Hyperventilation remedies

[geraldp]

What is the best technique for calming yourself down and relieving hyperventilation?

Last weekend I was on dive #53. I try to get out for 2 tanks every month, so it'd been about 4 weeks since I was in the water. I was on a dive charter I'd never used before, with 2 buddies I didn't know. We were given a fairly good briefing by the captain as to where the knoll was with all the sea life, but were cautioned strongly about the current that might drift us off into waters well below recreational limits. Both of the other divers on the boat said they would prefer to dive solo (one was a photographer), but I insisted I wanted a buddy. So the three of us descended, and started following our compass to the knoll. Viz was near zero in the shallows, and opened up to about 20 feet below 50 fsw. They got ahead of me, and I had to kick hard to catch up... this got me breathing hard. Then I noticed that they were about 5-10 degrees off course, going into deep water. At about 83 feet I felt my breathing getting away from me, and I started to loose focus. I decided to abandon my two buddies, and I ascended (too fast) to about 40 feet, where I arrested my ascent. I stayed there and concentrated hard on my computer, trying to slow my breathing down. I stayed there about 10 minutes, then finally headed slowly back to the insertion point, giving myself a slow ascent with a long safety stop at 15 feet.

So that was the worse experience I've ever had. I've been below 80 feet several times, and I've been in unkown environments before without mishap... I don't know why this one time sent me over the edge. My second dive (after a 2 hour SI) went fine, but I was paranoid that I would hyperventilate again. This was the first time I've ever had run-away hyperventilation, and I didn't know what to do. Is there a technique that I can do to keep that from happening again?

Thanks,

Jerry

 

[Dr Deco]

I have no ideas on this. Anyone?

 

[miketsp]

I have no ideas on this. Anyone?

Well of course the normal solution for hyperventilation would be to breathe into a brown paper bag to increase the CO2 content......

"Anxiety is a common cause," says Gabe Mirkin, M.D., a sports medicine expert from Silver Spring, Maryland, and an associate clinical professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine. "When some people are frightened, they breathe rapidly and deeply, even though they don't need the extra oxygen. This causes them to breathe out a large amount of carbon dioxide, and excessive loss of carbon dioxide causes the blood to become alkaline. This in turn causes the symptoms of a panic attack."

Edit add PS. Avoid any stimulants which are a potential trigger for hyperventilation. Watch out for coffee, tea, colas, and chocolate.

 

[jiveturkey]

Sounds like a case of shi**y buddies to me. If you had decent buddies they would have slowed down and you could have rested until you caught your breath. Make sure you dive within your limits and with buddies you can depend on.

 

[Rick Inman]

I agree with Miketsp. Strange buddies who don't even want to dive with you and leave you in the dust, nervousness from the dive briefing about current, cold dark water, and maybe even some narking at 83'. All equals anxiety. You get out of breath chasing the other guys, anxiety increases, CO2 goes up...
Calling the dive was the right thing, and I take it your "buddies" didn't come looking for you. Good job getting it together at 40'.

 

[mania]

I can't come up with any ther solution than stop, think, breath, act.
It happened to me once when I was caught by the strong current and getting out of it made my hyperventilating. Increased CO2 causes faster and deeper breathing. So stopping is a reasonable solution - to calm down and to get a bit of rest which should quiet your breathing.
So what i did once out of the current was sitting down on the bottom (OK was lucky to have one) and for a minute or more trying to calm down my breathing. When I started to breath normally then I ascended.
Ditto to what was said about these guys as buddies.
Mania

 

[geraldp]

Thanks for the inputs... yes I was thinking about the "breathing into a brown paper bag" trick when I posted the question , hoping there was some sort of equivelent underwater.

No, my buddies didn't come looking for me... they noticed me missing, though. They ended up separating themselves and came up 20 minutes apart. Neither one of them found the knoll the captain layed out for us. At least one of them apologized for not keeping closer tabs on me.

Looking back, I can see the exact train of events that caused the increased anxiety and consequent hyperventilation, and Rick laid that out nicely. Add to that getting up at a very early hour and driving 4 hours to the marina, drinking lots of coffee on the way. What bugged me was that I didn't see it coming beforehand, and when it came I didn't know what to do.

I guess one thing for sure I should have done was to spend more time in a buddy briefing after the captain briefed us. If I had felt more comfortable with these guys I would have stopped them and asked them to wait while I caught my breath as jiveturkey and mania recommend.

Thanks miketsp for the clinical description and the suggestion about avoiding stimulants.

Thanks again!

Jerry