flying before and after a dive

Hi,

I have read that you should not fly for the next 24 hours after a dive. Is that true? What about flying before a dive?

Thanks!

This topic has been well covered in the past few months on this board:
Flying after diving
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34116&highlight=flying

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16255&highlight=flying

Diving after flying:
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28277&highlight=flying

Readers Digest: Most agencies recommend waiting at least 24 hours after diving as a general guide due to DCI considerations.

Diving immediately after flying is also discouraged by DAN. Flying in pressurized airplanes which has very dry air can dehydrate you, and you may be tired from the long flight. Both are invitations to DCI.

Check out the Deco forum here on the SB. Some say wait while others say if you have deco'd 'properly' you can fly with "wet hair". Good luck with the latter.

The group I travelled to Fiji with was a very safety conscious, conservative bunch, led by a Course Director from an ultra-conservative dive agency.

We did not dive on the day of our arrival. That was a good idea, since we were all tired and dehydrated and hungry for real food from the long 12+ hour flight. We spent the first day eating and sleeping and acclimatizing to the 99% humidity and 99^F heat. Thank goodness for air conditioning in tropical hotel rooms!

We did not dive the last day of our stay either. That was a good idea as well, since there were other activities available near the dive site, like horseback riding and waterslides. Several people spent that whole last day sleeping. I spent it freediving. There are loads of things you can do on the last day that do not need to include scuba. One hillarious couple spent their last day drinking alcoholic mixed drinks, and joking that they had fasted from alcohol long enough, and this was their day to catch back up.

24 hours of no diving before flying seems like a pretty good rule to me. Why play roulette with your body by cutting the time interval?

I believe that if you want to become a happy, old diver, you should practice conservative skills. Ask not, how far can I push the envelope of safety? Ask, how can I be really safe, so that I can live to dive another day.

H2OHead once bubbled...
Check out the Deco forum here on the SB. Some say wait while others say if you have deco'd 'properly' you can fly with "wet hair". Good luck with the latter.

Click to expand...

Flying immediately after diving is UNSAFE! Anyone who recommends it flies in the face of well-established procedure, and the recommendations of ALL accepted experts and agencies.

Flying immediately after diving, most especially deco diving, is UNSAFE! As our very own Doc Deco has said: "Such a procedure may work for a particular individual in some instances, but when it fails, that failure will be most spectacular!":wacko:

There are, at present, variances in the recommended length of time between diving and flying. NOAA has a good table in their Diving Manual. DAN is working on what promises to be a definitive study.

To paraphrase what Mr. Natural used to say: "Use some common sense on the job, kids!"=-)

My dive computer (Oceanic Data Pro Plus) gives a standard 24 hour countdown for flying. In addition, it calculates the time to fly based on the individuals dive profile. It starts the countdown time when you get to within 10 hours to fly. I dive fairly conservatively and on two occasions, the calculated time was greter than the standard 24 hour clock. That is, it started the calculated countdown later than 10 hours on the standard 24 hour clock. I know this sounds confusing, but suffice it to say that even 24 hours MAY not be enough - if you trust your computer. Personally, I think this is probably a more acccurate system, even though each individual is different.

I've always waited 24 hours just to be on the safe side. I have gotten slightly bent because I drove up Haleakala on Maui 5 hours after diving. It wasn't bad and I knew the symptoms and we turned right around.

Be careful.

Ok. No flying for at least 24h after the last dive. Make sense to me. But the last message talked about symptoms. I guess that would be a good one to know. What are those? And what could the effects be?

lucioles once bubbled...
Ok. No flying for at least 24h after the last dive. Make sense to me. But the last message talked about symptoms. I guess that would be a good one to know. What are those? And what could the effects be?

Click to expand...

Symptoms of DCI? There are about 30. The most common symptoms are probably joint pain or tingling. This will be the second time I've recomended this today: I highly recomend taking the DAN O2 provider class. It's not very expensive, takes one night to complete, answers many questions on DCI and may save yours or someone else's life.

James