Anyone here ever suffers decompression illness?

[archiebald]

I just completed my OW course plus an additional 6 dives.

Without fail, the hardest part of the dive was the safety stop. Not only did I have a problem maintaining depth but I also felt myself rolling over and being magentically drawn into bumping into my buddies.

A large part of this was having no visual reference, at the bottom I felt very comfortable.

I was only diving with a watch with depth sensor and I found I could improve by focussing on the watch depth but it sure was hard.

 

[TSandM]

Don't feel bad! Buoyancy control in shallow water is the hardest part. I think I had about 50 dives before I held a shallow stop, and it was more before I was consistent at it. What I have subsequently learned is that about 80% of holding stops is mental -- and by mental, I mean that anxiety changes your breathing pattern, and breathing has an ENORMOUS effect on your buoyancy. Every time you have problems with your buoyancy in the shallows, it sets you up to be worried the next time you try, and when you are worried, you tend to hold too much air in your lungs, which makes you buoyant.

As I had successes, I gained confidence, and as I gained confidence, I didn't huff and puff as much on ascent, and ascents got smoother.

Continue to practice, and just keep your dives relatively shallow, and don't push NDLs, until you can reliably control your depth on ascent. It will come, if you work at it!

 

[martinskarin]

Hi all, this is the topic i want to learn. I am a new diver and found mysef hard to stay at the safety stop. I am thinking anyone here has experienced DI while not staying long enough at the SS. Also, if diving not more than 20meters if i missed the SS, is it ok? :blinking:

If you have boyancy problems and has trouble staying at the safety stop (which is hard in the beginning, I really need to concentrate to stay there) make dives where you can end the dive at about 5m or so and swim around there exploring during the safety stop (also more fun!) until you feel more confident with the boancy control!

 

[Kevrumbo]

Hi all, this is the topic i want to learn. I am a new diver and found mysef hard to stay at the safety stop. I am thinking anyone here has experienced DI while not staying long enough at the SS. Also, if diving not more than 20meters if i missed the SS, is it ok? :blinking:

Yes, I suffered a type I Decompression Sickness Syndrome hit . . .although my incident is way outside the bounds of basic open water diving (i.e. deep air Technical Diving with mandatory decompression stops on 50% nitrox and oxygen). But the lessons are similar: if you botch your ascent through your last two ATA to the surface -especially with near NDL loading or beyond- your chances of getting DCI will increase significantly.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/near-misses-lessons-learned/264517-type-i-bends-hit-chuuk.html