Thanks tbone. That's where I would respectfully disagree - it's not essentially going back for more decompression, because you're getting in the water breathing O2 with the intention of treating a medical issue. While your symptoms were minor, seemed to resolve at depth on O2, and you suffered no ill effects, it's still a medical treatment.
Best regards,
DDM
Hi DDM,
I preface this by stating that i'm a clinican, but not in hyperbarics or environmental medicine.
In the case of more deco vs treating DCI: where do we draw the line, and does drawing the line really matter (I will ignore "professional relationships" for the purposes of this conversation, boat crew to divers, instructors to divers ect.). We have people treating themselves every day for a wide variety of illnesses and ailments with a pretty good success rate. The parent who treat their young for a cold/URTI with rest and proper nourishment, the athlete who does some physiotherapy type exercises when they tweak a muscle, the folks who take a glass of milk for their heartburn after supper; where do we draw the line on these for medical treatment vs doing what makes me feel better?
Should the athlete who tweaks a muscle and starts adding some specific range of motion and strength and stability exercises really consider this medical treatment, or just a change to their training due to how they feel? How about the parent taking care of their kid, no different from the basics of nursing care, or the milk after supper to settle the stomach? Each of these cases could be something sinister, but probabilistically speaking, it's a horse, not a zebra. Should the layperson be scared into thinking about rhabdomyosarcoma, meningitis or peptic ulcer disease?
I don't think the cases tbone describes are any different from any of the above situations. He recognized something wasn't optimal in how he was feeling and modified an activity he was already doing/had already done in order to try to feel better.
Furthermore, he has (from what i glean from his posts) a better-than-layperson understanding of what he is doing and the safety, risk and efficacy thereof.
We, the medical community, have already over medicalized (not sure if that's a real word...) much of life/health related things that people do everyday. In many cases this hasn't had much benefit, and in some cases has proven to be harmful (how many kids are overmedicated with psych meds? does an overweight but generally healthy 30yo really need to see their PCP before starting an exercise program, or does it scare them?).
I'm lucky enough to practice in a jurisdiction that is much less litigious than then US so perhaps this biases me in some way, but I'm hesitant to take something which can in one setting be construed as medical treatment and in another as something non medical and look at it through the lens of medical treatment in all settings - even if the goal is to get people feeling better.