59F without a hood

[maggs_the]

Went to a quarry this weekend knowing it would be "cold" but not realizing what exactly cold meant. My buddies doubled up their wetsuits but neither had hoods. I never got past 10 feet because I was taking my time to equalize when they both called the dive... which was fine with me, since even tho I had a hood, I was still cold. They both complained of severe sharp pain in their head.

I would never push to dive, but it made me curious. Is that pain something that could be serious like when you're told not to force your dive if you have pain in your ears? Or is it more like an ice cream headache when you eat something cold too fast?

 

[D_O_H]

I'm not sure what pain you're talking about, but I've gone diving 59 and colder without a hood with no ill effects. You're going to lose heat a lot faster with nothing insulating your head and you're going to become hypothermic a lot faster than you would with a hood on, but I know of no instant and catastrophic thing that can happen to one's head from diving in cool water.

 

[Boat Chick]

They both complained of severe sharp pain in their head.

Sinus squeeze. I pushed it a few years ago when I had one and have small residual nerve damage because of it. If you ever feel that, abort the dive and go have a nice cool one. My ENT told me that he had a patient also try to "push past it" on a dive and damaged most of the nerves on that side of her head, she is now paralized on one side of her face.

 

[spectrum]

Is that pain something that could be serious like when you're told not to force your dive if you have pain in your ears? Or is it more like an ice cream headache when you eat something cold too fast?

Well at best it's a stressful distraction and that's good enough reason to get some good protection.

At 59F I don't think it will hurt you directly. If you were in really cold water you could get into real trouble including messing with your equilibrium. It's also a huge body heat loss. You did right to all get out. When in doubt, get out.

Pete

 

[DennisW]

I've been to 56 deg F without a hood. It's just too darn cold without a hood. I'll never do that again, just because it was very uncomfortable.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

It's basically an "ice cream headache" if it's not in the areas of your sinuses. I had an AOW student who was really annoyed with his hood in 60F water because it was too tight. He asked if he could dive without it and I told him he could but he wasn't going to want to (you have to let them learn some stuff on their own ). He was back in about 2 minutes complaining about the ice cream headache he had :biggrin: My husband happened to have his wetsuit hood in his drysuit bag so he loaned that to the student and he made the dive once he warmed up a bit. Needless to say he bought a larger, more comfortable hood before the next dive weekend.

I get the same thing when I first get in when diving cold water even in my drysuit.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[maggs_the]

Well at best it's a stressful distraction and that's good enough reason to get some good protection.

At 59F I don't think it will hurt you directly. If you were in really cold water you could get into real trouble including messing with your equilibrium. It's also a huge body heat loss. You did right to all get out. When in doubt, get out.

Pete

Awesome.. thanks for the replies!

 

[cyclical]

I would definitely not recommend it... at 52F when we dove Clear Springs Scuba Park in TX, the exposed area of my face under the hood was extremely cold. Fortunately it was not bad enough for us to call our dive. On occasion I would adjust my hood and the cold water rushed in..... brrrr.