Son gets headaches when diving

[Tumbler31]

Hello friends,

A few weeks ago, my son and I had a 4 tank dive scheduled on a private charter in the Keys. After the first dive, he began complaining about getting fairly severe headaches between his dives, and ended up only doing 3 of the 4 dives. He is 16, very fit, was certified at age 10, and has well over 100 dives, including a lot of dives 90-110. On these particular dives, we were spearfishing in 80-100'. He thinks he may have developed a bad habit of "skip breathing," which I had never heard of, but the way he describes it it means he holds in his breath for the duration of time that it would take him to take another breath. I know breath-holding in general is a very bad idea, and I don't think he was doing this while ascending, but I'd love to hear some thoughts.

Many thanks!

 

[boulderjohn]

Skip breathing can indeed cause headaches. I once saw a young diver get a splitting headache after a dive and then begin serious vomiting. It later turned out that, yes, he was doing serious skip breathing in order to stay down longer.

In reality, there is a continuum of breathing practices, with "slow breathing with pauses" as an acceptable practice eventually turning into a series of breath holds. Somewhere in that continuum is where you cross the line into skip breathing.

 

[johndiver999]

Skip breathing is very effective for spearfishing. Not breathing for a while as you close the distance and make the shot is probably more common than not. However, it is truly a dangerous game to play and it takes some time and discipline to learn when a tiny bit is ok and when it becomes a issue.

It is VERY likely that the headache is from Skip breathing and an excess Co2 levels if he self reports engaging in that activity. The son needs to stop skip breathing, concentrate on good complete exhalations, not over-exerting and NOT try to make a significant effort to conserve air supply. If the boat has oxygen on board, a few minutes is pretty much a miracle cure for the typical Co2 headache and is probably good proof of the cause of it, as well.

Often a spearfisherman will suspend (or significantly reduce) breathing, stalk the fish, swim for the fish and then immediately after the shot, have to sprint after the fish and then wrestle it in their arms. The sprinting and wrestling immediately after the breath hold, only compounds the problem.

 

[Alaskan Scuba Dude]

Advise your son to breathe slow and deep. It's acceptable to hold one's breath while stationary in the water column.

 

[davehicks]

CO2 headaches are pretty common with new divers who start trying to improve their air consumption. As mentioned, it comes from breath holding and not fully ventilating the lungs on exhale. This leads to CO2 buildup and retention over the course of a dive. The result is an icepick headache. I did this when I was stating diving and know exactly what it feels like.

The solution is proper breathing technique. There are lots of right ways to do this, and your instructors should be able to give some feedback. Personally, I will do a long slow inhalation on a 4 count, a brief pause, and then a long slow exhale on another 4 count. This works pretty well for me.

The other thing your son likely needs to work on is good buoyancy. When you are negative and sinking during a dive most people compensate with excessive fin kicks and hand movements. Get him to trying being absolutely still while not rising or sinking. Fine tune his weighting at the end of the dive, and work on using the BC and breathing to fine tune neutral buoyancy.

If he fixes the breathing pattern, he will never have another CO2 headache. If he fixes the buoyancy, he will not feel the need to breath hold to extend his dives. His air consumption will improve dramatically.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

Hello friends,

A few weeks ago, my son and I had a 4 tank dive scheduled on a private charter in the Keys. After the first dive, he began complaining about getting fairly severe headaches between his dives, and ended up only doing 3 of the 4 dives. He is 16, very fit, was certified at age 10, and has well over 100 dives, including a lot of dives 90-110. On these particular dives, we were spearfishing in 80-100'. He thinks he may have developed a bad habit of "skip breathing," which I had never heard of, but the way he describes it it means he holds in his breath for the duration of time that it would take him to take another breath. I know breath-holding in general is a very bad idea, and I don't think he was doing this while ascending, but I'd love to hear some thoughts.

Many thanks!

Hello @Tumbler31 ,

Were the headaches during the dives, or after? With the points about the risk of CO2 toxicity with skip breathing well-taken, another cause of post-dive headaches is sinus or tooth barotrauma. If he adjusts his breathing and the headaches continue, those may be considerations.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[Robert H. Diver]

He could have been dehydrated too.

 

[happy-diver]

Heavy exertion before and after used to do it for me

 

[GDHLEWIS]

Contaminated gas can also have that effect. Although you would normal taste something off. Just a thought

 

[chillyinCanada]

Contaminated gas can also have that effect. Although you would normal taste something off. Just a thought

Then the question would be why didn't the OP get a headache too? Were all four tanks filled at the same time? Did you see them filled?

That aside, it does sounds more like CO2 retention headaches to me. As has been said before, he needs to work on his breathing. Long slow pull in, *longer* slow breath fully out.