Barotrauma after first open water dive?

[fmerkel]

He thinks it might be related to breathing cold air (which also causes me troubles when I go for a run during winter). The feeling should be gone in a couple of hours, if not he asked me to call him back.
.

Glad that seems to be getting cleared up. If you are sitting and typing to scubaboard after an emergency ascent the probability of it being something serious like AGE was very low. Mediastinal emphysema at a minor level is not something you can do about anyway and is improbable anyway. If it was serioous you would know it and be hospitalized. Even carrying the weight of scuba could give you some of your symptoms if you are not accustomed to it. Certainly the anxiety of an incident like that gets you into some serious body checking.

OTOH, it you have issues with breathing cold air you may have exercise induced asthma. If you are at all suspicious of that you should do some looking into that issue. People can and do dive with asthma, as long as they are well controlled and know what they are doing.

 

[dmaziuk]

Thanks to all of you for your replies, I just got of the phone with a DAN doctor.
Long story short, I shouldn't worry too much. He thinks it might be related to breathing cold air (which also causes me troubles when I go for a run during winter).

The other things that could be there are acid reflux from spending a long time face-down horizontal and gas in the stomach that contracts/expands with changing pressure. Also diaphragm and abs that can get sore from exertion, although you'd usually need to overdo ab crunches for that.

 

[Schwob]

Glad that seems to be getting cleared up. If you are sitting and typing to scubaboard after an emergency ascent the probability of it being something serious like AGE was very low. Mediastinal emphysema at a minor level is not something you can do about anyway and is improbable anyway. If it was serioous you would know it and be hospitalized. Even carrying the weight of scuba could give you some of your symptoms if you are not accustomed to it. Certainly the anxiety of an incident like that gets you into some serious body checking.

OTOH, it you have issues with breathing cold air you may have exercise induced asthma. If you are at all suspicious of that you should do some looking into that issue. People can and do dive with asthma, as long as they are well controlled and know what they are doing.

My son, before he took his OW class he barely passed the minimum standards in a lung volume test he had to take at a dive doctor (because he has (or had if that even is thinkable) Asthma and the class was in Europe. He also is plagued by environmental allergies. However, breathing wise, the best he ever feels is when diving....
(Edit: corrected spell correction liberties)

 

[fmerkel]

My son, before he took his OW class he barely passed the minimum standards in a lung volume test he had to take at a dive doctor (because he has (or had if that even is thinkable) Asthma and the class was in Europe. He also is plagued by environmental allergies. However, breathing wise, the best he ever feels is when diving....
(Edit: corrected spell correction liberties)

Not trying to be critical here, just precise. People don't fail [lung volume] test. For asthma they fail [lung flow] tests. If he has a lot of allergies the 'scrubbed' air in diving could be beneficial by not being irritating. But, for some people the dry air, especially when associated with cold diving, making the air cold too (water cooling + expansion cooling, and puts an additional stress on the respiratory system making up for the cold and lack of humidity. That's essentially what EIA (exercise induced asthma) is. Some of the top Olympic athletes have it because they push their respiratory systems SO damn hard.

FWIW I have what I call [cold variant asthma]. When I get some colds, not all, I come down with a horrible cough. It's not all that uncommon. Inhaled steroids, same treatment as asthma, shorten the recovery period considerably. Once well again I don't need any other inhaled medication. I don't dive when I have the cough.
If you know anyone that got a cold, and was still coughing weeks later, that's what they have. Doctors are pretty poor at diagnosing it correctly and even worse at treating it properly. People often get antibiotics which are generally useless for the problem, or inhaled bronchodilators, which may help but are not nearly as effective as inhaled steroids unless there is clear and demonstrable bronchoconstriction. You find that out with a [lung flow] test, which is pretty simple and easy. That of course rarely gets done unless asthma is suspected and NO ONE wants to get saddled with that diagnosis.

 

[Rred]

" I didn't even know DAN existed."
Neither did I, when I was certified. Oh, wait, that was maybe 15 years before DAN existed.(G)
It might be worthwhile sending an email to both PADI and DAN that as a student, you DID need to call DAN, and somehow, your class training did not mention this resource before you were taken out into open water. That's something that PADI could easily address in their training material, and if it IS in the material, they need to address it with the instructor.
As well as the correct protocol for an instructor who has to make an emergency ascent--and what they can do instead of creating a bigger problem by taking too many people up into that. (Like you.)

Diving is one of those things where every problem, every mistake, needs to be recognized and LEARNED from, in order to prevent it from happening again. A more seasoned instructor might also be worth looking for. They really should have at least said "OK, that was an emergency ascent, if you feel any of these problems in the next 24 hours, call us (or DAN) immediately".

 

[Scott]

Some thoughts
The Instructor may have mentioned DAN during the course, but the class or even this student had enough overload that they simply didn't hear it or remember it.
If the Instructor enrolled the students in DAN's student insurance it may have jogged their memory. I doubt they were enrolled.
Rred makes a good point to make a report to PADI, because technically if the student reported a problem to the Instructor, the instructor needs to fill out an incident report. Not a very pleasant conversation from the mother ship when a student reports an incident and an instructor fails to.

 

[northernone]

Good day.

Checking how the issues you faced are resolved.

Warm regards,
Cameron