Inner Ear Barotrauma - seeking opinions

[jadairiii]

I'm not an ENT, but my guess is that the inner ear issue made you a tad "dizzy" and that was your "euphoric" feeling. You could have also had some CO2 issues, not knowing your breathing rate, regulator or the amount of exertion you would doing. (or fitness level). Basically, you may have had a CO2 buzz.

But whatever it was, it was not narcosis.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

In any case : the "CESA" is a really bad .

Fixed it for you.

CESAs can be really hard on instructors, especially if some students need to redo them (which is not uncommon).

 

[gbirch]

So sorry to hear about your injury and I wish you a speedy and, hopefully, full recovery

As others have said, at this depth Narcosis almost certainly not a factor.

Question is whether the barotrauma occurred on ascent due to a reverse block (unlikely unless you had some sort of cold or congestion) or on the descent due to incomplete equalization, but the decent after 30 seconds on the surface for a training dive is not uncommon. How was the rest of the dive, did you complete the dive or abort?

Best wishes for your recovery

 

[Zef]

I often have problems equalizing after surfacing and descending. Just have to take it slow and continuously equalize on the way back down.

On a couple of occasions I have taken some long surface swims to avoid barotrauma injury.

Not sure exactly why, but I get congested after surfacing that causes the issue above. Not problem to do multiple dives with an adequate surface interval though.

-Z

 

[jadairiii]

I blew out a sinus cavity once years ago diving, now, almost every dive I will take a few squirts of a 12 hr decongestant (not a pill) and that does the trick for a day of diving.

 

[rjack321]

I don't think there's any evidence of narcosis. Your ear either didn't clear on ascent (a reverse block) or didn't clear when dropping back down to 30ft. Going slower and concentrating on clearing gently will hopefully help. Hope the time off lately heals your hearing

 

[Steve_C]

Beginning divers often try to keep up with the insturctor which can mean going up or down faster than is comfortable. When ou get better and start diving again, go at the rate that is comfortable for you. I violated this once 5 years ago on a dive with a buddy. Pushed through minor discomfort. Wound upnot diving for a couple months. got my hearing pretty much back.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Beginning divers often try to keep up with the insturctor which can mean going up or down faster than is comfortable. When ou get better and start diving again, go at the rate that is comfortable for you. I violated this once 5 years ago on a dive with a buddy. Pushed through minor discomfort. Wound upnot diving for a couple months. got my hearing pretty much back.

I see this more often on descent with new divers not trained to equalize often enough on descent and the instructor (or experienced diver) drops like a rock. I've watched people ditch me on descent as a result after I stopped being overweighted. My ears can handle it typically. But now I prefer slower descents being more in control.

A friend of mine first experience with DSD/Try Scuba was never taught to equalize. How he made it down to 20+ feet is beyond me. There's no way I could do that without equalizing. Then someone told him he needed to equalize.

So, I'm not surprised if this happens quite often. Too many divers are not properly trained and many divers, instructors included, have bad buddy habits.

 

[wgw04024]

I don't think I ever did a CESA for my OW certification. Is that common?

 

[CWC]

I don't think I ever did a CESA for my OW certification. Is that common?

Depends on the training agency. It is required for open water training with PADI, but not SSI. Those are the only two agencies standards I’m familiar with.