nausea and headache while diving. What cause it?

[cascbagrl]

How long have you been diving??

 

[Web Monkey]

Unless you still have the tank, nobody can really tell what the problem was. It could have been bad air, a migraine, lunch or dehydration. Could be pretty much anything.

However I will say that one of the prime benefits to owning your own tanks and getting them filled at a place you trust (a place that has a well maintained air system with frequent lab tests for the air) is that you're much more certain of what you're breathing.

It's just one less thing to worry about.

Terry

Hello fella divers,

I went diving with my friend in a quarry (Height Quarry in Kankakee IL) last Sunday to try my new diving gears. The first two dives in the morning were good but the last two dives after lunch were terrible. I had a headache around the back neck area and nausea. What could cause these? My dive partner told me that my headache could be because of tension. Tension? I felt quite comfortable underwater. My new BC worked much much better than rental BC (easier to control buoyancy). … Nausea was another big pain. I felt like I wanted to vomit but I didn’t. The feeling went away after I got out of water for only couple hours. Honestly, the nausea problem bothered me more than headache. My dive partner couldn’t guess why I had bad nausea. Could it be because I ate too much (one cheese burger and a hotdog) and waited only 30 min before hitting the water? Could it be that I unknowingly overheated my body? Water temperature at depth that I dove was about 70 degree and I was wearing 7 mm one piece (Henderson Hyperstretch). Could it be the bad air? The dive shop gave me a different tank for my afternoon dive. So I didn’t have to wait for the air fill. Both headache and nausea happened after lunch. However the air had no smell… It would be nice if I know the cause of it. So I can prevent it from happening again.


Please advise,
Patrick

 

[ppatrick]

How long have you been diving??

Each dive was about 20 min. So total dive time was about 80 minutes (4 dives). And I drank about half a gallon of water (two liters) during those four dives.

 

[TSandM]

If you do a search on headache, you'll find a recent thread where somebody linked to a nice essay they had written on headaches and diving.

Headaches can be caused by a huge number of things. One of the biggest ones in diving is CO2 retention, due to skip breathing or hyperventilation. Sinus squeeze can also cause it, as can the muscle tension required to dive when you are horizontal and keeping your head back. Clamping down on a regulator can cause jaw pain and headache. Mask squeeze can cause headache. Eyestrain can cause headache.

Headaches are often associated with nausea, especially if they are migraines (but other can do it, too).

Something wrong with your air is certainly a possibility, but unlikely if the fill was from a good quality shop. Did any of your companions also get fills that afternoon from the same shop? If several people came up with headache and nausea, that would be more of an indication that something was awry in the dive shop.

 

[ppatrick]

If you do a search on headache, you'll find a recent thread where somebody linked to a nice essay they had written on headaches and diving.

Something wrong with your air is certainly a possibility, but unlikely if the fill was from a good quality shop. Did any of your companions also get fills that afternoon from the same shop? If several people came up with headache and nausea, that would be more of an indication that something was awry in the dive shop.

Thanks TSandM. I'll do the search on headache. No I don't have migrain. My friend brought his own tanks. He didn't fill it at the quarry dive shop. Since you mentioned about clamping too hard on the mouth piece could cause headache, I remember that I've had jaw pain for a few days diving. However, jawpain was so minor. I ignored it. Thank you for your opinion/advise.