Painfull Squeeze, little explanation or reason

[azapa]

Hi,

Just to share a not too fun weekends diving experience to see if any feedback can help avoid similar painful events.

It is mid- summer here, and I have no cold, clear sinuses etc. My EQ in general is very good now, I pre EQ and never "stretch" my EQ for a few meters. I am very careful.

I started a spearing session with some dives to 15M and slowly worked into shallower water, ending up in a rough breaking area around 7M. The dives were short and tiring with the current. I would say it was about dive 15 to 20 of the 30 dive session I normally do. Cold, clean water, 14 deg C.

I dove to about 7M, looked around a rock and came back up, quite fast, huge pain about 1 inch from the top of my nose and eye, on my cheek. The pain was so intense I left the water immediately, I had tears in my eyes it was so unbearable (guys have low pain thresholds, I know..). The pain went all the way down to my upper jaw, and my teeth were probably the most painful part.

I took 2 asprin, no help at all, my wife (bless her) but heat on the area, a light bulb, for 30 minutes. The pain suddenly subsided about 4 hours later, within 15 minutes it was totally gone. I *think* I felt a little "squeak" in my nose as the pain went.

Why did this happen on the shallow dives, when it has never happend on much deeper?
What is the fastest way to recover from theses pinches?
How could it happen if I was 0% congested?
Any recommendations to avoid?

Thanks...

[sheepeck]

Looks to me like reverse block of sinuses I had two years ago.
It was so painful that I almost wasn't able to ascend to surface - I had to hold on the mooring line and go up slowly. Luckily I wasn't deep so I had the time to be slow.

But, what's different from your experience - I felt a pain already on the way down. But - the pain location seams to be the same.

Reason of the pain was air stucked in sinuses when they somehow blocked and din't let the air go out during ascend.

At that time I didn't take any medicaments, nothing, but wasn't able to dive for more then week - my sinuses were blocked whole time.

So - I cannot say why it happen to you and what to do to prevent it from happennig in the future. You said nothing about beeing cold and so on and that was my problem at that time. So I hope someone will write here something we could learn from.

Hope you won't have that experience again.

Petr

[rslomkow]

I agree it sounds like a sinus blockage. I have had this in as shallow as 5m when I have been foolish enough to dive with a cold. Now in your case you did not register any mucous, but I suspect there was something floating around. This sounds like a (hopefully) freak blockage.

not sure what to do other than go slow and do a warm water sinus wash.

[cdavis]

Sinus squeeze, for sure. You can get those as shallow as a meter or so. Mine felt like somebody had an ice pic stuck in my cheek and was hitting it with a hammer every time my heart beat. Luckily mine went away in a few minutes. Hours must have been horrible. I only had it once, but that was plenty.

Go real easy on the diving for a while. Cortizone pills, under a docs supervision, are a great help if the problem persists.

Connor

[azapa]

thanks for the help and comments. A very trivial version of the same block/side happened about a year ago from a deeper dive, but disappeared in seconds after arriving.

In this case, out of stupidity and desire not to leave the beach on a downer, I dove the following day, no probs, but took the ascents very easy to the point of using buoyancy only, no finning up. It actually made for a very relaxing session.

I am left wondering if a decongestant taken AFTER the painful dive would have sped the relief?

thanks again.

[immerlustig]

1 Why did this happen on the shallow dives, when it has never happend on much deeper?
2 How could it happen if I was 0% congested?
3 Any recommendations to avoid?

hi,

1 relative pressure increase in shallow water is greater than at depth meaning air expands faster at the end (top)
2 if your reverse block did in fact occur all of a sudden, without any real warning that would indeed be a very rare situation. sometimes over the period of the dive session equalisation just gets worse slowly. a reverse block is usually also not happening spontaneously but building up over time. you might notice somewhat slower equalisation going down as well as up.
3 paying attention to equalisation (and how you feel before, during and after the dive), diving conservatively to be able to slow down the ascent rate to allow air to expand more easily

anyway, that are some experiences of mine at least.

cheers,

roland

[azapa]

Thanks Roland. You know I was thinking about EQ as a cause. I would imagine the opposite of what you said to happen. IE. the LESS air I pump in on the way down, the LESS there is to come out on the way up? In other words, maybe a little "stretching" of the ears is not a bad thing to put up with on these shallower, higher pressure change dives? Possibly, being used to deeper dives (3 to 4 eq's to 15m) , I had "over equalized" on these shallower immersions and something pinched shut on the way up at just the wrong time?

Ideas only...

Cheers