Handling cold water vertigo?

[MarKon]

Hi, every cold water dive so far, i've experiencing vertigo when the cold water chills my ear canal. Common enough occurrence, and doesn't last longer than a minute. However, I'm concerned that it could be a problem on a night dive, or other conditions where a minute of vertigo could separate my from my buddy, etc. My first goal is to become very non-buddy reliant (that's just a personal thing). However, how have people who get this vertigo handled it on charters or dive boats with their buddies? Is a warning sufficient ("Hey, early in our dive I'm going to get vertigo, chill with me and it'll pass quickly"?) Is there some established way of telling people? Always follow a line down? Or do people just try to deal with it as it hits an move on?

 

[elan]

I do not actually get cold water under my hood that easy. in fact I do not even feel any cold water. It does not rush in, it just leaks in very slow so it happens to be warm when it reaches my ears. Is your hood sitting properly ?

 

[MarKon]

Hmm, that's something I haven't thought of. Actually, the hood gets squeezed into the ear as I descend; and I pull it back from my face slightly to relieve the pressure, that's when I think the water probably rushes in (also actually caused some minor barotrauma when I pulled the hood to hard on cert dive, I just figured I was being a wus). Is there a good technique for stopping the hood from squeezing in without peeling it back?

 

[elan]

what you can do, and I do this from time to time with one of my hoods, which is too tight, you can pull it a bit when you are on the surface and can control it better. some water will leak in and you can try control how quickly it gets to the ears. If you are vertical it will first touch your neck and this would give it a little warmth. Some people pour a bit of warm water under the hood before the dive and if the neck seal is tight it will not leak down. This will help equalizing the ears. I never put the warm water though. It was not necessary.