I got bent and went to the chamber, but was I really bent?

[chickdiver]

Relax. yes, you made some definite mistakes. Learn from them. DCS is a sports injury- it's just like tennis elbow or a pulled muscle- there is NO STIGMATISM. You did the right thing by being treated.

As for your diving career being over- I was treated July 4, 1994 on Guam for DCS- I have since gone on to become a Cave Diver, Trimix Instructor and Cave Instructor- I have never had another "hit". I know numerous other people who have taken one hit and gone on to continue doing serious dives without incident- so it is definitely possible to have an isolated episode.

The very best advice you are getting is to educate yourself about decompression theory and decompression sickness. What you learned in OW (or most any other class) barely scratches the surface of what you NEED to know.

 

[outlawaggie]

-We did no decompression diving. I have an Oceanic computer (very liberal) that put us mostly in the green. We went 2 dots into the yellow twice but ascended a bit and it went down to only a dot in the yellow. We did loooong dives. About an hour each time. The first dive would be about 80 to 90 feet and the second would be about 60 feet.

First, let me say I'm glad everything worked out. I do not mean this to be accusatory or anything. I have an Aeris AI (made by Pelagic like your Oceanic so same algorithm) so if it was your computer I want to understand as well. Were you diving Nitrox? I ask because using the dive planner on air I show you can only dive 80ft for 30 minutes and 90ft for 24 minutes. Yet you say an hour. If you were doing multi-level and only hit 90ft for a couple of minutes I can see it.

 

[ScubaDadMiami]

Unnecessary chamber rides, handled properly, will not hurt you. Not doing a chamber treatment where you need one, will be much more likely to hurt you. So even if you weren't bent, other than possible ear issues (since you were having problems already), taking a treatment will not do you any harm.

One thing I didn't see in your post: Did you feel any relief from the treatment or while under pressur and on oxygen? Many times, where the symptoms are possible to be from various causes, the physician will base the final diagnosis on whether you feel relief when back under pressure on oxygen. If that is the case, you will more than likely have been bent. If you felt no relief at all, you may still have had DCS that didn't respond so it does not definitively rule out DCS.

I did an unnecessary chamber ride before when I felt numbness in my arms after a dive. It turned out that I had a herniated disk in my neck, which I did not know about, that aggravated from standing around with tanks on my back for prolongued periods of time while teaching students. I felt no relief under pressure while on oxygen.

I hope you feel better soon.

 

[goodknight411]

Other than what I learned during my classes, I don't know about DSC.
However in reply to your worry that maybe you freaked out a little and it was all in your head. I doubt it. You might have been a little freaked, but I know that doctors will always tell you that to overreact when it comes to your health is better than to ignore something cause you think it's in your mind. (well, the good ones will)

I'm glad everything worked out and maybe we can all learn something here.

 

[mech]

That barotruama thing is a REAL NASTEY ***** isn't it?
I mean no disrespect but could you have been somewhat over reacting from it?
Better safe than sorry .
Good call on calling DAN.

I can usually clear my ears by yawning, but a few months ago I nailed myself bad and in shallow water non the less.
I tried to equalize several times and went back up each time then I thought I got it about right and at about 30' I heard a big hiss sound in my right ear.
The next few days I was in some serious pain and I normally have a high threshold for pain,but I wasn't the one in an airplane...heck I could even feel the mountains while driving.
I'd probably been hard to deal with if a plane was involved and that's putting it pretty mildly.
It took about 4 weeks to heal and then I was not at 100%.
Hope you feel better.
Andy

 

[jbd]

The very best advice you are getting is to educate yourself about decompression theory and decompression sickness. What you learned in OW (or most any other class) barely scratches the surface of what you NEED to know.

Very true, especially regarding the last sentence. There is information on the internet and there are books available also.

 

[Wildcard]

One question I haven't seen here yet is which arm was it? Why do I ask? Well, I'll tell ya, anytime I hear "left arm pain" I do a full cardiac workup. Same with Jaw, neck pain. I don't know your age or Med Hx but an all out week like you had may trigger cardiac events. The eardrum rupture was clearly one thing, but was the pain related or not? Were you put on a cardiac monitor in the hospital and was a 12 lead done?

One thing to keep in mind is that MOST medical profesionals almost never deal with DCS and are realy not trained in it. I think I had all of five minutes in Paramedic school. Thats why I pay DAN.

 

[vjongene]

I doubt that you were actually bent. One of the consistent features of DCS is that it sets in within a few hours of the last dive, and essentially never more than 24h after getting out of the water. This being said, and as many others have pointed out, it is better to ride the chamber when you don't need it than not to do it when you do need it. I was told on Bonaire that everyone who shows up at the hospital with symptoms that even remotely resemble DCS goes into the chamber, and if this doesn't help they look for other possible causes.

 

[Snowbear]

One question I haven't seen here yet is which arm was it? Why do I ask? Well, I'll tell ya, anytime I hear "left arm pain" I do a full cardiac workup...

As a medic, if I was presented with a 28yo female c/o Left elbow pain, I would ask a whole lot more questions before considering a cardiac origin. Especially when chief complaint is actually a diving-related barotrauma after a week of aggressive dives, then a plane ride.

There are still many unanswered questions here....

 

[Albion]

As a medic, if I was presented with a 28yo female c/o Left elbow pain, I would ask a whole lot more questions before considering a cardiac origin. Especially when chief complaint is actually a diving-related barotrauma after a week of aggressive dives, then a plane ride.

There are still many unanswered questions here....

14 dives in six days may be aggresive in cold water but this is warm water right, i do 14 dives in three days and probably 30 in six days (now thats agrressive). I think some people are reading too much into this, please correct me if im wrong. I guess you were maxing at 90 feet but if your comp was mainly green then you were away from the NDL's and moving up the reef during the dive. Maybe you werent as hydrated as you could have been and the lack of sleep would not help, but it does not sound like a schedule that could lead to DCS. It is an unexact science and i could be wrong, but i do not think your dive plan was excessive. Disorientation due to the baratrauma sounds a more likely scenario.

Possibly an undeserved hit but seems unlikely, hope it heals up soon and that you will feel comfortable to go diving again.