Booze, Drugs, And Diving

[kaylee_ann]

Did you have your shunt placed? How are you doing, cleared to dive?

no, I didn't, since my ventricles were normal sized- they could collapse (cringe). what I have is called venous sinus stenosis. your brain veins (lol) that carry CSF around are narrowed in a spot or multiple, which blocks flow and causes annoying symptoms like I have. the treatment would probably be a stent. just like a heart stent, but in the brain instead.

for now, my med (Diamox extended release) is eliminating my problems. side effects sucked at first but are better. when researching stents and diving I couldn't find anything on brain stents being banned. the only thing is, diving can increase CO2 retention, which temporarily can elevate your intracranial pressure. that's why I felt like crap after last year's dive. and the symptoms are way too similar to the bends. apparently, if you don't have optic nerve or eye damage, you're fine. I have some old inflammation damage but nothing active due to meds.

ETA- only thing I can see being a problem is the diamox side effects can mimic DCS. every once in a while I get crazy intense tingles in my hands and feet. sometimes my face too, it's weird. and extreme extreme fatigue. pretty bad muscle weakness too. this is if I don't keep my potassium levels up. it's fine now, because I'm on top of it.

so I'll be returning to diving, yay! but I will go to a dive medicine doctor for clearance, just in case, since I do want to take AN/DP next September.

 

[scubadada]

no, I didn't, since my ventricles were normal sized- they could collapse (cringe). what I have is called venous sinus stenosis. your brain veins (lol) that carry CSF around are narrowed in a spot or multiple, which blocks flow and causes annoying symptoms like I have. the treatment would probably be a stent. just like a heart stent, but in the brain instead.

for now, my med (Diamox extended release) is eliminating my problems. side effects sucked at first but are better. when researching stents and diving I couldn't find anything on brain stents being banned. the only thing is, diving can increase CO2 retention, which temporarily can elevate your intracranial pressure. that's why I felt like crap after last year's dive. and the symptoms are way too similar to the bends. apparently, if you don't have optic nerve or eye damage, you're fine. I have some old inflammation damage but nothing active due to meds.

ETA- only thing I can see being a problem is the diamox side effects can mimic DCS. every once in a while I get crazy intense tingles in my hands and feet. sometimes my face too, it's weird. and extreme extreme fatigue. pretty bad muscle weakness too. this is if I don't keep my potassium levels up. it's fine now, because I'm on top of it.

so I'll be returning to diving, yay! but I will go to a dive medicine doctor for clearance, just in case, since I do want to take AN/DP next September.

Glad to hear, I hope you get back to diving and enjoy it very much.

 

[kaylee_ann]

Glad to hear, I hope you get back to diving and enjoy it very much.

thanks!

 

[Kimela]

For any of my fellow 'older' divers, here's an article by Peter Attia about how aging increases risk of dehydration. This seems especially important for divers.

 

[stretchthepenn]

I haven't read the entire thread yet, so apologies if I'm repeating somebody else, but I recall reading that Jerry Garcia was a diver, and he frequently/always dived while stoned to the gills.

So, apparently, it can be done successfully, even if it's not a safe practice.

 

[SlugLife]

I haven't read the entire thread yet, so apologies if I'm repeating somebody else, but I recall reading that Jerry Garcia was a diver, and he frequently/always dived while stoned to the gills.

So, apparently, it can be done successfully, even if it's not a safe practice.

"Can" is a bad metric.

The problem is that Scuba Accidents are the 1% or 0.1% random chance. For example, many of my first dives were solo, and I had no redundancy. I'm still alive, but that doesn't mean what I did was wise. If there was a 1% chance doing my first 100 dives solo would kill me, chances are I'd still be alive 99/100 times. But that doesn't make the behavior any less risky or stupid.

There are only so many times one can roll that 100-sided die before it comes up a "1." I've rolled that die a few times myself (in other contexts), and sometimes it's cost me but not killed me. Whether that's dangerous diving, driving, drug-usage, Russian-roulette, cliff-diving into unknown waters, or cave-diving without training just because someone does it successfully some number of times doesn't mean that luck will hold out.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

Whenever these type threads pop up on SB it gets me thinking, why are people so obsessed with needing to get high or impaired on something?
It seems Americans are the worst, IDK? It just seems that way. I look at the voracious appetite in this country for cocaine weed pills hallucinogenics, etc. and I just don’t understand it.
And trying to combine all that crap with diving just seems so counter productive. Diving is a pure and healthy activity and shouldn’t need to be enhanced or worked around by some psychoactive drug. Diving alone to me is better than any drug and given the choice I would choose pure sobriety and diving over anything else. Maybe I’m just getting old and value what time I have left.
I mean, it’s a free world and people can do what they want, I just don’t understand it.

Diving is pure and healthy, but it is a lot of work. Someone can sit on their couch and blast themselves into another reality for a short while. I'm not condoning drugs / alcohol at all, but having experienced my fair share of just about anything you can imagine under the sun and then some, I can tell you that's why people start. It's an escape. You think it's an easy escape, but in the end it's all fake.

Now being in my later 30's none of that stuff is even a thought, and if given a choice any day of the week I would choose camping, hanging with my kids or my new granddaughter, diving or any of the other real meaningful life experiences I can share with my family. It might be more work, but it's real. I love my life today, I don't need "beer googles" to "enhance" anything.

And you're not old @Eric Sedletzky, I've seen the stuff you post. The adventures you have would run circles around these video game playing kids out there these days!!

I haven't read the entire thread yet, so apologies if I'm repeating somebody else, but I recall reading that Jerry Garcia was a diver, and he frequently/always dived while stoned to the gills.

So, apparently, it can be done successfully, even if it's not a safe practice.

I thought I read Jerry switch drugs out for diving, if I remember correctly he detoxed on heroin while diving in the Carribean somewhere? That sounds awful to me, but at least he got off of it.

 

[BoltSnap]

my new granddaughter

Now being in my later 30's

You have a granddaughter and you are in your late 30's???

May Allah protect and bless you all!

 

[BoltSnap]

I haven't read the entire thread yet, so apologies if I'm repeating somebody else, but I recall reading that Jerry Garcia was a diver, and he frequently/always dived while stoned to the gills.

So, apparently, it can be done successfully, even if it's not a safe practice.

If he actually did, just like driving under the influence, you don't necessarily get into trouble the first or second time you do it but it catchs up with you eventually. You'll pay dearly for it, you either get hurt really bad or die or you hit grandma and her little granddaughter and they die or you do both. A most horrible and tragic end. I am certain that no matter how much "fun" you have playing the odds, it isn't worth it at all at the end.

I was an EMT when I was in grad school in NY and the most horrible tragedies I faced then were accidents and crimes because of alcohol and narcotics and burn victims especially children.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

You have a granddaughter and you are in your late 30's???

May Allah protect and bless you all!

LOL... it's either a family blessing or a curse depending on how you look at it. Every man in my family has been made a grandfather between the ages of 38-40 for the last 5 generations. We "hit the ground running" I suppose!!

She is one of the best things in my life that I never knew I needed.