Underwater Nausea

[minex]

The OP get's motion sickness at the drop of a pin, so I doubt it is anything other than that. This maybe exacerbated by the fact they are diving some mud hole like Chatfield Res, and there is little in the way of visual references, or visual anything!

Well, I also scuba dived in St. Thomas USVI where the ocean was clear as glass. In this case, I got sea sick after being underwater for about 20-25 minutes too. The difference in this case was that we were diving near the shore and there was tons of underwater movement do to the crashing waves against the shoreline. At first, I thought that the underwater movement might have been the cause until I also felt nauseous on my weekend dive at a local lake with no underwater currents.

For those who are asking about the smell of the air in the tank, my wife got her air at the exact same place I did and she was fine. The air didn't smell funny or odd either.

 

[DandyDon]

For those who are asking about the smell of the air in the tank, my wife got her air at the exact same place I did and she was fine. The air didn't smell funny or odd either.

That's actually not conclusive as changes happen, but I think yours is a personal issue. Good luck...!

 

[bsumner]

This was an excellent response. I would add that for some divers, descending very slowly while remaining vertical may help with orientation and nausea.

There may be many explanations for nausea - indeed, starting from the basic movement sickness. But you may also have some CO2 excess issue, if you are breathing using shallow breaths or if you try to skip breathing in order to decrease your air consumption. This could explain while it goes away when you surface and breathe air normally. Do you also have a headache, feel tired or have other simptoms?

You may also have some inner ear barotrauma, if you equalize too late, forcing the ear too much.

Try to descend as slow as possible - take a few good minutes to get to the bottom, while equalizing very often, but gently. If equalization causes dizziness, you may have some ear related issue.
During your dive, try to breathe using ample inhalations (which you might now refrain from, being scared that inflating your lungs too much could make you too buoyant). Don't overbreathe though, because this can also cause some dizziness. But move enough air volume to evacuate as much of the CO2 in your respiratory tract and regulator as possible, in order to avoid accumulating CO2.

Diving in clear waters, where you can see the bottom and view your up/down movement as you swim might also help, while murky waters could increase an eventual motion sickness issue.

The symptoms that you describe on ground (reading while riding the car and so on) are not that uncommon. You have no major issue with those probably.

I tend to think that your problem is from CO2 retention for two reasons: (a) it goes away when you surface and breathe normally and (b) it is not aggravated by swiming on surface, in waves. Usually sea sickness is aggravated by swiming at the surface, not cured by it.

 

[BarryTX]

I don't know how they hold up under water as I've never dove with one, but the Scopolamine Transderm patch worked amazingly well for me above water. Maybe someone can speak to how well they hold up after you are underwater with them.

My one bout of seasickness to date was in very rough seas on a boat before dawn, pitch dark without a horizon visible and lots of diesel exhaust fumes. After getting hit with the seasickness I put the patch on. 90 minutes later all symptoms were gone and life was really good again. For me there was no drowsiness at all, my only effect was getting a bit thirstier. Water before and after a dive would handle that just fine. Some folks report an effect on colors in vision, but I didn't have that.

 

[vixtor]

Unless someone has more recent/thorough info than is included HERE, nausea is not a symptom of CO2 retention.

Maybe my books are old (or I don't understand something correctly, not being a medic or anything related), but my CMAS manual says the following:

Type: CO2 intoxication
Causes: Breathing of air with CO2/Breathing with pauses/Breathlessness
Subjective symptoms: Tachycardia/Giddiness/Nausea/Buzzings/Breathlessness
Objective symptoms: Breathlessness/Headache/Loss of consciousness/Heart rate deduction/Cyanosis/Laboured breathing

Also, it lists nausea as subjective symptom for: seasickness, oxygen intoxication, and stings from some jellyfish. As we can rule out stings and oxygen intoxication (I think he was diving air to reasonable depths, not nitrox over MOD), CO2 intoxication and seasickness were the only explanations. As his nausea went away when he surfaced, I was thinking that a novice diver could not breathe properly and therefore causing some CO2 accumulation.

P.S. I have checked and the IANTD OW book lists the same symptoms for CO2 intoxication (including nausea).

 

[vixtor]

Also, quote from the NOAA diving manual:
"Signs and Symptoms:
Occasionally, CO2 poisoning produces no symptoms, although it is usually accompanied by an overwhelming urge to breathe and noticeable air starvation. There may be headache, dizziness, weakness, perspiration, nausea, a slowing of responses, confusion, clumsiness, flushed skin, and unconsciousness. In extreme cases, muscle twitching and convulsions may occur."


Also, as DandyDon mentioned CO, nausea is a symptom for CO intoxication also (but I think this is out of the scope of this discussion, as nausea happened to this diver in many different dives)"
"CO exposure can result in pounding headache, nausea, and vomiting."