Tingling fingers, hands and forearms during pool dive

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I am currently taking the PADI course to get scuba certified. During my first dive today (shallow end of the pool) towards the middle of the course, my fingers, hands, and lower forearms started tingling. I brought this up to the instructor, and he said to loosen my BCD, as it may be causing circulation issues. Still two hours after today's dive, my hands are still feeling like there is pressure on them, and they have a general dull ache.

I have been diving before, 4 years ago(before getting certified), and this did not happen.

I am 19, slightly over weight, and have ADHD(treated with concerta).

Is this something I should worry about?
 
Hard to know what the cause might be. Check with your doctor. Were you wearing a wetsuit or anything that could have reduced circulation to your arms? A tight fitting BCD may have resulted in reduced circulation. Again check with your doctor about the effects of the medication. You may to ask DAN if they have any information.
 
Odds are it has something to do with tight gear or some body position you were in. One for sure is, it is not any sort of nirtogen related dive illness (DCS/bends) if that is what you are worried about. There is no way you can go deep enough or stay long enough in any kind of normal pool for this to be a problem.
 
Reid,

Agree with the other posters in that this is not related to nitrogen and likely due to ill-fitting gear. Re the Concerta (methylphenidate), one concern specifically related to diving is that it may lower the seizure threshhold, which could increase the risk of O2 toxicity when breathing high-pO2 mixes like nitrox. I realize that you're not in a nitrox class, but it could become a concern later on as you progress in your diving. There are mixed opinions in the literature about this effect, though. One of the other medical mods, DocVikingo, is our go-to guy on psychoactive medications so he may have some additional insight.

Best regards,
DDM
 
I'm not a medical expert, but my drysuit seals and computer mount will leave part of my hands numb after a while. The feeling returns quickly once I loosen them, though.

I also find I can get bad headaches if I keep back and neck muscles tightened up during a dive, which can happen if I am working with a camera and work to stay in proper trim without adjusting my bouyancy properly...holding trim with muscles instead of adjusting the gear to keep me exactly where I need to be, if that makes sense.

Finding the cause of discomfort can be very difficult in my opinion...you don't want to dive unsafely, but I think that spending some more time in the water, trying to loosen or tighten things, shift them around, etc, can help. For example, tell the instructor you'd like to do the doffing-donning of gear drill, but leave the gear off for a while. Leave your weightbelt on, but set the tank and BC next to you. If you don't get the numbing/tingling sensation, you might know it's related to the fit of the equipment. If it still happens, it might be the wetsuit. It's a process of elimination.

Of course, don't try any of this if you or your instructor feel it will be at all dangerous.
 
Hi Reid,

As others have said, it's extremely unlikely that this is an inert gas-related complaint. You simply cannot accumulate an N2 loading adequate to contribute to DCI by doing only pool dives. Compression involvement of nerves in or above your arm, such as the radial nerve, appears far more probable.

As for medication, certain drugs can impact sensory nerves in the arm/hand with accompanying feelings of numbness, burning, pain or tingling. When this occurs, the sensations typically begin in the fingers/hands, with gradual progression up the arm.

While not among the top offenders, drugs of the methylphenidate class, such as Concerta, indeed do cause numbness, burning, or tingling in the hands or feet in some individuals. However, at normal doses such effects usually are transient and lessen over time. Nevertheless, if these sensations continue to be an issue you will want to mention them to the prescribing physician.

Just out of curiosity, you indicate being slightly overweight. You have no history of diabetes mellitus, correct?

Regards,

DocVikingo

This is educational only and does not constitute or imply a doctor-patient relationship. It is not medical advice to you or any other individual, and should not be construed as such.
 
Could possibly be a disk issue in your back. Each vertebrae and disk has an associated nerve bundle. Basically, the ones at the top of your spine relate to the upper extremities, lower spine, lower extremities. The weight and/or position of the BCD/tank, combined with posture, tension or even being a bit overweight may be compressing one of the disks against the associated nerve bundles. To start, do some stretching and back strengthening exercises and see if that helps.
 
Yes, this might be something you should worry about.

The bottom line is that I believe you may have been experiencing conditions leading to shallow water blackout. If it happens again, do not panic or breath deeply, just relax and get out of the water. Get some one to assist or watch you get out in case you pass out. Physical activity, like swimming, might help reverse the effects (but I don’t know for sure). You can also close your mouth and one nostril and breathe through the one open nostril. Or breathe into a paper bag or something similar. Sound weird? Let me explain...

Tingling in the fingers and hands is a symptom of lower levels of CO2 in the blood than normal (HYPOcapnia). This is often caused by heavy, deep, or rapid breathing (HYPERventilation) combined (I believe) with low physical activity, which causes you to expel more CO2 than your body produces.

The tingling fingers happened to me twice. The first time was self-induced a few years ago when I felt exhausted after shovelling snow. While resting afterwards, I felt like I needed more oxygen so I started breathing deeply, which eventually caused my hands to tingle, which made me think I needed more oxygen, which made me continue to breathe deeply, which made things worse, until my hands started cramping and seized up (tetany). By then I had been driven to the hospital, where the triage nurse immediately gave me a paper bag to breathe into and everything improved within a few minutes. Turns out I felt exhausted initially because I had pneumonia, but that’s another matter. The point is that the tingling and the hypocapnia (low CO2) was likely caused by my deep breathing (hyperventilation) while resting.

The second time I felt the tingling was the day before yesterday, after an hour or so of snorkelling in a shallow but murky lake, which kind of gave me the creeps (anxiety?). Later I wondered why my hands would be tingly, and then I remembered the time they felt tingly from my self-induced hyperventilation. This led me to think that the tingling had something to do with the way I was breathing through the snorkel - perhaps breathing nervously, or taking deep breaths or holding them too long without realizing it. This led me to search online for more clues. That’s when I found this discussion page. The tingling you experienced sounds like what I experienced.
I did more searching and that’s when I found out more about hyperventilation, hypocapnia, and shallow water blackout. Since no one else has mentioned hypocapnia or shallow water blackout in this discussion, I felt compelled to join this forum, and post my thoughts. Even if hypocapnia is not what caused your tingling, it is worth sharing, for everyone’s awareness and safety. I am not a medical professional, nor a SCUBA diver, so I could be wrong. Just consider what I’m saying, do your own research, consult with professionals, and draw your own conclusions. I’m just trying to do what I can to prevent something bad happening.

Here is my understanding of how shallow water blackout works, in a nut shell. When you hold your breath for a long time, your body will eventually react by gasping for air. This increasing urge to breathe is actually not induced by a lack of oxygen, but by a build up of CO2. That is, a larger build up of CO2 in your body creates a stronger urge to breathe. The flip side of this is where it gets problematic: when you have less CO2 in your body, you have less of an urge to breathe - even if you need to breathe! This in turn, makes you feel like you can hold your breath longer than you should, or breathe less than you should, and if you keep holding your breath or breathing less, you black out (lose consciousness) from lack of oxygen. If you’re in the water when that happens, you’re in big trouble. It is also worth noting, that you do not need to be in the water or at depth for this to happen.
You can read more about it here:

Freediving blackout - Wikipedia

The connection with hyperventilation is that hyperventilation (especially with low physical activity, I believe, like casual snorkelling) reduces the amount of CO2 in your body, which can cause tingling in the fingers, and make you feel like you don’t need as much air and oxygen as you actually do. Note however that the absence of tingling does not guarantee that you have enough CO2 in you!

The weird thing about my snorkelling episode is that I may have been hyperventilating without even realizing it. Maybe this or something similar is what happened to you in the pool.

For the record, about six hours after feeling the tingly fingers from snorkelling, I felt considerable aching inside and around my shoulders. I have felt this once before, and I think it was after hyperventilating during my pneumonia episode, but I don’t remember for certain if that’s when I felt it. I wonder if this had something to do with the balance of CO2 in my blood at the time, not unlike the effects of decompression sickness (which I have no experience with). I felt fine the next day.
 
@emuzing, you are responding to a thread from 2012.
 
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