Wife got bent; we can't understand why. Would love some advice.

[261311]

I think we need to pull back from this just a bit.

24m max depth, 33 minutes under water, effects felt within 3 minutes of exiting? 5 hours total time for the medical resolution of the issue on just straight O2?

Even if the effects are loss of vision, paralysis and "tingling" in fingers and toes, the resolution and cause of this doesn't sound anything like DCS, up to and including a complete sudden and painless paralysis. You mentioned she was physically fit and well hydrated. Somethings missing, what did you guys do the days before profile wise? If this is by some medical mishap, DCS, we need to know the days leading up to and the activities in between. What is a "normal" ascent and descent to you? Given people mention everything from 5-18m per minute this is important.

DCS doesn't just randomly occur, you have to anger it in quite an abrupt and obvious manner.

Let us know what DAN says about this medically :S

 

[Rhone Man]

I think we need to pull back from this just a bit.

24m max depth, 33 minutes under water, effects felt within 3 minutes of exiting? 5 hours total time for the medical resolution of the issue on just straight O2?

Even if the effects are loss of vision, paralysis and "tingling" in fingers and toes, the resolution and cause of this doesn't sound anything like DCS, up to and including a complete sudden and painless paralysis. You mentioned she was physically fit and well hydrated. Somethings missing, what did you guys do the days before profile wise? If this is by some medical mishap, DCS, we need to know the days leading up to and the activities in between. What is a "normal" ascent and descent to you? Given people mention everything from 5-18m per minute this is important.

DCS doesn't just randomly occur, you have to anger it in quite an abrupt and obvious manner.

Let us know what DAN says about this medically :S

That was my thinking too. Extraordinarily rapid onset makes it sound very unlike DCS to me (the majority of DCS cases take at least an hour and sometimes much longer for symptoms to start after the dive - less than an hour only normally occurs if someone skips a whole lot of mandatory deco), and catastrophic symptoms like those would not ameliorate so quickly if it was DCS of that severity. Never say never, but it just doesn't seem to add up. I am guessing far more likely to be that your wife was somehow subject a marine toxin on ascent (stung, bitten or secreted) that she didn't notice at the time.

I am very glad your wife made a full recovery though, and I hope it doesn't deter you from resuming diving.

 

[theduckguru]

Did anyone investigate the gas in her tank?

 

[manni-yunk]

DCS doesn't just randomly occur, you have to anger it in quite an abrupt and obvious manner.

:S

Unfortunately - this statement is false. Sure, its not random - you have to enter a hyperbaric environment. But - beyond that you do not have to anger it in an type of obvious manner. There is any number of "undeserved" and unexplainable "hits" that people have suffered while honoring NDL's and ascent rates like a bible.

Sometimes.....it just happens. As much as we dont want to say it, we are all a little different, and how our bodies behave during off gassing can be different depending on a lot of unknown and unpredictable factors.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Also consider having her tested for MS.

 

[DandyDon]

Unfortunately - this statement is false. Sure, its not random - you have to enter a hyperbaric environment. But - beyond that you do not have to anger it in an type of obvious manner. There is any number of "undeserved" and unexplainable "hits" that people have suffered while honoring NDL's and ascent rates like a bible.

Sometimes.....it just happens. As much as we dont want to say it, we are all a little different, and how our bodies behave during off gassing can be different depending on a lot of unknown and unpredictable factors.

I've seen some much less deserved hits, that were much worse...!

Also consider having her tested for MS.

Well, maybe a thorough examination & tests - for whatever is possible.

 

[clownfishsydney]

As someone else mentioned, you can get stung by a marine creature without knowing it happened. Perhaps it was an allergic reaction to a venom that most of us only have a very mild reaction. Worth thinking about, but hard to investigate now.

 

[farsidefan1]

I took an unprovoked DCS hit in Cozumel a couple of yrs ago. I downloaded my profile to Duke medical for study. My computer and the tables loved my profile. I did find I had a pfo which is easily corrected. I didn't even have to spend the night in the hospital. My point is that you don't have to "anger it in an abrupt of obvious manner. Prior to my hit I had been on liveaboards doing 5 dives a day without any problem. In Coz I was doing 2 dives a day (Not overly deep or long) for 2 days then 4 very mild dives on the 3rd day. I got hit that night an hour or so after my night dive. The Duke dr and dr. decompression both suspected the pfo and wondered if I had done the "grunt thing" (holding my breath as I climbed the ladder back into the boat).
At any rate post surgery I'm back to my normal dive schedule with a few modifications. I rarely do more than 4 dives in a day (well, except for a live aboard to Palau - I'm only human and now I virtually always dive on nitrox and dive it like 02. Just a few modifications for a greater margin of safety. Another point is that what is fine one day may well not be fine the next day. Personally I think I got dehydrated walking into town the night before and the condition was exacerbated by the pfo.

At any rate I'm glad your wife is fine now and I agree you want to contact DAN and the med experts on this site. Also you need for her to be examined by a dr. with dive expertise. Opinions over the internet are by definition inadequate

 

[japan-diver]

Although these symptoms and the rapid appearance would indicate a DCS hit- the rapid clearing up of the symptoms with just O2 treatment and no recompression seems odd to me. On expedition dives we have seen DCS hits with rapid onset- with a few minutes of surfacing- CNS hits usually show up quickly- but in my experience although 02 will resolve symptoms temporarily recompression has always been needed so that they did not reappear. I would be thinking about the possibility of something other than DCS.

 

[TSandM]

I have a very hard time imagining something non-diving-related and medical that would produce four limb paralysis in a healthy young woman, followed by loss of vision, and completely recovery within a few hours. The closest I can think of was a patient I saw years ago with fat embolus syndrome, who became agitated and confused, followed by visual loss . . . but he was in the ICU on a ventilator for a few days before he got better. Still, fat embolus syndrome shares a few features with DCS, in that it produce symptoms by having embolic foci in the arterial supply to the brain and spinal cord. If the OP's wife had a shower of bubbles through a PFO into her central nervous system, I could see a syndrome like the one that was described being the result, as well as the possibility of rapid recovery.

We know a lot of divers bubble after the dive. For most of us, those bubbles are filtered through the pulmonary circulation, and cause no harm. But in someone with a large PFO, those bubbles may shower vulnerable neurologic tissue.

I agree with the PFO test. I doubt these symptoms are consistent with MS.