Poll: Have you ever experienced a Reverse Block?

[Zippsy]

I only had reverse sinus block on a plane. I thought I was dying! It felt like someone drove a 4" nail into my forehead with one blow. I think I'd rather give birth than have that happen again.

I also had reverse squeeze in a tooth during my last dive trip. I immediately went to the dentist and he could not find any gaps so I am a little worried about the dive. The pain was not terrible but it's something I would prefer to avoid.

 

[pt40fathoms]

I only had reverse sinus block on a plane. I thought I was dying! It felt like someone drove a 4" nail into my forehead with one blow. I think I'd rather give birth than have that happen again.

I also had reverse squeeze in a tooth during my last dive trip. I immediately went to the dentist and he could not find any gaps so I am a little worried about the dive. The pain was not terrible but it's something I would prefer to avoid.

Occasionally a reverse sinus squeeze can be felt in the upper jaw, teeth, or even one tooth. Depending on the nerve being effected.

Was the tooth ache in the upper jaw?

 

[Zippsy]

nah, it felt like it was in the tooth itself. Every few seconds for an hour or two after each dive, it felt like a dentist was hitting a nerve in the tooth with the drill.

FYI, I made sure to figure out which tooth it was while on the boat so I could point it out to the dentist. He took x-rays and said everything was fine but I still insisted that he take out the filling that was there and put in a new one. We'll see how that worked soon.

 

[dc4bs]

Kinda long story...

I had a nasty reverse sinus block on a 3 M/15 foot dive...

Apparently I had gotten a cold just before going on a trip to Florida (or on the plane going there) to do my tri-mix course. The first symptoms showed up when we were already on the diveboat.

The first day wasn't to bad. The second got quite annoying to equalize but didn't hurt. The third day I didn't do the last (shallowest) dive as it had become extremely hard to equalize on the 2nd dive (It finaly did just before I thumbed it) and started to hurt a bit.

I though I was OK untill the flight home the following day.

The passenger next to me kept looking at me funny because my left sinus passage kept going 'EEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeee' in a very high pitched, prolonged squeek as we ascended.

A little odd but not painfull.

Descent was awefull. Had a "forward" block to deal with... Again, the passenger next to me kept looking at me as I was crying from my left eye and had a runny nose mostly on the right side wich hadn't blocked. I dunno just what he thought was going on untill I explained about the diving issues.

I had finaly "reasonably" equalized by the time we taxied to the gate and I was OK and able to walk off the plane and drive home with no problems.

----

Several weeks later after the cold was completely over and I hadn't had any further symptoms of anything I went on a 15 foot shore dive at the New Jersey shore.

Dive one was fine. We had just about the best visibility I've ever seen on the Jersey shore. On surfacing a more than normal amount of mucus came out of my nose but everything felt OK and I could breath better than I had in weeks. I guessed I still just had old crud in there from the cold that had finaly come out.

Oops.

Dive 2 was uneventfull as well untill I tried to surface. It hurt quite a bit byt he time I had gone up just 5 feet so I signaled my buddy and went back down to the bottom.

From 15 feet it took me about 20-25 minutes of crawling along the sand toward the beach. As soon as I felt it start to hurt I stopped for a while till it stopped. Then crawled some more untill it got to be shallow enough to slowly, carefully stand up.

My buddy swam on the surface and kept an eye on me all the way in.

Apparently, I had some blood in my sinus passage that had clotted from the flight home and the extra mucus from the 2 dives had knocked it loose. The clot traveled down the passage and caused a block when I tried to surface at the end of the second dive.

It finaly came out that evening (hurt/stung LOADS!) and looked like a small redish-brown mechanical pencils eraser (the skinny, ones).

I was fine after that but I stayed out of the water for a few months just to be sure.

I learned my lesson. If I've recently had a cold or don't feel 100% clear I don't dive.