DCS phobia - help!

[hamati]

Hello,

I'm not sure in which forum to post this, but Cozumel is the place where I've done the majority of my dives. Your comments are very much appreciated because I'm in need of help.

I'm 41, very fit and a cyclist for 20 years, because of this I've never smoked or been overweight. I've been certified for 16 years now and since I was a kid I wanted to be a scuba diver. I'm certified AOW and nitrox diver, done almost 30 dives in those 16 years and I'm terrified of getting DCS since my 27th dive.

First time I dove was is Cozumel, deepest I've gone is 95 ft, I've done night dives too. Never noticed anything out of sorts after my first dives, just a very inflammed (but not painful) pinkie on my right foot after returning from my first trip (could not wear shoe for a couple of days).

15 years ago, on the first dive of my 3rd trip I was buddied up with a very novice diver that ran out of air (did not dive nitrox that time) at 70 ft and 24 minutes into a dive in Palancar Gardens, I gave my buddy my octo and he shot to the surface, me trying to stop him. He shot thru our safety stop and surfaced, I returned to do an extended safety stop until the group surfaced. At night I started feeling nausea and some anxiety, no tingling nor pain anywhere. The remainder of the trip I didn't eat much and my apetite went away. I called DAN and the Dr told me not no worry, it was probably a stomach bug.

Since then I've been very afraid to dive and done only a couple of 25 - 30 ft dives. After a long time (10 years) of being out of the water I returned to diving and was psyched. I was last week in Cozumel and did a shore dive with my instructor to check my bouyancy and air consumption...I aced the dive and felt comfortable in the water. The dive was 25 ft max and 55 minutes on air.

I was excited and wanted to dive from a boat the next day, but was very apprehensive about any odd sensation in my body. I started feeling anxious and in a fog about three hours after surfacing. The mental fog cleared by the evening and at night I felt nausea and a really bad pain in my stomach, some headache, tachychardia as well as slight diarrhea. I was in panic, my wife (who is not a diver) felt stomach cramps too.

I called the Dr in Cozumel and explained my symptoms and my dive profile, he said I should go see him so he could run some neurological tests on me. The moment I stepped into his office he checked my BP, and put a pulse oxymeter on my finger and told me that from my call he knew I wasn't bent and was very anxious. He wrote a presciption for some antibiotics and said I has a stomach bug and was running a fever and should not dive if I was dehydrated. When I asked him about the possibility of being bent, he said I didn't have any symptoms and I should look into geting therapy for my DCS phobia. I felt incredibly good after seeing the doctor.

I wanted to dive again during the week but didn't feel 100% and mostly didn't want to face the possibility of having to expose myself to DCS and go thru this again. I can't keep my mind still after diving, even if diving very safe and shallow profiles I keep thinking I will get bent and it's all downhill from there. I snorkeled the rest of the trip and felt so bad about myself for not having the courage to do it again.

I'm thinking of hanging my fins for good or maybe take up freediving. I just don't want to give up yet.

If you have been through something similar, please share your experience, it will be of great help.

Many thanks

 

[tbone1004]

welp, here goes nothing.

If DAN said not to worry, then I wouldn't worry. I would recommend taking a rescue class or working with a local mentor on how to best handle OOA situations with stupid divers. The alternative would have been to wave at him and let him do his thing.

My non-medical opinion.
70ft/24minutes on Nitrox, even with a quick ascent you are basically at 0 risk for DCS, just isn't going to happen, especially if you went back down and did a safety stop. I probably would have gone down to 30ft and done a few minutes there then come back up, but going back to 15/20ft should have been fine.
The Doc down there is probably right, you shook yourself into a panic attack and that caused your body to blow up. You need to learn how to calm yourself down, not sure the best way of doing this is, I know how I'd attack it, but it isn't for everyone. Best thing is really to find someone local to mentor you so you aren't on a trip trying to dive and get out of your own head.

If you're that concerned about DCS, the safest thing is to dive nitrox using air tables. From the sounds of it you haven't been bent, you aren't diving any profiles that are liable to get you bent *keep in mind the safety factors involved in these tables btw*, and staying in recreational levels you aren't likely going to venture into any profiles that would push it.

Gear solution would be to buy a computer like a Shearwater Petrel that gives you the tissue loading graph for each of the compartments in real time, allows you to set gradient factors *important because the lower you set the top number the better chances of avoiding dcs are, despite shorter ndl's and longer safety/deco stops*, you can also get AN/DP certified so you can then deco on O2 when available, or on backgas and that solves the training problems for you. Lots of options out there, but the biggest one is you have to get out of your own head.

 

[scorpiofish]

The fact that the doctor in Coz said you weren't bent is a very good sign The only way to know for sure is to put you in a chamber. If it helps, then you were bent. Hence, their predisposition to put you in the chamber.

I've seen lots of crazy stuff and people didn't get bent. Sometimes it just happens. My better half has had skin bends three times and done one chamber ride. If you want to reduce you risk of DCS to almost zero: 1) Dive nitrox with computer set on air 2) Don't go past 70 ft., spend as little time deeper as possible 3) stay hydrated 4) limit yourself to 3 dives a day and 5) minimum surface interval of at least 1 hour, preferably 1.5.

Do these things and the odds of getting bent are very low. Dive and don't worry about it.

 

[boulderjohn]

Here are some facts related to DCS that you should consider:

1. There are many varied symptoms of DCS. That is one of the problems with diagnosing it accurately. Even with that large list of symptoms, the symptoms you describe are not among them. Your symptoms, as the doctors suggest, are more about anxiety than DCS.

2. The incidence rate of DCS on all dives is about 0.02%. But all dives do not have an equal risk. Many dives are much riskier than others, and they raise the incidence rate. The dives you are describing are at the other end of the spectrum, with very close to a 0% possibility. There is always some chance, but....

3. If you defied all odds and got DCS on the dives you are describing, the worst case scenario would almost certainly be a less than handful of hours in the chamber. The cases that get really serious are much bigger and deeper dives than that.

I'm just some guy on the Internet. Why should you believe me? Good question. The thing to do is to check it out and read as much as you can about DCS. If you read enough, you will find that for the kind of diving you want to do, it is simply not the bogeyman you think it is. Once you realize that on an intellectual level, you can start working on getting the rest of your body to believe it.

 

[Dan G]

+1 on John's comments above. The more you know the better you may feel. I say "may," because as you acknowledge in the thread title, this is a phobia, which is an irrational fear. You can also consider looking into that side of this issue. I do not know much about phobias, but do people who have a fear of flying overcome their phobia by learning about aeronautics? If so, reading up on DCS may help you, too. If not, read up on phobias and how to overcome them. You do not what your phobia to become a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[dlofting]

...was very apprehensive about any odd sensation in my body. I started feeling anxious and in a fog about three hours after surfacing. The mental fog cleared by the evening and at night I felt nausea and a really bad pain in my stomach, some headache, tachychardia as well as slight diarrhea.

When I asked him about the possibility of being bent, he said I didn't have any symptoms and I should look into geting therapy for my DCS phobia.

If you have been through something similar, please share your experience, it will be of great help.

This sounds like a classic case of anxiety, perhaps even a panic attack......I suffer from the same thing although it's not related to a fear of DCS. If it persists I'd suggest you follow the Cozumel doctor's advice and talk to your own doctor about therapy.