I got bent without reason

[HowardE]

It makes me wonder if whatever happened to your knee was a result of DCS or that it was maybe something else that also just happened to get better in the hyperbaric chamber... Did you do anything else on the second day that could explain your knee? Did you have any other symptoms of DCS besides the pain in your knee?

R..

This is what I was thinking as well. Hyperbaric treatment of injury (HBO) is readily available, and has been accepted as a therapy for chronic pain relief. Without the results of a doppler ultrasound examination, the diagnosis of DCS is really just a hypothesis yes?

 

[bleeb]

I will say that it may be lack of water. I usally buy two of the big aquifina I think is how you spell it bottled waters and a couple of gatorades before I go out and drink them. I did drink on saturday but I now that I think about if I only drank one gatorade and one whole bottle of water on sunday. Which is a little less then normal.

I don't mean to pick on the OP, but I've seen sports drinks mentioned in several threads recently, and they're a bit of a pet peeve of mine as far as diving goes. Sports drinks have a lot of electrolytes in them. Most of them are designed for people sweating a lot, for long periods (>1-1.5 hours). If you're not loosing that many electrolytes, these drinks can either slow down the absorption of water from your digestive system into your body, or can shift water around inside you (out of cells), possibly leaving parts of your body less hydrated than desirable.

So if you're diving and hydration is a concern, you should probably stay away from sports drinks.

 

[TSandM]

What gets me about this story is the redness and swelling. That's much more typical of a mechanical injury to the knee than it is of DCS.

 

[bleeb]

My question which is maybe a stupid one. Can wearing a thicker wetsuit make a difference. I honestly don't know I know that nitrogen exits your body and I am assuming through your skin. I wore a hooded vest a 3 mil and a 1.5 mil on sunday which is more then I have ever wear.

It's not the thickness of the wetsuit so much as whether any parts might have been too tight. If a suit was restricting circulation to one limb or another, or maybe even just pinching off a major blood vessel a bit, that can restrict the body's ability to offgas, particularly from that limb. The same can also apply if something is strapped on too tightly, like a knife, watch or wrist-mounted computer.

That being said, I think it's more often the extremities (hands and feet) since it's easier to cut off circulation at ankles and wrists, than it is to tourniquet a thigh and cause a problem in the knee. Just how tight was your suit?

 

[Jax]

Hey, Medical types . . . .

Could something like stress fractures allow DCS to develop more easily in those areas?

 

[amnbowser]

Ok I am awake and can tell you there is not one doubt now in my mind that is was DCS. I feel back to normal 100%. I did not have any altitude after diving I dive in pc florida and live in navarre florida anyone that knows 98 hwy btwn those to towns knows there is no alt at all it runs right on the coast. I am chalking this one up to maybe dehydration it makes the most sense to me and I am going to get my heart looked at to be safe.

DIVE PROFILE
first dive 66ft -dive time 34 -water temp 70 coldest 3min safety
Second dive Surface time 1:33 -75 depth - dive time 39 min 3min safety
Never had a computer alarm for anything including accent rate

Next day

first dive surface time 20:10 73ft dive time 32 min -3min safety
Second dive surface time 2:48 75ft dive time 36 min -3min safety
Never had a computer alarm for anything sometimes I will get a 1 minute extra added on due to going up just a tad to fast but I didn't even get that for any of these dives.

 

[HowardE]

These were AIR dives or NITROX? If Nitrox... what mix?

If it was air, and you plan these dives using a dive table... You're off the table for dive #2 (both days) - meaning decompression stops would have been required.

Please provide as much detail as possible so people can get a better idea of your profile. What kind of dive computer were you using? can you download your profile?

 

[RonFrank]

The question is, did you get bent? The answer is not so easy to determine, but if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's likely a duck.

Your profiles look fine, but one thing missing is the ascent rate, and that can be critical.

 

[Walter]

Your profiles look fine

Actually, if he were diving tables instead of a computer, they wouldn't look all that fine.

 

[pickens_46929]

One other aspect beyond hydration that wasn't mentioned is the fact that strenuous exercise or work after diving can in fact induce DCS. Now I am not sure at how long after diving you shouldn't really do strenuous work or exercise, but that along with a mechanical injury might explain things.