPS. See This DAN article I do hope you're a DAN member, even if you get your insurance elsewhere.

They have other articles here too.

 

[Seadreamer]

I do hope you're a DAN member, even if you get your insurance elsewhere.

Thanks Don, I'll definitely join DAN if it works out for me to keep diving.

I do have a question that perhaps someone can answer for me. After I finished in the chamber, the doctor told me I needed time to heal and that I should do anything that causes physical exertion for at least two weeks.

I had always thought that the sooner one gets active, the better. Is he just being cautious, or should I really be this careful because of any residual bubbles, or whatever? I do get short of breath really quickly, but I feel so sluggish without at least some exercise.