Scared of DCS after 1st dive

[michael-fisch]

According to the Navy tables you should be able to descend to 50' within 1 minute, stay at 50' for 69 minutes and ascend within 1 minute to the surface without suffering DCS.
I seriously doubt that you did that!
So whatever you did was much more conservative and should have next to no risk of DCS.

Michael

 

[chillyinCanada]

+1 to everything said above.

Remember before you were a diver? When you'd been on a boat for a bit of time and then stepped onto shore? You felt a bit wobbly for a few minutes? There's probably a bit of that going on too.

What else did you and your buddy do besides be underwater? Did you haul tanks and gear all over the place back and forth?
Did you sleep well the night before etc.?

 

[clownfishsydney]

Check you do not have wax in your ears, if so, air can get trapped behind and when ascending, cause an imbalance which leads to vertigo.

 

[michael-fisch]

Check you do not have wax in your ears, if so, air can get trapped behind and when ascending, cause an imbalance which leads to vertigo.

Not a problem I've had in the last 20 years.
I clean my ears daily with dental floss and it works wonders.
Well I may not be as smart as I was before I started using floss through both ears, but I don't have problems equalizing.
The only problems I have are when standing at right angles to a strong wind I hear a whistling sound in my head.

Michael

 

[Guest User25]

Wow thanks so much for all of your reply’s! I’m not sure of our exact times in depth, my dive buddy has a watch and has been a diver since he was 12 so he was monitoring the times and safety stops of our 3 dives. Vertigo seems likely since I do have a lot of problems with my equalizing my ears. Also, 3 days after this dive I’m supposed to fly to stay in the mountains. Is this a safe enough amount of time?

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

Yes, three days is plenty of time to decompress before flying and staying at high altitudes. Current recommendations are around 24 hours' interval at the conservative end and 12-18 hours in the more practical range.

Based on the dive profile that you described, you were likely free and clear of excess nitrogen in your tissues within 4-6 hours at most.

 

[happy-diver]

How to Prevent Vertigo When Scuba Diving

 

[Neilwood]

Wow thanks so much for all of your reply’s! I’m not sure of our exact times in depth, my dive buddy has a watch and has been a diver since he was 12 so he was monitoring the times and safety stops of our 3 dives. Vertigo seems likely since I do have a lot of problems with my equalizing my ears. Also, 3 days after this dive I’m supposed to fly to stay in the mountains. Is this a safe enough amount of time?

It certainly sounds like a bit of vertigo from that description. Might be worth making your accents a little slower in future if you have any ear issues at all.

Just a note - it is always worthwhile keeping track of your own dive times and depths. If your buddy had gotten in to any form of trouble, would you have been able to safely ascend without any method of tracking your dive time? Answer to that is negative - you do not know how long you have been down and you have no method for judging your ascent rate (you need to know both depth and time). You will be a safer diver if you invest in a cheap computer - most will also allow you to upload your dives to a computer and review your profiles (to the extent that they often assist in working out your air consumption (with start and finish pressures or directly from air integrated computers).

3 days is plenty of time for you to decompress fully. Normal no fly time is 12hr although 24hr is often preferred if you have been doing a lot of dives over multiple days (as is often the case with resort diving or liveaboard).

 

[Pyde]

What you described sounds like Vertigo. I was having this happen just about every time when ascending from dives. (I am new to diving so still figuring things out) I went to see an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor about this issue and found out that I have smaller than normal Eustachian tubes. The doctor who is a diver also prescribed me Nasacort nasal spray and told me to use 30 minutes to 1 hour before diving. The steroid in Nasacort will help open my Eustachian tubes. Which in turn will help me equalize better descending and ascending. I have noticed a huge improvement since using the nasal spray and haven't had vertigo since.

P.S. I wouldn't recommend using any medicine to dive with unless you have been told otherwise from a licensed doctor. (Just my 2 cents)

Thanks
Benjamin

 

[DogDiver]

What did DAN say when you called them? Rather than rely on internet couch divers, call DAN if in doubt.