DCS ?

[barracuda]

Just wanted to get some advice on a situation i experienced recently.

abt 3 months ago my partner took a student down for a deep dive (30 metres) for his advanced o/W course. the student had ear problems and so they took longer than usual getting down. 12 mins of the dive time was actually spent at 7 to 12 metres.

After a dive lasting 24 minutes which included safety stop at 5 meters for 3 minutes they surfaced and made 2 more dives with the following profiles :

2nd dive - 10 metres for approx 40 mins after a surface interval of 1 hr and 15 mins

3rd dive - 7 metres for approx 35 mins after a surface int of 1 hr.

Two days later she had mild tingling in her fingers and legs which came and went. she was also experiencing dizziness at times and felt tired. her blood pressure was very high (readings taken after a week showed 200/110) and subsequent blood test, ultrasound, ECG, urine test all showed normal but the BP remained erratic. she was diagnosed with Hypertension and immediately put on medication to control BP and continues to be on the medication now. Although her BP now fluctuates between 140/90 to 120/80 it is still slightly erractic. she has also started special yoga classes which appear to have helped.

while the tingling has disappeared, it did come back a couple of times and the doctor advised some Vitam B tablets after taking which they seem to have disappeared.

as we plan on flying out next month, i just wanted to know if anyone feels there is a risk still of possible DCS after so long ? she has not been diving at all since.

any advice \ suggestions in this regard would be greatly appreciated as knowledge of diving medicine does not exist here at the present moment.

 

[DocVikingo]

Hi Barracuda,

The signs & symptoms of DCS when diving air have an approximate onset within 30 minutes of surfacing in 50% of bona fide cases; within 3 hours in 90%; within 12 hours in 98%; and within 36 hours in 100%. Whether the diver recognizes them as indicative of DCS, or admits to them if & when s/he does recognize them as such, is quite another matter.

If in fact the signs & symptoms that you describe didn't occur until 2 days after the last dive, then they're pretty far out of the DCS ball park.

I would also mention that the "tinglings" resulting from DCS do not come & go and would not respond to Vitamin B supplementation, nor is sustained hypertension a common sign.

It seems much more likely that such pathology is from a cause(s) other than DCS.

This is educational only and does not constitute or imply a doctor-patient relationship. It is not medical advice to you or any other individual, and should not be construed as such. If you or the woman have concerns about her flying, seek medical clearance from her physician.

Best regards.

DocVikingo

 

[sky50960]

Docvikingo is certainly 100% right
Just one question :
Isn't it a quinde agressif diving profile, event if decreasing depth from dive 1 to dive 3
Does the instructor uses a dive computer.
And why 3 successive dives??
I would'nt feel confortable with that dive profile.
But i am a kind of anxious guy out of the water.
An there are certainly much more agressive and dangerous dive profiles.

I hope this hypertension will get under controle

Many safe Dives

Fa

 

[buff]

Anytime there is a marked elevation of blood pressure with a corresponding increase in heart rate, in an otherwise healthy adult I think pheochromocytoma. The "pheo" is tumur located on the adrenal gland that stimulates production of adreneline. I spoke with a runner who had this and he could push on his abdomen, stimulating the release of adreneline, and feel his blood pressure and heart rate jump up.
A blood pressure of 200/100 is dangerously high and could result in a stroke. That tingling in her extremities may be caused by her high blood pressure. I don't see have vitamin B is going to help but the placebo effect is 30% fo any medication.
She needs a stroke work up too....

 

[buff]

that diver should also be worked up for hypercoaguability and I would not dive until I found a good reason for those "stroke-like" symtoms.

 

[Dr Deco]

Dear barracuda:

It certainly is true as the others have written that signs and symptoms of DCS would almost assuredly not have appeared that long (2 days) after surfaceing (unless possibly one went on an airplane).

While decompression is not the likely cause of the problems, the origin of the problems does need investigating. Control of blood pressure is always important - - diving or not.

A later plane flight should not be of concern after 24 hours (unless one had symptoms of DCS).

Dr Deco

 

[barracuda]

hi all,

many thanks for all your replies and advice. much appreciated.

both of us feel much better now having heard abt the DCS probablity being virtually non-existent.

the reason for the 3 dives was due to the fact that we were diving at a remote island where we do special trips and on that day there was a Advanced O/W course which included a deep dive, u/w naturalist and u/w navigation dives. i dont believe the profiles were dangerous as i have done the same profiles many times which are well within the dive tables.

the hypertension finallys eems to be settling down although she has been advised to reamin on medication.

 

[sky50960]

Ok about the diving profile.
You certainly now what you are Doing.
I didn't wanted to offend you and sorry about that

About the pheochromocytoma... this girl underwent an abdominal ultrsound and that should rule out the pheo.

But pheo's might be extrarenal...

CIAO CIAO

Fa.

 

[barracuda]

fa,

no offence taken. i was just clearing up our reasons for the profiles. thanks a ton. regards.