How often you call a dive for ear problems?

[raider11]

Last weekend my wife and I were diving a local quarry. Saturday morning our instructor did check out dives with students and we practice a little to take the PPB cert. after bouncing for a while trying different amounts and distributions of weight we rested for 2 hours and made a dive with no problems. On the afternoon we did the first PPB dive, no problems there, great practice, I finally ditched 11 lbs of my pockets. Later that day we did our first night dive, another great experience, but I had some troubles equalizing, after ascending a little my ear cleared and had no problems the rest of the dive.

On sunday, the first dive of the day was going to be with our instructor and her 3rd check out dive students. My wife and I start descending slowly she had some troubles to equalize, so we went up a few feet a couple of times. I had no poblems until we reach the last 3 or 4 feet to the bottom, I went up a few feet and couldn´t equalize, my ears started hurting a little, we went up a little more and nothing so I called the dive, I finally could equalize at 2 or 3 feet from surface and my ears were hurting a lot. I didn´t dived for the rest of the day. I was feeling bad for my wife that stayed with me and didn´t do her second PPB dive. But every instructor and divemaster at the quarry told me it was a smart thing to call the dive and stop diving for the day, better dive next week or month than break my eardrum and maybe never dive again.

so, my question is. How often or How many time you have called a dive because of ear problems?

 

[robint]

it sounds like you weren't equalizing enough and bouncing around. This is pretty common in newer divers and causes the eardrum to get congested with fluid. No real damage to eardrum but you did the right thing by calling the dives for the day.

As for how many times I have called a dive for ear problems - many times. Mainly because we dive in cold water locally, I have found that there are days when I feel fine, my ears feel fine, but equalizing on the first dive of the day is difficult (could be allergies, something blowing in the air, cold weather affecting my sinuses or a mild cold coming on). Sometimes I take a Sudafed if I feel the problem is minor, but most times I just decide not to dive the rest of the day. This is especially true if we are diving here in winter, air temps near freezing but hotel room heat is hot and dry and blasting all night - by the second day of diving my ears and sinuses aren't happy!

Swimmer's Ear is a product we use alot here. It dries out the ear canal. A few drops each night works wonders. You might want to get some of that. Other people I have heard make their own mixture of vinegar and isopropyl alcohol (I think that is what they use). We haven't done that, we just buy the already-made stuff and take it on every dive trip.

Hope this helps!

robin

 

[ScubaSteve]

I have been lucky and only ever had problems descending once. That took me longer than normal to get down but the dive did not get called. For general health reasons (i.e. those pesky head colds), I have only called a day of diving once.

My fingers remain crossed that my luck continues.

FWIW, I agree with the DM. Calling the dive was the smart and responsible thing to do.

 

[dkktsunami]

Never had to discontinue a dive because of equalization problems, but have, many times, had to ascend a few feet and linger a while.

 

[GrlEEEgrl]

I have had ear issues from my very first time in the pool for OW. After numerous times at the ENT it seems I have somewhat conditioned my ears, but on weekends that I bounce a lot with classes, I do have trouble the 2nd day getting down. I typically will just go extrememly slowly - sometimes it takes me up to 5 full minutes to get down to the platform. Every once in a while I do have to call it. The best thing you can do is be honest with yourself and err on the side of caution. There is no dive worth risking permanent damage.

I have also seen improvements with the use of swimmer's ear as another poster mentioned. I put a few drops in my ears every night as well as right before and after a dive. When I get the bottle and open it for the first time, there is a little bit of space left in the bottle, which I fill up with peroxide. Seems to really help.

 

[Rick Inman]

I've never called a dive due to ear problems.

When I was new, I did pretend to have ear problems and called a dive 'cause I was scared. Also, I once had a reverse block on the return to shore and experienced major carnival-ride vertigo. I kinda crawled back to shore on the bottom. That was fun...

 

[piikki]

Hey hopefully it will get getter! It takes smarts to call it rather than bruise or pop an ear! Some of us just have trickier ears and will learn that takes us more time – or that some days a desired dive will not happen. Those dives with lot of ups and downs – especially in cold water on hot day – are absolutely nightmare for me. I try to avoid them or let people know how much of it I can (not) take.

I have very sluggish ears. Sometimes if I make even a minor mistake and hurry on descent I am sure to make it nearly impossible to reverse. It used to be so that second dive of the day was always worse on bad days but nowadays it’s actually the other way around: If I do the first dive right, things get easier for the consequent dives. There have been dives when it takes me over 10 minutes to get to the bottom (and it does not mean the bottom is so far!) but if it’s an interesting dive, and if I am not in pain I might persist, work on clearing technique and continue.

All you need is patience and a buddy who does not hurry you. The worst thing is to think you have to get down fast or that you have to do it for somebody else. Another thing is to make sure you will not lose control and go faster than you meant. Always come up if you feel that painful pressure build up. And always have ears checked if you suspect you hurt them or got an infection.

 

[don Francisco]

The problem is that even very mild, unnoticed barotrauma predisposes your ears to greater barotrauma later on. You don't feel any pain, but slight swelling in the tissues surrounding the ear make clearing more difficult. This starts a vicious cycle of rough clearing and more trauma.

It's kind of like biting your cheek or tongue. You go years without doing so, but once you do, it seems it keeps happening for a while.

The solution is to be conscious of your ears on both descents and ascents, clearing gently and often so as not to start the downward spiral to fluid filled ears. If you wait until you feel pressure or pain before clearing you'll be behind the curve and your ears will need increased recovery time between dives.

 

[TSandM]

I had one dive I didn't try to do, because I had a cold (that was in Indonesia). I have had one dive where I couldn't get down at all (was the second dive of the day). But I have had multiple occasions, especially on days with a lot of up and down, where I've gotten toward the end of a dive and found that I could no longer descend at all, but only stay or keep going up.

 

[diver 85]

none ever for me---and my wife also......remember, equalize early & equalize often--I start @ about the 3 or 4 foot mark(depth)....