DCS symptoms 30 hours after dive

[olivierg]

Hello,

I have been experiencing something rather unusual: I am a novice diver, and I flew home 30 hours after my Open water certification exam dives (x2 dives at 18m for 45mn and 60mn, with appropriate safety stops and interval surface time), and felt whilst on the plane mild tingling in both arms. Arms also felt weak and had to get a water bottle opened by the air stewardess. After landing, everything went OK for 3 days, until I took another plane to Mexico yesterday. Again, the mild tingling sensation re-appeared on the plane.

When I arrived at my destination, I decided to go and visit the local diving clinic as I was planning on diving - the doctor did not find any evidence of neurological issues, however, he is aware that I do have the mild tingling symptoms (which now happened twice on planes), and advised on getting in a recompression chamber...I am happy to do it, but since I am not a tech diver, is it completely necessary since symptoms appeared so late after the dives? Will time help here? Should I wait to see how things evolve? I am currently not feeling any tingling (just really mild ones sometimes but I wonder if my mind is not at ease here), it seems to appear on the plane. Thank you for your thoughts.

 

[guruboy]

I am not a doctor.

If you flew 30 hours after getting back onto the surface of the water, assuming you did not enter deco during your training dives, you should not be at risk for DCS.

Also, people who experience DCS, despite all tables and computers saying they should not have, will often have an un-diagnosed Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO).

 

[Kodad]

www.diversalertnetwork.org

 

[thirdparty]

This is the exact type of question that DAN (mentioned above) is perfect for. Get a membership and call. In fact, I think they'll answer your questions without a membership...

They are HAPPY to help with this stuff and are the leaders in this area of medicine.

 

[boulderjohn]

It is extremely unlikely that you are having issues with DCS, both because of the dives you did and the amount of time that passed before the symptoms appeared. It is remotely possible, but very remotely so.

 

[guruboy]

It is extremely unlikely that you are having issues with DCS, both because of the dives you did and the amount of time that passed before the symptoms appeared. It is remotely possible, but very remotely so.

Unless he did suffer DCS due to a medical condition such as PFO. But I'm not a doctor.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Unless he did suffer DCS due to a medical condition such as PFO. But I'm not a doctor.

I (not a doctor) agree. DAN has said that 24 hours is about the outer limit at which signs or symptoms have appeared: "Suspect decompression illness if any of the signs or symptoms previously described occur within 24 hours of surfacing from a dive." But perhaps DAN's statement is a generalization and doesn't consider special circumstances such as a combination of PFO plus flying 30 hours after diving.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

Hi olivierg,

It's not outside the realm of possibility that you had subclinical decompression sickness that was aggravated by the ascent to altitude.

Best regards,
DDM