Sudden and complete hearing loss from freediving. No "pop," no pain but now deaf in one ear for more than a week.

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Very modest dive profiles on that trip. ~60 feet max depths, mixture of Air and Nitrox dives, 60+ minute surface intervals, etc. She didn't mention anything about different hearing behavior at differing depths. Since she had absolutely no other symptoms, and no pain nor other odd side effects in her ear, we decided it did not need to preempt ongoing diving. We paid close attention in case something further occurred but nothing did.
Good info, thanks. At what point in the trip did the symptoms happen, and how many dives was she doing per day up to that point? Did you all take a day off diving partway through the trip and if so, did the event happen before or after that?

There was a FAR more fascinating aspect. My wife had two schwannoma cervical tumors removed a few years ago, and that delicate(!) operation left her with some balance and muscle feedback deficits. While she was on hyperbaric 100% oxygen, those deficits disappeared completely. The improvement was so striking that people who barely knew her mentioned it. She normally has difficulty walking, but now she was literally prancing and dancing like she was 30 years younger.

When she stopped the treatments the symptoms came back. It was no worse than before, but having been reminded how much she'd lost it put her in tears and modest depression for a couple of days.

Since that time I've been trying to find a site with true 100% oxygen-at-pressure that will give her a couple of weeks of treatment to see if we can replicate the results. I've offered to pay cash out of pocket. But so far no one will do it because "it's not an approved procedure for hyperbaric". Yeah, well, this is how unexpected discoveries occur!!! There might be a medical paper in this for someone, and I'm willing to pay CASH so there's zero cost for the facility. But so far the only takers are strip mall oxygen tokers who have those inflatable ~1.4 Bar partial O2 chambers and the "wear an oxygen mask with 10-12 of your closest friends in our room-sized tent" places. That will NOT replicate the conditions. We need the single-person, no mask, high pressure 100% oxygen chambers which are typically clear prone tubes. No takers yet, but my cash offer still stands.
That's amazing. Hers could be a publishable case.

There are clinical hyperbaric facilities that will treat off-label indications. The Louisiana State University hyperbaric unit has done it in the past. If you contact them they may be able to point you to someone closer to you.
 
Good info, thanks. At what point in the trip did the symptoms happen, and how many dives was she doing per day up to that point? Did you all take a day off diving partway through the trip and if so, did the event happen before or after that?
About midway through the cruise. I don't recall how many islands before and after, but neither number was zero. Dive days are sometimes back to back, other times there's a sea day between. Sorry I don't recall all the details.

There are clinical hyperbaric facilities that will treat off-label indications. The Louisiana State University hyperbaric unit has done it in the past. If you contact them they may be able to point you to someone closer to you.
We've tried with University of Tennessee (Knoxville) but the main folks wouldn't do it because it wasn't an approved treatment for her symptom relief. They passed it over to their Research group but despite repeated outreach on my part I never got a response.

Thanks for the tip about LSU. I'll try them. Hopefully we can find someone close because I think to truly test the situation she needs a session every day.
 
About midway through the cruise. I don't recall how many islands before and after, but neither number was zero. Dive days are sometimes back to back, other times there's a sea day between. Sorry I don't recall all the details.
Thanks for that info. I asked because even if the dives seem relatively benign by themselves as you described, multiple days of repetitive diving increases the risk for DCS.
We've tried with University of Tennessee (Knoxville) but the main folks wouldn't do it because it wasn't an approved treatment for her symptom relief. They passed it over to their Research group but despite repeated outreach on my part I never got a response.

Thanks for the tip about LSU. I'll try them. Hopefully we can find someone close because I think to truly test the situation she needs a session every day.
Most US clinical hyperbaric facilities will only treat indications approved by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS). Some providers might try fitting her condition into one of those indications given her surprising and robust response to hyperbaric O2, but others wouldn't. We are sometimes asked whether we can do treatments on off-label indications and call it 'research' but unfortunately it's not that simple.

Hope you can get some traction with LSU! Where in Tennessee are you?

Best regards,
DDM
 
This just popped up on my eBay suggestions... Mostly joking, hopefully you find a chamber that will conduct the experiment.

1724866012131.png


 
Hope you can get some traction with LSU! Where in Tennessee are you?
Eastern Tennessee, near Knoxville. That's why we approached UofT Knoxville's Hyperbaric department.

Any chance you know someone on the inside there? At least we could get past the initial gatekeepers....
 
This just popped up on my eBay suggestions... Mostly joking, hopefully you find a chamber that will conduct the experiment.
That thing is FAR more instrumented than the clinical ones she used at the original facility. The latter ones were almost entirely transparent glass/plastic, top and bottom. Still cylindrical, with a semi-permanent closed end and an openable other end. A gurney slid out of the open end on rails. She would lie down on that, they'd slide her in, close the door, and begin pressurizing. Pressure wasn't excessive, they reported "about the same as 40 feet down" so a bit more than 2 ATM or just over 30 PSI.
 
That thing is FAR more instrumented than the clinical ones she used at the original facility. The latter ones were almost entirely transparent glass/plastic, top and bottom. Still cylindrical, with a semi-permanent closed end and an openable other end. A gurney slid out of the open end on rails. She would lie down on that, they'd slide her in, close the door, and begin pressurizing. Pressure wasn't excessive, they reported "about the same as 40 feet down" so a bit more than 2 ATM or just over 30 PSI.
The chamber in the photo is a multiplace deck decompression chamber like you'd see on a commercial or military dive platform, only much more decked out. These chambers are pressurized with air and the occupants breathe O2 through a mask (or possibly a head tent if it's in a clinical setting). From your description, it sounds like your wife was in a monoplace chamber. Those are built for only one person and are pressurized with 100% O2. They both achieve the same thing.

Best regards,
DDM
 
Eastern Tennessee, near Knoxville. That's why we approached UofT Knoxville's Hyperbaric department.

Any chance you know someone on the inside there? At least we could get past the initial gatekeepers....
DM sent.
 
The chamber in the photo is a multiplace deck decompression chamber like you'd see on a commercial or military dive platform, only much more decked out. These chambers are pressurized with air and the occupants breathe O2 through a mask (or possibly a head tent if it's in a clinical setting). From your description, it sounds like your wife was in a monoplace chamber. Those are built for only one person and are pressurized with 100% O2. They both achieve the same thing.
Well, not quite the same thing. If the ambient in the chamber is just standard air (~21% O2) then the body is not experiencing the pressurized application of 100% O2 like she did in the monoplace chamber. There are plenty of strip mall "standard air with O2 masks" vendors around but that's not what she used, thus we would not be replicating the same conditions. That's what I'm trying to do: Replicate the 100% O2 at pressure over her whole body, like last time.

I have considered trying to convince our health insurance provider to pay for diving trips, using 40% Nitrox. It might not be 100% O2 but I personally believe the experiment to be worthwhile, and I'm willing to attend as her medical assistant. Might need to try multiple dive destinations to compare results. {grin}
 

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