i tried to fly out today and i ended up being bent

[Blastman4444]

Everyone has had the symptoms you reported in circumstances unrelated to diving. Having fatigue after a poor night of sleep may not necessarily be the bends. Tingling after sitting in cramped seat may not necessarily be the bends. Could it have been the bends? Yes but there is no way to know for sure. However given the dive profiles, post dive timeline, ambiguous symptoms with other more probable causes, unusually late presentation and anomalous locations it seems unlikely.

Since you ask I have had fatigue after a dive and that could reasonably be interpreted as a mild form of DCS. However it presented within the hour after the dive which is typical not almost a day later which is not. The problem with being asymptomatic for nearly a day and then having DCS symptoms is that you are getting bent without much inert gas. That is difficult to reconcile.

My fatigue was not being able to walk off the plane without being carried off, so I'm not sure what kind of fatigue you are talking about. Look all I'm saying is be careful with flying too soon if you were diving it happened to me. If you are diving and you experience DCS symptoms like tingling in the legs and arms, and this is something you have never experienced before get to a real doctor don't do a search on scubaboard and find a post like this telling you not to worry about it because it's fatigue or sitting in a cramp seat. I'm not the only one that has ever gotten bent flying too soon after diving even 20 hours later.

 

[billt4sf]

Hi Kell,

Thanks so much for posting this and answering questions again and again. The fact that it came up on SB again meant that at least one person read it (me) who would not otherwise have done so. I will for sure keep it in mind, as we have a dive vacation planned for next year and it would involve hops in small unpressurized planes.

After some time the Doctor comes back and tells me that they asked her if she thought if they should land, and she told them yes we need to land.


I think you owe that doc alot! Sounds to me like she perhaps saved your life or at least your health.

Thanks again.

Bill

 

[farsidefan1]

Just got done with 2nd chamber dive ill post more about what they said they don't think it was pfo. I was riding the edge and the fast asent in the jet plane triggered it.

How the heck did they decide it probably wasn't due to a pfo? That requires a fairly significant check. I know, I had a visit to the chamber and later had a pfo corrected. Still from the limited data I agree you were "on the edge" and got busted. Pfo certainly would not have helped your situation. I still suggest getting it checked. Lots of variables at work. Exercise after diving, hydration, "grunt" holding breath as you climb up the ladder. On one day you might be fine and another day you get bent after similar dives. Gald you are recovering, happy diving

 

[mheaster]

I was only in the caution on the 2nd dive the first dive I was about 3/4 the way in the green the 2nd dive should have been shorter. I'm sure the reason is the first dive we went though the front of the ship the 2nd dive we went though the back which is usually lower where the bridge and stuff is higher up the 2nd dive was deeper. I'm looking at the log so I'm assuming if it shows in the log that it was in the yellow then it was like that when I surfaced. I stuck very close to the DM about ran into him a few times so I'm assuming he is used to pushing his computer to the limit as well. The big issue I will point out I had was most of the time I just looked at my depth and air figuring nitrogen loading wasn't something to worry about since the DM had already planned it out. A big mistake I won't make again I plan on getting advanced and nitrox certified. I'm going to get a new computer with a bigger screen as well.

I cant help but wonder IF/WHY the DM wouldn't be diving EAN/Nitrox as I would suspect he does these type dives quite regularly . . . .
Do you know for fact DM was also diving AIR?

I know you were diving your own computer/s but if you were sort of tagging along with the DM and somewhat trusting him to stick to a safe type dive profile, do you know for a fact that he was also diving AIR like you were? May have been like comparing apples to oranges . . . .

---------- Post Merged at 07:03 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:20 PM ----------

The computer has 5 segments green, yellow, and red mine were all in the red at deeper then 60 feet it will flash if you ascend faster then 60fpm the log is not flashing the book says 4 segments is 51-60 FPM ascend rate. I hear a lot of folks say don't go up faster then your bubbles an old way of ascending. 20/20 hindsight this is all good learning I doubt I was bent before the plane ride not really sure how one can be bent with no symptoms the only way it is diagnosed is from the symptoms I had no symptoms until the flight out. The surface interval was calculated by the DM no one in the group which 2 had at least 500 plus dives 1 guy who lives in Tampa has been diving for 25 years didn't question the 2nd dive plan. It was supposed to be 17 minute dive, obviously it was greater then that. I suspect the DM was young and pushes the limit himself he was about 22 years old from what I could tell. He never said he was a DM, but I assumed he was they only say you are hiring a guide.

First, let me state - I am very glad you are OK and have recovered and plan to continue to dive!!!

I have to ask again though - Are you SURE that the young man hired to be your Guide (DM Probably?) was also diving AIR as you were or was he perhaps diving EAN/Nitrox?

 

[Chris Brown Tech]

My fatigue was not being able to walk off the plane without being carried off, so I'm not sure what kind of fatigue you are talking about. Look all I'm saying is be careful with flying too soon if you were diving it happened to me. If you are diving and you experience DCS symptoms like tingling in the legs and arms, and this is something you have never experienced before get to a real doctor don't do a search on scubaboard and find a post like this telling you not to worry about it because it's fatigue or sitting in a cramp seat. I'm not the only one that has ever gotten bent flying too soon after diving even 20 hours later.

Forgive me for not wading through all the posts on the thread and possibly missing something, but it immediately seems that you had symptoms that could have been unrelated to DCS. I have had several recompressions and ER visits for episodes that were either a) determined to be DCS by the hospital and / or DAN and later found NOT to be DCS or b) found not to be DCS by the hospital despite classic symptoms on admission.

You didnt do anything aggressive and I bet your MAX depth was 100' with your average somewhat less. I can tell you that your repetitive profile gets done all the time in the Keys without reported incidents. You also had a fair amount of time before your flight. If you did get bent, I would seriously get a PFO check.

Thanks for the thread though, its not something that should be blown off, but also not something that should continue to be made more and more conservative due to the lack of explanations / conclusive evidence as to why some people get bent on planes and most others don't. Just like repetitive dive days, OTU exposure limits and P02 tolerance, we just dont have the clear data unfortunately.

One thing I can tell you is that every 'undeserved hit' that I have been involved with through friends, colleagues and customers over the years has been either a) Dehydration or B) a PFO.

Get a TEE test done!

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the doc said if i had not turned the plane I could have ended up parlized.

A hyperbaric doc also told one of my customers that he got bent because he was diving mixed gas and that he / we were irresponsible diving with helium when its so dangerous. They recompressed him and sent him on his way.

Guess what? He had a HUGE PFO. All closed up now, happy ending thankfully. The DCS incident could have saved his life as he is 18 years old and could have suffered a stroke after clotting in an unrelated incident

 

[DandyDon]

Funny how expert opinions change so much on all this. We used to hear that coffee was bad when diving, but then they decided it wasn't. We still hear from chamber docs and dive pros that dehydration causes hits, but I know experts who have decided not so. PFOs have been the biggest buzz recently, even tho DAN studies do not find a connection. We know that 1/4 to 1/3 of people have PFOs, so we assume that the ratio is true for divers - most of whom don't get hit, and DAN's magazine had an excellent article not supporting testing.

I knew a lady who took a totally unexplained hit, in ICU for weeks - and they never did know why.

 

[Blastman4444]

What I have read is a chamber ride isn't going to hurt, but if it is DCS the quicker you get into the chamber before things progress the better.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

And anyone treated for DCS is by definition bent. In some of those cases it may not be possible to say with certainty that the treated individual was bent or not. The original poster falls likely falls into that category. It can be said that it was unlikely the OP was bent however.

You say that the decision to treat for DCS is often based on ambiguous symptoms, which is true, but it's also based on dive profile, time of symptom onset, and is made after taking a thorough medical history. It's also true that there are no definitive tests for decompression illness, e.g. we can't do an MRI and say, "Oh yeah, there's the bubble, you're bent." However, if we diagnose decompression illness, recompress the diver, and he/she responds to the treatment, it's a pretty good bet that he/she had DCS. If he/she does NOT respond to the treatment, we'll explore other etiologies, but it doesn't mean that he/she did NOT have DCS, especially if there was a significant delay in treatment. All told, I think that the statement, "...anyone treated for DCS is by definition bent..." is an oversimplification.

This diver made some provocative dives before flying and was asymptomatic before he ascended to altitude. The plane took off and he developed neurological symptoms, which improved when the plane returned to sea level. He was placed on 100% O2 and continued to experience relief of his symptoms, but they reoccurred when he was taken off O2. He was treated in a hyperbaric chamber and experienced near-complete resolution of symptoms. To me, this sounds like a textbook case of DCI. Can you support your statement that "...it was unlikely that the OP was bent..."?

How the heck did they decide it probably wasn't due to a pfo?

PFO is associated with sudden-onset severe neurological DCS, inner ear DCS, and cutis marmorata that occur soon after surfacing. This is presumably due to venous bubbles being shunted through the foramen ovale. It's highly unlikely that this diver had much of a venous gas load.

 

[Blastman4444]

I have 2 videos of the dives using a gopro camera I haven't posted because the camera was borrowed from a friend who has had the card I used until a few weeks ago I got the videos from him. Here is a picture of my computer at the start of the 2nd dive when we hit 98 feet. We are entering a hole in the stern of the ship my computer shows 13minutes left at this depth. I also have the first dive though the bow of the ship on my youtube channel from looking at my computer the first dive was good my acent rates were in the green on my computer I'm sure the issue was the 2nd dive. Ill be posting the 2nd dive though the stern which this pic was taken from after I get done editing it. In the video I keep looking at it, and now I remember why I'm thinking to my self, "Why does it already say 13 min we just got down this isn't good".

2nd dive picture taken from the video


Vandenberg bow dive - YouTube First dive though the bow using a gopro.

I cant help but wonder IF/WHY the DM wouldn't be diving EAN/Nitrox as I would suspect he does these type dives quite regularly . . . .
Do you know for fact DM was also diving AIR?

Here is a shot of the DM does not look like Nitrox


---------- Post Merged at 09:31 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 08:36 PM ----------

Here is 2 shots the first is my wrist computer showing 10 minutes at 80 feet it's a resource pro about 2-3 years old. The console computer is older resource pro about 5-7 years old it it's reading 0 minutes at 80 feet. I know it was hanging lower on the hose, but why so much different.



Here it says 19minutes, but also I'm in the caution on loaded nitrogen conflicting information here?