Was I bent?? / my chamber experience

[adjuster-jd]

This weekend, I did the following 4 dives (in this order)
Saturday night - 43 feet for 61 minutes
Sunday morning - 77 feet 24 minutes total (ascent began at 16 minutes);
surface interval of 1:46 followed by a dive to 109 feet for 24 minutes (ascent began at 13 minutes).
Sunday afternoon (after a surface interval if 2:07) a dive to 94 feet for 45 minutes total. Ascent began at approx 20-25 minutes.
Water temp on the deep dives was approx 47 degrees at depth. After the last dive my hands were COLD. At dinner afterwards my hands were aching badly even after taking some advil.
The next morning, I still had some aching in both hands. I also had some muscle pain around my right elbow. (I had been moving gear around all weekend as I was at a couple different dive locations so I was loading/unloading tanks/gear etc).

I called DAN and they recommended I contact my local hyperbaric doc for a consult.
As it turns out, my local chamber is not currently operating so the staff there gave my history to a doc nearby and I was directed to his chamber the next day. (I still had some mild aching in my hands).
When I got there, the doc was not there to personnally examine me (some other doc took a H&P) and I was put into the chamber for a table 5 ride... At 20 minutes into the ride the operator told me to breathe from the air regulator which I had some trouble getting air out of. I tried to breathe from it several times with some difficulty and at that point I apparently began a grand mal seizure. Apparently I seized for a couple minutes and then was unconscious. I became somewhat combative during my awakening (the next thing I remember is talking to the chaplain who was standing next to me).... They had given me some ativan, so my recollections of the afternoon are pretty fuzzy.....

I'm not really convinced that I was bent since my symptoms were so minimal, but since no one could really rule it out, they decided to recompress me anyway at which point I became one of the 0.6 percent who has a seizure under hyperbaric O2..

Any thoughts on whether I was really bent?

 

[DandyDon]

If you were bent on those dives, I'm thinking more examinations indicated. But a few questions...?
(1) Age?
(2) Is it common for you to be that sore after that activity?
(3) What brand of computer were you using, and did it ever approach or cross NDL?
(4) I take it you were diving common air..?

thanks

 

[Dr Deco]

Hello adjuster-jd :

Bent?

That is not a large gas load but DCS can happen. It is possible that the “bubble gods” were against you that day and nucleation/growth occurred that day.

Oxygen

The sensitivity to oxygen varies from day to day. In the one study made by Donald, it varies in a single individual from a few minutes to a hundred minutes over many oxygen exposures performed over two months.

You could repeat that exposure and never have another seizure in your life.

Dr Deco :doctor:

The next class in Decompression Physiology for 2006 is September 16 – 17. :1book: http://wrigley.usc.edu/hyperbaric/advdeco.htm

 

[adjuster-jd]

I'm 38, diving air on all but the first dive of the day which was on 36% on the dive to 77 feet. I've been on dives where my hands were cold before but don't remember them aching that long after the dive but could be possible..

Using Oceanic ProPlus 2 computer. Never approached anywhere near NDL. Only got one dot into the yellow one my second dive and only in the yellow briefly.

As for the pain in my arm, it felt like just muscle pain to me but was centered around my elbow... Since I was lugging a lot of gear/tanks around this may be explainable as well. Strangely I still have some pain in my elbow - kind of like a "funny bone" pain which started the day after I left the hospital... I called the doc who was in charge of the chamber (he's not really a dive doc, not sure the extent of his knowledge of DCS issues). He didnt seem to think the elbow pain is related...

As for the O2 hit, I'm not convinced that there was not some malfunction of the chamber when it came to delivering air. When I tried to breathe from the mask which was supposed to deliver plain air, it sure didn't feel like it was providing any air. I sucked pretty hard on that before the seizure and I don't think I was getting any air from the mask. I couldn't have been hypoxic since the chamber was filled with O2, but I just don't think I was getting the desired air break which may have contributed to the tox hit... Who knows.

 

[Thalassamania]

What sort of chamber was this?

 

[adjuster-jd]

Basically a "glass coffin" style.. Here's a photo in this link.
http://www.svch.net/hyperbaric_medicine_center.asp

 

[DandyDon]

I could be wrong, but I think your hands just got too cold and muscles bruised. You've never been 38 before, it changes every year, believe me. Also sounds like the chamber was your biggest threat.

 

[Thalassamania]

While they are the coming thing, for a number of reasons, I'm not much of a fan of monoplace chambers. Now I undersand your oxygen atmosphere/overboard air situation. In multiplace chambers they are pressurized with air and you get pure oxygen through a mask or hood, something I feel is a much better solution.

Where you bent? Who knows, the only definitive diagnosis (as far as I know) is relief of pain/symtoms upon pressurization.

 

[DandyDon]

While they are the coming thing, for a number of reasons, I'm not much of a fan of monoplace chambers. Now I undersand your oxygen atmosphere/overboard air situation. In multiplace chambers they are pressurized with air and you get pure oxygen through a mask or hood, something I feel is a much better solution.

Where you bent? Who knows, the only definitive diagnosis (as far as I know) is relief of pain/symtoms upon pressurization.

I'm suspecting that OxTox ordreal just took his mind off of the muscle pains. I wonder if the attending physician discussed his case with DAN docs, as I doubt that docs in that area know DCS well...?

 

[amascuba]

It certainly sounds like signs and symptoms of DCS to me. Here are some of the things that I noticed:

1. Cold water can contribute to the threat of DCS.
2. Aches in your muscles and joints after diving.
3. Physical workload after the dive.
4. Deeper repeditive dives on air.
5. As for the toxing - Your PPO2 during the chamber ride, while breathing O2, is typically between 3 - 4 ata. In decompression diving allot of divers will limit their PPO2 to 1.6 ata during decompression, but they are also usually relaxed and working as little as possible. You describe having to work at breathing from the mask during your air break. Taking that into account your breathing rate would go up, your heart rate would go up, you would have a higher level of stress, and you may have had some CO2 retention because of this that may have contributed to the toxing. I'm by no means an expert, but from what I do know those are the hints I picked up on from your description. -- As Dr. Deco said - there have been some studies that show that resistance to day to day O2 exposure can vary greatly. The study I read talked about a guy who toxed out in only 4 minutes one day and then toxed out after 100+ the next day with the same conditions.

I have a couple other questions.

How long was the S.I. between saturday and sunday?

Were you breathing air on the saturday dive?

How soon did you start experiencing pains?

Any unusual stress during the dive?

Were you able to warm up between dives?

Were you diving at altitude? If so, what altitude?

Where you hydrated before and after the dives?

Something you may want to think about is a pre-existing condition that limited you from off-gasing efficiently.