Paranoid of getting the Bends

[Web Monkey]

This is the second time this has happened to me in as many years. I got bends symptoms (aka Decompression Sickness – DCS) but didn’t really have DCS. I’ve been diving steadily for the last seven years and have logged over 135 dives. I’m 59 and in very good health.

I don't think anybody has mentioned this, but 91' for 25 minutes is past the edge of the no-deco limit on the SSI Air Tables.

Besides getting checked for a PFO, which you said you did, you might want to consider diving well within the table limits and using Nitrox.

The very same dive on EAN36 would have had an NDL of 40 minutes, not 20 minutes, and put you in the middle of the table.

Terry

 

[banjoman1948]

Terry,
91' was my max depth which I was at for less than a minute. Most of my bottom time was between 77' and 83'. At 80' for 25 min the SSI Air Tables show that I would be at group F when I surfaced. My surface interval would have brought me down to group E with a residual nitrogen time (RNT) of 26 min. My second dive at 70' for 25 min plus the 26 min of RNT would have put me just beyond the no-deco limit of group J. If I go to the Navy tables for 70' max depth (http://www.ndc.noaa.gov/graphics/USNDeco40_70.jpg) I would have needed 8 min at 10' of deco time whereas I had 5 min at 15'.

I agree with you that I uncontiously pushed the no-deco limits and would have been better off using Nitrox. I've signed up for a Nitrox class and plan to be more conservative in my dive planning. Thanks.

 

[nereas]

...I agree ... that I ... pushed the no-deco limits and would have been better off using Nitrox. I've signed up for a Nitrox class and plan to be more conservative in my dive planning...

As Capt. Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp) in Prates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3 would say: "Oh good, no worries then!"

This is a happy ending.

 

[dreammermaid]

Hi, my name is Leila and I got badly bent about 3 years ago. I started a group to find out more about decompression sickness. Luckily I am mostly better and have been diving again for the last 1 1/2 years with few problems.
Recently in thailand diving multiple times a day for several days on air, I had some minor problems which resolved themselves but which sound similiar to yours. I was advised that although a PFO didn't cause me to get the bends, it likely was causing the other problems. They were, reddish skin, puffing and symptoms of a migrain (fairy dust) without really much of a head ache. I also learned that if you clear your ears by holding your nose and breathing to equalize your ears, it causes more bubbles to flow between the 2 sides if your hole is smallish and closed most of the time. I do this a lot.
So, I'll probably get checked out soon.

PS:
you can visit my group at

DCSsupportGroup : Scuba_Diving_DCS_Support_and_Research

(there are a lot of good links and although you must register to post, you can access everything without registering. In the uploaded files section is a great presentation about DCS uploaded by a member.)

Everyone is welcome

Thanks, Leila

 

[cavediver08]

If your problems of getting rashes and tingling sensations continue to occur, I strongly recommend you are tested to see if you are allergic to neoprene, my father is and didn't know until recently... He always broke out in rashes after every day of diving we made...Good luck mate.

 

[Rred]

banjo-
You say "would have put me just beyond the no-deco limit". I *know* that most divers, and most of the dive industry, did not know how to use the USN tables or any tables. I know this, and I suspect it still very much applies, because back around 1990 I asked a USN Chief Diving Medical Officer a question at a talk. I said "Yes, we were taught that in cold water we are supposed to use the cold water tables? But no one seems to know if those exist?" And the gentlemen said that was correct. Every shop, boat, instructor, that I had met to that point thought the USN tables were all they needed to follow. The USN officer said no, if you need to wear ANY type of exposure garment, you are diving in cold water, and you need to adjust the tables for that.
So, if you were wearing a 2-3mm suit? Right, you need to back off one or two groups in the tables, regardless of whose tables you are using. And the USN tables are designed to accept a reasonable rate of combat casualties among wartime divers. They are NOT designed to draw a safe line for ALL civilian or military divers.
If your PFO exam says you are good to go, you might consider getting a dive computer. I have no love for them--but they do provide for 1 or 2 "personal factor" adjustments, which are basically doing what the USN said: Going one or two steps more conservative than the normal tables.
And as mentioned, they do give you an ascent rate reading, which you can't seem to get from anything anymore unless you buy the whole nine yards, the whole computer.

Dive operators like to offer people "maximum" bottom time for their money, and they like to use minimum surface intervals so they can make more runs and more profit per day. None of that is oriented for diver safety, the operators are "going by the book" and not considering that a larger safety margin may be of some concern to some divers. By all means, listen to the "divemaster". Then run the numbers by yourself, FOR YOURSELF, on your terms and to your own safety factors. Use whichever numbers come up more conservatively.

 

[tridacna]

banjo-
You say "would have put me just beyond the no-deco limit". I.....

banjoman last posted about 10 years ago. Check the OP. This is a Phoenix thread.