Should you have to dive with Nitrox before getting Nitrox certified?

[Mustard Dave]

The two biggest things you learn in the basic Nitrox course are maximum depth and how to analyze your tanks. You should also learn how to properly set your computer for the nitrox mix you're diving.

You don't need to do dives to learn this, but who doesn't like to get some extra dives in??

Why do you need to be on a course (and therefore paying) to get those extra dives in?

 

[Lorenzoid]

Why do you need to be on a course (and therefore paying) to get those extra dives in?

"Need"--no. But for the many divers who take the Nitrox course at a waterfront dive shop, why NOT jump in with the tank you've just analyzed, stuck a label on, and recorded in the dive shop logbook? boulderjohn's point about those who take the course at landlocked dive shops seems like the only reason NOT to proceed with diving your tank.

 

[stuartv]

I got my Nitrox card right after I finished OW, before I did my first non-training dive. In my first 30 or so dives, over half of them were with Nitrox. Of those, I had a number of dive days where, by the end of the 2nd dive or immediately thereafter, I got a bad headache. Sometimes it started while I was still in the water. Sometimes, it came on just after I got out. BAD headaches. Narrow vision. Slight nausea. On every occasion but one where I got a headache, I had been diving air. One dive day in the Outer Banks, in July, I dove Nitrox and did get a headache afterwards, but it was not nearly as bad as previous occasions.

I was concerned about it all enough that I went to my doctor about it starting around May, I think. I have now had an Echocardiogram to screen for PFO (don't have it, but was afraid microbubbles might be crossing my heart and going directly to my brain to cause the headaches), and a CT scan of my sinus cavities, and been to an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist, who happens to be an experienced scuba diver himself). The explanation seems to be that I have had acute sinusitis (and relatively frequent sinus infections), apparently due to mild allergies. Basically, I have had just a slightly drippy nose for so long that I was taking Zyrtec every day and no longer even noticing my own occasional *sniff* because of a little tiny bit of runny nose. The ENT looked at everything and scoped my sinuses and said I had chronically inflamed mucosal(?) tissues in my sinus cavities.

I am now off the Zyrtec and taking Flonase every day. The ENT said Zyrtec would thicken the mucosal lining and make it harder to equalize my sinuses. I did a course of steroids for my sinuses. And, at my ENT's direction, I'm using Afrin (a decongestant) every morning of a dive day. Since I switched to daily Flonase and Afrin on dive days, I have not had any post-dive headaches (in roughly 15 dives). But, I have also only been diving Nitrox - except for some short, shallow dives on air.

So, I feel like the primary problem with my headaches was deep internal sinus congestion. But, a contributing factor to headaches versus not seems to be whether I was on Nitrox or not. I can only speculate, but it seems like the enriched oxygen content in the Nitrox may have been, in some way, making up for the clogged sphenoid sinuses I had. I don't really know.

What I DO know is that, in addition to the other possible explanations for your headaches, it could also be sinus congestion. And the congestion can be in other sinus cavities than your Frontal or Maxillary cavities - i.e. your Sphenoid or Ethmoid sinus cavities, in which case you might not even realize you were congested there. I didn't.

 

[Storker]

"Need"--no. But for the many divers who take the Nitrox course at a waterfront dive shop, why NOT jump in with the tank you've just analyzed, stuck a label on, and recorded in the dive shop logbook?

Um, perhaps because it's a pain in the nether backside to suit up for an uneventful and slightly dull dive in sub-freezing air and near-freezing water, then breaking down the gear before it freezes and finally having to rinse it in the dark at the temperatures already described? At least, that's the reality for some of us...

 

[Lorenzoid]

Um, perhaps because it's a pain in the nether backside to suit up for an uneventful and slightly dull dive in sub-freezing air and near-freezing water, then breaking down the gear before it freezes and finally having to rinse it in the dark at the temperatures already described? At least, that's the reality for some of us...

And you do this kind of diving, why?

 

[boulderjohn]

And you do this kind of diving, why?

I think he was indicating that he does not do this diving, and would prefer not to have it required of him just to fulfill a meaningless requirement.

I believe there are a lot of places in the world where just jumping in the water with your newly filled nitrox tank is really not ideal, and the people getting nitrox certification are planning to use it either in a different place or a different time.

 

[Storker]

And you do this kind of diving, why?

Because my wife would object if I spent our common vacation budget on dive trips. Ergo, local diving, and this kind of diving is the kind of diving we have about half of the year around here.

With proper gear, it ain't bad, but I prefer to get away from town and dive at a decent site. The sites around town are basically suited for quarry type dives, i.e. not much to see. Which basically means "not worth it"

 

[Water Boy76]

How can you learn to analyze tanks at your LDS from an online class? Some hands on time with an analyzer is probably a good idea. If you go in an LDS and ask how to use an analyzer with a cert card you will get some funny looks. Not to mention the price of the online class is ridiculous.

I agree that dives are not necessary, although I had to do them (NAUI). Just another excuse to go dive.

 

[TMHeimer]

Of course we did analyzing in the course I took. I have yet to find a shop where they don't analyze it for you while you observe. I imagine they want to do it themselves for liability. If I were to go to some far flung place and dive nitrox I would consider buying an analyzer.

 

[stuartv]

Of course we did analyzing in the course I took. I have yet to find a shop where they don't analyze it for you while you observe. I imagine they want to do it themselves for liability. If I were to go to some far flung place and dive nitrox I would consider buying an analyzer.

I've gotten Nitrox at 4 places in the U.S. and one place in Mexico (and seen other people getting Nitrox at another place in the U.S.). They all analyzed it themselves (generally, when they did the fill - not in front of me) and then expected me to analyze it myself and provided an analyzer for me to use. The 3 places I've personally gotten Nitrox in the CONUS also had me fill out a line in a log book for each tank. The dive op in Hawaii brought me tanks to the boat and gave me an analyzer to check them with, but didn't have a log book for me to sign.

I still bought my own analyzer, recently, because of a couple of unusual situations that occurred where I wished I'd had my own.