Does effort increase the risk of DCS ?

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Sandie7

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Lisbon, Portugal
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My husband told me that some years ago he went diving with a group of friends. They were no deeper than 25 feet, and everything was ok when they ascended.

Immediately after the dive one of them made a lot of effort pulling the anchor of the boat. Shortly afterwards he showed signs of DCS.

So, does effort increase this risk ?
 
My husband told me that some years ago he went diving with a group of friends. They were no deeper than 25 feet, and everything was ok when they ascended.

Immediately after the dive one of them made a lot of effort pulling the anchor of the boat. Shortly afterwards he showed signs of DCS.

So, does effort increase this risk ?

Some googling would turn up the actual post (sorry I don't have a link handy), but the short answer is that yes, post-dive exercise does increase the chances for DCS.

On the other hand, my best guess is that his friend just pulled a muscle. There is very little chance for accumulating any significant amount of nitrogen on a 25' dive, unless it was really, really long or there were other dives done earlier.

DCS is very rare in divers that dive according to the commonly used recreational tables or their computer. It happens to a small percentage of divers more-or-less randomly (we don't really know why), and to a small percentage of divers that do something they shouldn't.

That said, if you or your husband dives, you should have SCUBA insurance from a company like Diver's Alert Network, since transportation and treatment for SCUBA-related injuries is both expensive and hard to arrange, and they take care of both.

flots.
 
"vigorous exercise" is a listed as a contributor to DCS in my Open Water manual (what does yours say?). However, unless there was a previous dive, DCS at 25 feet is pretty unlikely unless he was there for several hours (for reference, the PADI table starts at 35 feet with an NDL of 205 minutes)
 
On the other hand, my best guess is that his friend just pulled a muscle. There is very little chance for accumulating any significant amount of nitrogen on a 25' dive, unless it was really, really long or there were other dives done earlier.

He had pain in his joints and his face was swollen. And no, it was not a long dive, and it was the only one that day.

---------- Post added August 27th, 2014 at 04:21 PM ----------

"vigorous exercise" is a listed as a contributor to DCS in my Open Water manual (what does yours say?). However, unless there was a previous dive, DCS at 25 feet is pretty unlikely unless he was there for several hours (for reference, the PADI table starts at 35 feet with an NDL of 205 minutes)

I do not have an Open Water manual ... I haven't started the course yet ...
 
The time lapse is relevant. It sounds like the friend did not just exercise. He exercised hard immediately after coming up from the dive. Now if he had done a nice long leisurely reef dive and then, as I so often see, the friend did a quick ascent, and then worked really hard that could set it off.

Same for hot tubs. I have heard of folks very quickly after a dive getting in a hot tub and soaking and getting DCS. But lots of folks do it after a break on the surface and do not seem to have a problem.
 
Yes, 25' is just below the line where you could stay down indefinately if you had unlimited air and still surface directly. Excercise after or before a dive can contribute to DCS. Other factors include age, hungover, long surface swims, hot shower afterwords, a fairly serious injury (particularly in the limbs, I think), and probably some other stuff.
 
SORRY. I meant 25 meters, not feet. Our metric system is meters, but reading everything here in feet made me write it wrong.
 
It's perfectly feasible to get bent after a dive to 25m. PADI's no-stop limit at 25m is only 29 minutes, so you accumulate quite a bit of nitrogen at that depth.

And around here, a guy had to take a chamber ride last spring after taking part in a research project. They went through simulated dives (chamber dives) to 18 meters for two hours, followed by deco according to standard tables. Everyone were fine except that one person. He 'had to' shovel his driveway immediately after coming home from the experiment... :shakehead:
 
SORRY. I meant 25 meters, not feet. Our metric system is meters, but reading everything here in feet made me write it wrong.


That's completely different. It's entirely possible to get bent after a 25m dive. It's well below the recommended limit for new Open Water divers.

It's actually still a safe dive with a very low chance of DCS as long as your follow your table or computer and maintain the recommended ascent rate, however it's also much less forgiving of "doing things wrong".

Hauling up the anchor after any significant dive is a bad idea. Leave that for the boat crew or someone who hasn't been diving.

flots.
 
I recently dove with a man who had just participated in a DAN research study. They told him divers should really just laze around deck for the first half-hour after a dive, drinking water, having a snack, and generally not working very hard. They don't even recommend changing out your tanks right away. That's not an official recommendation; just what they told him.
 

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