Tips for “Bubblers” - fatigue, headaches and recovery

[edwants2dive]

I would be very wary of any "self diagnosis" of DCI. If you go look out on WebMD I can guarantee you that you can find any number of ways that it will tell you that you are dying.

Heck yeah, according to WebMD I should have been dead years ago.

To the OP
I am still a novice myself but on my last dive trip found that the breathing method most of the other posters mentioned really helps with alleviating fatigue after my dives (as well as better buoyancy control). Oh and the Nitrox seems to help too but as stated by others there is no proof of that.

 

[Esprise Me]

I'm no expert in any sense, but I'm skeptical of the idea that headaches and nausea could be the result of subclinical DCS when I haven't heard of those being symptoms in diagnosed cases of DCS. Nothing wrong with choosing to be a little extra conservative, but I'd want to try to identify the real culprit, whether that's a too-tight hood, a too-tight grip on my reg, poor posture/ not enough strength for carrying my gear out long distances of the water or holding my head up in water, seasickness, or food poisoning. (I have at various times suspected all of the above for myself.)

 

[lowflyer]

[QUOTE="
2. Get on a vibrating bed for half an hour. Seriously. There was a paper written about this.
.[/QUOTE]

Seriously? If anyone has a "paper" on this as a preventative for DCI, please post it. Sounds counterintuitive and possibly counterproductive. If true, wouldn't a chamber ride include a vibrating bed?

 

[casts_by_fly]

There's something strange about this, @casts_by_fly.

I'm sure the water helps but it still seems very unusual to be getting killer headaches like that, especially at safety stop.

If I don’t have water before a dive and am dehydrated, then like clockwork when I hit the deck I get a raging headache. At that point I need to drink a bottle of water and wait a half hour, usually under a towel before I feel functional again. On the bad days, I can feel the thumping headache as I’m at or coming up from the safety stop. I don’t know if it is because I don’t notice it before then or something else but it is real.

Rick

 

[chillyinCanada]

If I don’t have water before a dive and am dehydrated, then like clockwork when I hit the deck I get a raging headache. At that point I need to drink a bottle of water and wait a half hour, usually under a towel before I feel functional again. On the bad days, I can feel the thumping headache as I’m at or coming up from the safety stop. I don’t know if it is because I don’t notice it before then or something else but it is real.

Rick

I'm not saying it isn't real. I'm suggesting that it isn't just a dehydration issue.

 

[aquacat8]

UnderwaterJess it says you are from California so I assume you are cold water diving. This is hard, especially if you are female and the gear might be harder for you to carry. You are really new to this, and it is strenuous. Unlikely that you’ve taken all the helpful steps many eventually do like switching to steel tanks, dropping weight, a better bc, good fitting wetsuit or drysuit, etc that make this easier. The breathing advice and hydration advice above is good, but also give yourself a break, it takes time to get used to this, go easy, and practice shallow.

The cold can give you a headache, bobbing on the surface or in a boat can cause nausea, carrying gear can cause body aches, but it all gets easier as you get used to it! We are very adaptable creatures. Once when I was a new coldwater diver I was frightened I might have DCS because my hands tingled for about a hour driving back from Monterey. Now I know, no way with that shore dive profile to 45 feet with long swimming safety stop at 20 feet: I was just defrosting and needed better gloves.

 

[KenGordon]

[QUOTE="
2. Get on a vibrating bed for half an hour. Seriously. There was a paper written about this.
.

Seriously? If anyone has a "paper" on this as a preventative for DCI, please post it. Sounds counterintuitive and possibly counterproductive. If true, wouldn't a chamber ride include a vibrating bed?[/QUOTE]
It is done before the dive.

 

[DBPacific]

If you're using weight belts, particularly with a lot of weight, it might also cause aches and extra exhaustion that might make you think of DCI. On most of my first dives (before I managed to slim down my weight belt by quite a lot), the belt would be full of lead blocks and rest directly on my hip bones.I now use a weight belt with pockets that soft weight slides into, and I require less weight which have both helped a lot, but I remember after my AOW dives I was fine immediately after, then within a few hours the adrenaline and excitement wore off and my entire body ached to the point that I could barely stand up straight and ended up calling DAN in a panic. They, my instructors, and I all reached the conclusion that it 90% probably wasn't DCI, and after dives to similar or greater depths post trimming my weight requirement, I figured out that it was probably the weight belt. Just something to keep in mind, and that there are aches and exhaustion that aren't DCI. You're about the same point as I was where I started to get comfortable and narrow down my weights, so keep experimenting and trying to get your buoyancy, trim, and weight needs dialed in. DAN does have pretty good on-call availability for concerns, but there are so many things that could cause your experiences, so try testing other fixes and making sure your gear is all decently fit just to rule those out.

Oh, and stay hydrated. I've gotten monster headaches after dives by not being well-hydrated enough because I didn't want to have to get out of 14 mm of neoprene to pee. I also don't think there's any hard evidence or study into periods and diving, but if yours make you cramp up and get nauseous, I'd stay aware of that and be even more careful to make sure you're getting enough iron and water if your period is more severe. Really just normal things that you'd do on land though. None of the other female divers I know have mentioned any issue diving on their periods, albeit half of us are on some type of birth control that screws up or completely stops our periods.

 

[lowflyer]

Seriously? If anyone has a "paper" on this as a preventative for DCI, please post it. Sounds counterintuitive and possibly counterproductive. If true, wouldn't a chamber ride include a vibrating bed?

It is done before the dive.[/QUOTE]

@KenGordon somehow the quotes are mixed up in your post, but are you saying there was a study showing that a vibrating bed before a dive helps prevent DCI?

 

[aquacat8]

Well, you are supposed to relax LOL