Blood from nose after dive

[octgal]

I was wondering if someone out there can help me understand this. The weekend I received my advanced OW i had pretty clogged sinuses, i did take something for it and seemed all clear for the dives. I did expierence pain behind my eyes during a couple dives, but never pushed anything, went up a bit to relieve pressure and slowly down until i was fine. After my 100' dive, which I felt no pain at all during the dive, i came out of the water with some blood in my mask from my nose. I have tried to read up on this, however, getting some mixed information. My dive instructor said it was quite common and not a big deal

Is this true, its not as big of a deal as I thought? Personally i feel that ANY blood after a dive cannot be a good sign!

thoughts welcome
thanks

 

[pilot fish]

I was wondering if someone out there can help me understand this. The weekend I received my advanced OW i had pretty clogged sinuses, i did take something for it and seemed all clear for the dives. I did expierence pain behind my eyes during a couple dives, but never pushed anything, went up a bit to relieve pressure and slowly down until i was fine. After my 100' dive, which I felt no pain at all during the dive, i came out of the water with some blood in my mask from my nose. I have tried to read up on this, however, getting some mixed information. My dive instructor said it was quite common and not a big deal

Is this true, its not as big of a deal as I thought? Personally i feel that ANY blood after a dive cannot be a good sign!

thoughts welcome
thanks

Your instructor is correct, it is not a big deal. Let me be clear, you're not taking about a flow but some blood smudges that would show up on your towel when you wipe your nose? If it's that it's just some minor blood vessels that got broken when you cleared a bit too hard. Not to worry

 

[kent_1848]

The key was you had sinus problems. I've had the same happen to me any time that I have dove with sinus problems. No pain, just a lot of nasty stuff in the mask. Asked my Dr., and she said not to worry, it was all just due to the changes in pressure and lack of being able to equalize that pressure easily.

 

[CDFDiveMaster]

Hi there,

You may have experienced some minor capilary damage, nothing serious you just may have been clearing to hard. I reccomend that you practice clearing your ears above ground as you watch TV, etc. I also advise you to check with an ENT Dr., as well just to be safe.

Jay

 

[Poseidon8118]

I’ve had squeezes that resulted with a little blood before, and agree with everything everyone has posted so far. As long as there’s no hearing loss or infection you should be just fine.

 

[octgal]

Thanks everyone for putting my mind at ease!!!!!

 

[MikeFerrara]

I agree that it's likely just a little sinus squeeze but I'm not sure that I totally agree with your instructor. You really shouldn't dive with congestion sinus or otherwise. If a students ended a dive with blood in their mask (and it happened many times) I wouldn't let them continue until their conditioned was cleared up or I saw written clearance from a doctor and sometimes not even then. I can't contradict a doc when he/she says "no" but I can when he/she says "yes". Anything that can be a problem on descent can present a hazard. Anything that can cause a squeeze has the potential for causing a reverse squeeze which can definately be a hazard.

Shame on your instructor and those here who would suggest that it makes sense to continue diving when you're comming up with blood in your mask or having trouble descnding because of equalization problems!

 

[CD_in_Chitown]

Shame on your instructor and those here who would suggest that it makes sense to continue diving when you're comming up with blood in your mask or having trouble descnding because of equalization problems!

I tend to agree with that statement, although I have a dive buddy that gets a nosebleed on almost every dive I've made with him. It gives me the heeby-geebies to see him take his mask off and have blood smeared across his face, he just wipes it off and goes on about his post-dive euphoria.

 

[pilot fish]

I agree that it's likely just a little sinus squeeze but I'm not sure that I totally agree with your instructor. You really shouldn't dive with congestion sinus or otherwise. If a students ended a dive with blood in their mask (and it happened many times) I wouldn't let them continue until their conditioned was cleared up or I saw written clearance from a doctor and sometimes not even then. I can't contradict a doc when he/she says "no" but I can when he/she says "yes". Anything that can be a problem on descent can present a hazard. Anything that can cause a squeeze has the potential for causing a reverse squeeze which can definately be a hazard.

Shame on your instructor and those here who would suggest that it makes sense to continue diving when you're comming up with blood in your mask or having trouble descnding because of equalization problems!

I understand your concern but if you reread my post I asked specifically if we are talking about a FLOW OR BLEED, as opposed to some minor blood smudges, which would indicate some minor capillary or small vein ruptures from clearing too hard.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I tend to agree with that statement, although I have a dive buddy that gets a nosebleed on almost every dive I've made with him. It gives me the heeby-geebies to see him take his mask off and have blood smeared across his face, he just wipes it off and goes on about his post-dive euphoria.

Yes but my point was that as an instructor I would not let a student continue training with that going on. If something happened you wouldn't have a leg to stand on. If you reiew the medical statements used by training agencies you'll see that even a history of having trouble equalizing in a plane would require that a student get a physicians sign off. The instructor needs to consider not only anything that may be a risk to the student with the problem but other students as well. Squeeezes and reverse squeezes sure can be a problem beyond the potential harm to the person with the squeeze. I can also think of at least one diver that I know who had a reverse squeeze when she had no choice but to ascend. She finished her vacation in the hospital. I guess she missed the part in the OW text that says you should be healthy to dive. On the other end of the spectrum, I know a diver who had chronic ear infections for a couple of years and found an ent who would just keep putting tubes in his ears (they fall out after a while) so he didn't have to worry about equalizing them. DAN said he was nuts but the ent said DAN didn't have a clue. Anyway, he did it and that's his business but as an instructor I sure wouldn't have recommended it. It was funny to watch though. he would still go through the motions of equalizing out of habit and when he did he blew bubbles out his ears. If he smoked he would have been able to blow smoke out of his ears like Popeye!

In either case, my understanding of training standards would lead me to believe that a student with a bloody mask should get over it or get a docs sign off before continueing. If they do have a docs ok the instructor must still consider factors that the doc may not have since the doc is educated in medicene but may not be educated in diving.