Oxygen Toxicity and Bends

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Hello everyone: If anyone has experienced oxygen toxicity and/or DCS bends then I would like to hear about your experience. I am not as much interested in what you did wrong but what did it feel like. Details of how it happened are also welcome but not really relevant.

Thanks -

CS

 

[Mr.X]

At Catalina a fellow instructor (late 20's) did several dives shallow to moderately deep during the day. Then a hard game of volleyball in the afternoon in direct Catalina summer sun. At dinner he said his shoulder and arms felt as if someone had hit him with a bat. He thought he was dehydrated - then I told him to breathe some oxygen. He felt better immediately and then we called the chamber at Two Harbors.

 

[DogDiver]

Unless you are wearing a full face mask, Otox usually is fatal.


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[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Why would full face mask make it non-fatal?

 

[tomfcrist]

Why would full face mask make it non-fatal?

Because seizures aren't generally fatal. Inhaling the ocean on the other hand.....

 

[Superlyte27]

Oxtox is not always manifested in seizures. It could be a myriad of other symptoms. For me, it was almost always visual issues.

 

[tomfcrist]

Oxtox is not always manifested in seizures. It could be a myriad of other symptoms. For me, it was almost always visual issues.

Very true. I have had tingling start at my feet and roll up my body to my scalp. Damn it felt good, but scary at the same time.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I have never experienced oxygen toxicity, although I was tested for it by the U.S. Naval School for Underwater Swimmers. They took as to 66 fsw in a chamber and had us breath pure oxygen for a time (5 or 10 minutes--can't remember which), to see if we experienced symptoms. I did not, but one fellow did. He convulsed and went unconscious.

Here's some information on symptoms:

In this case the earliest symptom may be a convulsion which can develop without anywarning. It may sometimes be preceded by a variety of features such as facial pallor, visualor auditory disturbances, tunnel vision, faintness, or facial twitching – which are often notevident underwater. Nausea, retching and even vomiting are common with cerebral O2toxicity, as are anxiety and palpitations. There is considerable individual variation insusceptibility to cerebral O2 toxicity and an individual may vary in his tolerance from day today. It may be increased by anything that increases carbon dioxide levels, such as exercise,immersion, resistance from breathing equipment and nitrogen narcosis.
http://www.divingmedicine.info/Ch%2021%20SM10c.pdf

SeaRat

 

[kensuf]

I've toxed in a dry chamber while being treated for DCS. My experiences toxing involved puking on top of the chamber attendant. Three times. Please remember, when you do a schedule 6 (normal chamber treatment for DCS) they blow you to 60' and give you pure O2, and my CNS load was already high from a 300' dive that day.

DCS -- I had an open PFO, until I had it closed about a year ago, and got bent quite a few times over 3000+ lifetime dives. The most frequent type of bends hit that I took was what an old dive buddy used to call "slobbitis" -- edema and swelling in the belly area. I also took two CNS hits -- those involved visual disturbance, dizziness, and I fainted once. And then I also had a few cases of type 1 hits -- pain in the joints.

In every case I had 100% recovery by treating it promptly -- in some cases, pure O2 on the surface was all I needed to fix the problem. The worst recovery was the one I tried to ignore.

In the 11 months since having the PFO closed I've logged a little over 200 dives, including several long (4.5 hours) and deep dives (290'), and only had one case of mild skin bends (on a very hot day where I started a little dehydrated and got cold during deco on the 3.5 hour dive).

 

[MB]

Dude - treating DCS by toxing really sounds like a bad day at the office.