Narc'd? First Deep Dive...

[fppf]

Everyone gets Narced, no way around it. Even if you don't "feel" it, its there.
Have them do a simple math test and see what happens at 130 feet.

I was at 126 in 45 degree water, found a really nice port hole. My wife said I cleaned the outside off really well, then started knocking on it and talking through my reg. She asked "Ok?", I said "Ok" we went on with the dive. Got back on the boat, she said "Did you see the anchor? It was next to that port hole." I said, "What Anchor?"

 

[DepthCharge]

One of them said he has never been narced; his breathing just gets louder and his bubbles tend to get louder when does deep dives.

S. Nagel

EVERYONE is narc'd at greater than 90 ft. EVERYONE. How one responds to it is different. If the brown stuff hit the fan..........watch how they respond. That's why any dives over 90 ft should be done with helium based gasses. I do all my dives helium based if I have the choice, or limit if I don't.

 

[MissyP]

So I did my first deep dive over the weekend, to around 126'
I definitely felt the martini law in effect; however, my buddy, with many dives under his belt, denied having ever felt "narc'd". Was this just machismo (LOL) or do some people really not feel the effects? Anyone?

Joh-
You've gotten a lot of good information already so I'm just going to add a couple of brief things..
First, you said your buddy has many dives already under his belt, so he's probably accustomed to the deep dives and narcosis. It doesn't mean he wasn't narced- it just means that he's adapted to it and doesn't notice it anymore. You, on the other hand, probably felt everything-- lots of new sensations, and were very aware of them... But in time, I'm betting that you wont notice them anymore (like your buddy).

2nd, you might've had a little anxiety/nervousness/excitement going on, which got your heart rate up.. That in itself could've contributed to narcosis...

Did you have a good dive at least?

 

[gcbryan]

I went to 130 feet in warm, clear water on my 10th dive, and didn't notice anything. On the other hand, I've had three episodes at 100 feet in cold water and poor visibility where I've frankly hallucinated -- scary.

I'm curious, as a doctor how do you explain that? I would think that the narcotic effect would be the same every time and that any other impairment that could vary would be from anxiety but how would anxiety actually cause hallucinations?

 

[lamont]

i did a dive the other day which hit 120 fsw and was at 90+ fsw for 30 minutes on 32% on scooters in low viz (nearly zero ambient at 100+) and particulates in the water so bad that it was like a snowstorm, trying to focus on managing the scooter, the cave line we were following, staying with my buddy, etc was very task loading and the snowstorm effect was considerably enhancing the narcosis that I was getting, but my brain was still 'tracking' the whole time. i was able to follow all the typical breadcrumbs out and back and identify where we were on the line at all times, and I made the right directional decisions, such as noticing when we hit the 'T' at 120 fsw and following the line arrow back up and then successfully making the 'jump' from one steel I-beam that the cave line ends on to the upslope I-beam even though viz was so poor I couldn't see from one to the other even with a 24W HID light...

then a couple of days ago i went on a dive in similar conditions, but just swimming around and at about 80 fsw i started to get really erratic in my ability to maintain buddy contact (which my buddy noticed and signalled to me, but i missed the signal), got disoriented and lost track of exactly where we were for awhile and was surprised when we hit a set of pilings that i had thought we had just left...

 

[lamont]

I'm curious, as a doctor how do you explain that? I would think that the narcotic effect would be the same every time and that any other impairment that could vary would be from anxiety but how would anxiety actually cause hallucinations?

anxiety -> faster breathing -> CO2 build up -> CO2 'hit'

CO2 is much more narcotic than N2

one of the other reasons behind using He is to reduce the density and viscosity of the breathing gas to reduce WOB and reduce CO2 buildup...

 

[joh]

Joh-


Did you have a good dive at least?

Absolutely. The wreck we dove was amazing, and I learned a lot. When I felt the "narc'd" sensation, I was just like "OK, so this is the "martini law" ..." I was pretty comfortable once we were down there although it was definitely a drastic difference in light level from the wrecks I have dove at 70-80 ft. My little light wasnt cutting it...

 

[DiveMaven]

The first time I went to 130 feet I didn't feel narc'ed at all until I looked at my computer and saw I had 3 minutes left. I totally went myopic and all I could think was that if I didn't get shallow I would run out of air in 3 minutes. I started up the wall, completely focused on my computer the whole time so I didn't go too fast, but also watching the big number go up. When I hit around 90 feet, the fog cleared and I realized that I had almost 2000psi in my tank! <LOL>

It was a great lesson in tunnel vision and my response to narcosis. The next time I went deeper than 100 feet, I was aware of my response to being narc'ed and was able to prevent that tunnel vision from happening.

 

[Drewski]

EVERYONE is narc'd at greater than 90 ft. EVERYONE. How one responds to it is different. If the brown stuff hit the fan..........watch how they respond. That's why any dives over 90 ft should be done with helium based gasses. I do all my dives helium based if I have the choice, or limit if I don't.

I'm sorry, but, respectfully, that statement is misinformation IMO. Not EVERYONE gets "narc'd" at that kind of depth. Could they? Sure, but NOT always. On top of that, "helium" (I'm assuming you mean trimix) get's REAL expensive when used on that "shallow" of a dive, EAN is a much better choice. Sure, 130 and below, consider trimix.

But, all this discussion aside, getting "narc'd" is really more an individual's EXPECTATION than EXPERIENCE. What I mean is, if you THINK you will get "narc'd," you WILL get "narc'd." You need to have a mental "toughness" to prevent this. When I used to dive deep air (130 to 170), we'd always "work down" to that depth. We'd start in a 140 FT quarry with progressively deeper and longer dives (it was darn cold too). Two weekends of this followed by a few 150+ FT offshore, then deeper. I always found that when I was well rested, prepared and had the "right" mental attitude about deep diving, I never had a problem. In other words, I functioned correctly, remembered turn pressures, tracked air and BTs without problems and had a clear memory of everything we did on the dive.

Did I practice math problems to "prove" it? Nope, I was too busy looking at the wreck...

 

[diverdan214]

One time on a deep dive I kept seeing these lights in the corners of my eyes, but I'd turn around...nothing there. After a while I settled down, told myself I was just narced and needed to go up a bit. A couple minutes later another diver comes seemingly flying out of nowhere and freaks the crap out of me (and yeah he had a light he'd been using to look under thing). At least it wasn't complete hallucynation but I was probably a little more paranoid about it than is normal.