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Old September 27th, 2001
efattah efattah is offline
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CO2 Narcosis

No, I mean CO2 narcosis. I've been researching it for a while now, it's not well known, but it has happened to me several times. It is totally different from N2 narcosis, and it has nothing to do with shallow-water anything, because it only happens deep. When PaCO2 goes over 70mmHg, CO2 narcosis begins, after which you have approximately 100 seconds (1:40) before you either suffer CO2-syncope or narcolepsy (sudding falling asleep). Symptoms of CO2 narcosis are vaguely similar to N2 narcosis.

Only deep freedivers get CO2 narcosis (i.e. 80m+), ordinary scuba divers cannot tolerate enough CO2 to allow their CO2 levels to go over 70mmHg, with a couple of exceptions--I heard a couple of people with very high CO2 tolerance blacked out from CO2 narcosis while scuba diving at 40m and 69m on air dives (or so the medic claim after examination). I'm not sure how the medic discovered that the 69m blackout was from CO2 syncope and not O2 toxicity.

Eric
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