Severe soft tissue infection, presumed related to rental wetsuit

[Stoo]

I believe that this is the first and only thread I've ever read on SB that has me cradling the family jewels in a protective fashion.

So thanks for that.

I'm also going to start bleaching myself after every wetsuit dive.

 

[KathyV]

Wow.... and to think my big worry on my first dive vacation was whether or not neoprene shorts were going to give my a case of case of crotch rot. Now I am worried necrotizing my entire junk sac. Very disturbing....

I am off to Grand Cayman in March. Having never been on a true dive vacation, what are the best of limited options on rinsing masks, regulators and suits? I historically only use my gear for a day or two before rinsing it in my garden hose supplied gear bucket. This sounds a lot scarier than pink eye and athletes foot/ jock itch (my previous big worries).

Don't worry, Grand Cayman has a high standard of living and many fine dive ops and excellent healthcare facilities. If a dive op doesn't offer good service there they won't stay in business long. I am sure that they will change the rinse tank frequently. Just rinse and hang your gear and let stuff dry between dives and clean it well when you get home and you should be fine. If you do notice early signs of an infection, seek medical attention. The individual described by the OP tried to ignore the problem at first and then treated it himself before seeking medical care.

We were at the Little Cayman Beach Resort in November and the tanks were frequently filled with clean water and they usually added a soapy cleansing product to one of the tanks. One evening I saw one of the dive masters (after a long, hard day on the boats) down on her hands and knees scrubbing out the tanks by hand.

But I have noticed that some divers aren't very careful when hanging up their suits and gear. They leave the sleeves and legs kind of folded up inside the suit or they just dump their boots in a corner without hanging them in the breeze.Take an extra moment to make sure your gear is hung to the best advantage for drying.

Where are you staying on GC and who will you be diving with?

 

[Stoo]

Reading this thread, and that thread, I’m starting to get increasingly uncomfortable with all the possible diseases I could’ve gotten when I didn’t own my own gear. And some that I might have gotten and still have! Makes me wanna rush to the ER to get swabbed and cultured!

No kidding... If I owned a dive shop, I'd be making poster sized prints of various posts in this thread in my shop...

 

[abnfrog]

this is one of the best post I read in years its got ALOT of people thinking ......ever since I started diving rebreather I thought more about de-bugging things , because virkon does little damage to rubber/(other) parts I use it all the time now for various things ....like my filtration system on my water intake (we take our water from a lake , ive always been hyper sensitive to rental regs even back to the late 70's in stores I worked . but now more than ever, and the stores that STILL don't de-bug gear

 

[dmaziuk]

Maybe you will find this of interest.

• More than 50 percent of American adults have oral herpes, which is commonly called cold sores or fever blisters.

My better half told me last night that the test for it now part of the standard check-up for women at our doctor's. And we talked about how our species never cared until we started to live till 90 when the immune systems pack it and all those previously harmless bugs start eating us alive.

 

[KathyV]

I think that it is important to remember that the wet suit used by the unfortunate diver described by the OP, looked and smelled bad. If the suit had been well-maintained and cleaned properly he probably wouldn't have had any issues. Here is a thread from last year about cleaning and sanitizing your gear:

Cleaning/sanitizing/disinfecting your gear

 

[Schwob]

I think that it is important to remember that the wet suit used by the unfortunate diver described by the OP, looked and smelled bad. If the suit had been well-maintained and cleaned properly he probably wouldn't have had any issues. Here is a thread from last year about cleaning and sanitizing your gear:

Cleaning/sanitizing/disinfecting your gear

Thanks for that link!

 

[doctormike]

OK, this is an update from the OP, who asked me to post this:


"1) Yes, the point was well made. I did attempt self treatment of what I thought were simple pimples. I had no idea it was MRSA, nor what MRSA could actually do to me. My new threshold is that if I have anything more severe than a pimple; ie. an infection that does not easily or rapidly come to a head, I will immediately go to the Dr. The quickness in which these infections can get deep into your tissue was alarming. I think on my deepest wound the infection was down into the muscle (at least 1/2 to 3/4 inch deep). That took about 3-4 days.

2) While it might not have been the suit (I really think it was); I have had a false sense of how clean rental gear really is. This gear happened to come from one of the biggest shops down in the Keys (name redacted). If you are ever at one of those places, watch what happens with the rental gear. It gets issued in the morning, goes out, comes back and goes into a rinse bin of fresh water to get the salt off, gets hung up, perhaps issued again (on a busy day), worn, rinsed etc. Imagine this happening for a full year. That is a lot of exposure to different people; and probably without ever fully drying out. I don't know this particular shop's sanitization scheme, but I imagine it isn't what it should be, with the volume they do."

 

[Bubblesong]

I think the flip side is put on a thicker suit that isn't quite your size, you get potential for chafing and skin irritation. The critters likely to be found on a wetsuit and harmless on skin contact may not be quite so harmless if they get under the skin through micro-cracks and irritated hair follicles and what have you.

(Ergo: full-body brasilian and lube with neosporin before getting into a rental wetsuit.)

Should your wetsuit have too tight a grip
On sensitive "nethers" and tender "nip"
You can ease the slide
over your wet hide:
Sew a diveskin from a silk satin slip!

 

[kelemvor]

I think that it is important to remember that the wet suit used by the unfortunate diver described by the OP, looked and smelled bad. If the suit had been well-maintained and cleaned properly he probably wouldn't have had any issues. Here is a thread from last year about cleaning and sanitizing your gear:

Cleaning/sanitizing/disinfecting your gear

I think that is the key to this thread. If it looks or smells grody to the max then clean it before placing it on your body. I don't think there's anything really scuba specific to that.

It's been a while since I rented gear, especially wetsuits as that was the first piece of optional gear I bought. However, all the shops I rented from had a strict cleaning procedure that each renter had to follow. They involved using some cleaning product (whatever that shop happened to be selling) and then drying your gear.

For my personal gear, I sanitize in electrolysis generated chlorine diluted down to about 5ppm.

Also, I follow the above rule for cleaning tanks provided by dive operators. If the tank looks or smells grody to the max, don't use it. Find another way to clean your gear. There's no telling what kind "stuff" might be in those cleaning tanks.