Vertigo??

[Kennyscot]

I'm a diver with over 100 cold water altitude dives..........
I was diving at Lake tahoe (6500 ft) (42-44 deg) the other day. Spent a couple of hours SI before the first dive. Had a short surface swim (100ft)...submurged and at about 5-6 ft cleared my ears (No pain) and then the water /everything started spining dramatically."complete disorentation" After a few seconds of this I went back up to the surface and within a minute or so felt fine. Submurged again slowly..everything normal. Same thing happened on the second dive but to a alot lessor degree. I have always have alittle trouble clearing. But this felt normal up to the dizziness. My new drysuit hood fits fairly tight around my ears, could this be part of the problem. I've done this exact dive many times before with no problems...Could the hood be part of the problem. I've heard cold water entering just one ear before the other might cause this? Any sugestions I feel fine..everthing. So what might have caused this complete disorientation??? Help... This was kind of scary.

 

[ealim]

Hi! I am a new diver from the Phils. Your posted letter caught my attention because I suffered a benign positional vertigo a day after my last dive. On the last day I dived, I had two dives ( 25 m, with SI of about 3 hrs, followed by an 18 m dive. The day prior to that I had 3 dives (30 m for 20 mins, with SI of more than 3 hrs, followed by a 25 m dive for about 29 mins, SI more than 2 hrs, then a dive of 16 m for 40 mins.)

My last dive was a Sunday, 3pm. Monday night I suffered vertigo. I was at home about to sleep. Everything is spinning! Worse, my hands got numb. I asked my husband to bring me to a hospital bec. I thought I was suffering a high blood pressure. I was discherged from the hospital after a couple of hours. My ECG is normal, my electrolytes are normal, but my potassium level is low (the doctors said that this caused the hands to get numb). Just like you, I need some answer if this vertigo is diving related. If so, how could we avoid it so we could continue doing what we love--- DIVING!

 

[cornfed]

My new drysuit hood fits fairly tight around my ears, could this be part of the problem.

Do you flood you hood at the begining of the dive? Letting water in will help equalize.

I've heard cold water entering just one ear before the other might cause this?

Maybe, there is phenomenon called alternobaric vertigo. Basically you have more pressure on one ear than the other (but not enough to cause pain) which causes vertigo. It happens to me sometimes on ascent.