Pain and Panic

[Dangerous Brian]

Thanks String. I will look up the number now. Your right about the gap. Warm sea water and cold fresh water, temp and bouyancy are both different.

 

[Dangerous Brian]

Will be more carefull next time

 

[Ber Rabbit]

How were you trying to clear that ear on the ascent? Forgive me if I'm wrong but the post sounds like you were trying to valsalva on the way up. That just puts more air in the eustachian tube and increases the pain. I can understand your pain, been there done that and it's no fun, hope you recover quickly.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Dangerous Brian]

Zipadeedoodah ber Rabbit. On the way up i only wiggled my jaw and swallowed holding my nose. I used to be able to equalise going down with just a very slight valsalva, sometimes not even that. No everytime I go down I have to put more effort into it and my ear squeeks, the equalises. It seems like there is a blockage in the inner ear and it takes preasure to get air in and a long time to get it back out again. A day after diving I can still get some popping and preasure release. Thankf for the good wishes.

 

[dive_lover88]

Get well soon and dont get into the water before you are well

 

[AXL72]

Brian,

I hope all turns out well with the ear.

I too agree that you had/have a good diving buddy. One that knows to look upward for ya, and one whith whom you obviously had impecable communication with to find out to help you get deeper to relieve the reverse squeeze.

I ran into a temporary scare with my ears too on a dive. I attributed it to cold air conditioning in my carribean hotel room stuffing me up the night before the dive. I went down, and mistakenly thought that I could force equalization on the decent with brute force of overworking the equalization with every foot of descent. This worked ok, but with slight pain and a very slow descent. At about 60 to 70 ft, I too had a sharp pop / whistle of one my ears. I thought nothing of it, and on the accent, I had slight discomfot, due to barely noticable reverse squeeze.

I decided to go down for the second tank dive of the morning, and I could only make it down to 40 ft, but on the way up on the accent, the discomfort was a bit more painful. On the surface, I thought I must have done permanent damage. I tried to clear the ears with tissue and q-tips at teh hotel, and after 4 hours, the pain had subsided. Whew, how lucky was I.

I seriously considered canceling 8 more dives for the week. However that evening, I turned the air completely off in the hotel room (sweated profusely) and practiced equalizing my ears. I was lucky the next day to feel up to diving, and fortunate to have not done permanent damage to the ear. I was able to descend without trouble on all other dives during the week.

After that, I promised myself that I would stay warm before every dive, and abort the dive if I ever had to work as hard again on the ears.

Another diver also suggested that before entering the water, equalize to avoid the first 2 or 3 feet of emersion from clogging the ears and challenging equalization below the water surface.

Anyway, hope that the ear gets better and that you get to dive soon. Also, koodos to your buddy!

 

[scuba-girl]

my first dive ever i ruptured my ear drum. i was in the dominican republic and was not about to loose my 320$ that i paid for the course. so i bucked it up and dove 4 other times w/ the pain. everytime i dove my nose bled and i was sea sick which i never get from the pain. nevertheless i came home to the states which was meserating from the airplane ride. went to the ent and was told i lost 60 % of my hearing. i let it heal on its own and a month later went back and regained total hearing back. so i feel ur pain. just remember start equalizing an hour prior to the dive. the ent told me to take sudafed and hour prior to the dive. i did that once, but forgot the next day and the equalized an hour prior to the dive was all that i needed. good luck next time!!!

 

[CaptainNemo]

Hi all, I hope this is the right place for writing this. I thought I would share this incident with you. Last week I went diving in Stoney Cove UK. The water was 12 deg and vis was about 5 mts. This was my 50th dive and I wanted to close the season before it got to cold out of the water. Me and my buddy done our checks and surface swam to the bouy, which is attached to the stangarth, a tug. I have always had trouble with my ears so we took a really slow descent . After equalising lots of times and pushing slightly more than I should have to equalise, my ear squeeked a bit and then was OK. At 23 Mts all was ok and we swam around the tug then followed the anchor chain, my ears were ok. We found the jeep and swam back to the stangarth. We then found the Mini car. This is where it started going wrong. I thought there was only one mini in the lake but there was two. One that was in about 19 mts and rising. The other at 19mts and descending. I thought I was at the 19 and descending one! (COMPASS!!!) Well, after about another 15 mts swim I heard my computer beeping, I was ascending quite fast, I looked at my buddy and he came towards me to stop me going up even more . I had a BC on and Dry suit. Both had some air in. I vented my dry suit but I was still going up to fast. I could not clear my ears fast enough and the pain felt like a hot nail in my left ear. I pushed the button on my hub to dump all the air in there. This is when Pain and Panic clouded my actions. I pushed the wrong one. I went up faster, the pain was so great that I screamed out. This all happened in about 5 mts. My buddy was looking at me and by now had stopped me going up. We slowly went back down till I had equalised my ear again. Then we aborted the dive. I could hear but not very well. My ear was popping and squeaking for ages. I have now booked an appointment at the doctors! I would like to make these points. I am stupid for diving with even slightly blocked ears. I may have damaged my ear for good. I am still getting slight pain now and again. I will not dive until I have 100% clearance from my doctor. This has re-enforced the pro’s for diving with a buddy, Everyone says at some time you will get a bad dive, this was mine. I am still thinking of it! Pain and Panic is 100 time more dangerous U/W.

Does this incident have anything to do with your screen name, lol? How does your dive buddy feel about diving with Dangerous Brian? I am glad you got back safe and I hope you are doing well. Stay out of that cold water.

 

[Dangerous Brian]

My screen name is nothing to do with the way I dive! When I took my OW my semi dry made me look like a TV character called dangerous brian (played by Brian Connely) My real name is Steve. Incidentally, My Dive buddy's called Rappid! and that IS due to dropping some lead at 16 mts! He was OK tho. Finally got doctors this Thursday. And will make sure she sends me to an ent specialist. My ear still feels funny, if the wind blows in it it feels like the wind is going right inside! Must be like a teabag or something! LOL. Anyway thanks for the well wishes. Hey Scuba -girl how can you equalize when there is no pressure yet? Do you just hold you nose and blow a little bit so the pressure is more on the inside? I remember coming back from Egypt with reverse block still in my ear a bit. On the way up in the plane was pure hell. Glad you can hear again.

 

[Ayisha]

...how can you equalize when there is no pressure yet?

Sure you can, try it. Remember, on the surface or on land, you are at 1 ATA. You use the normal valsalva (pinching nose - blowing) method or whatever method you usually use.

When I started diving, I used to take a long time to descend due to difficulty clearing. One of my instructors elaborated on the "equalize early and often" advice. She told me to equalize before the dive while on land/surface, as soon as my head was under water, and as often as possible. I took that advice and continue to use it, and it works wonders.

You may notice that after a day or two of diving, it becomes effortless to clear the ears. That's because the eustachian tubes have been getting a workout and are quicker to respond to changes in pressure.

I'm one of those people that used to get severe pain on the descent in a plane. My doctor told me to equalize my ears before the cabin door was closed, and to continue doing so throughout the flight. Voila - problem solved. Hope that helps.