Ouch! or: listen to your body!

[yaffle]

Last Monday, for the first time in 6 months, I had a dive meet with some of my buddy's. Yes, finally!!!
After the greetings and good stories we suited up, and got wet. We dove at a lake in the Netherlands, called vinkeveen. We played for a while in and around a sunken city-bus at about 8 meters down, which was a lot of fun, and good getting used to the diving again.

Water temp was about 14C at the surface, and about 10C at the bottom. All was fine but with equalising I heard some wierd squeaking(?) sounds. Equalising went ok, but I noticed I had to push a bit harder than normall. After about an hour and 15 minutes we decided to move our dive-buoy to an easy drop of about 15 meters, and do some relaxed Free Immersions to the plate. When I was almost at 14 meters, my left ear suddenly equalised very easy. At the surface however my left ear started to hurt considerably, with pain radiation to my neck. So what do you do at that point? Yes, Correct, you call it a day and go to the side.

Ahum. Well, not me. Yaffle the jackass. I waited for 5 minutes and did a small 3 meter dive, and there it felt like air was escaping from my ear, and at the surface the pain was gone! Excellent, so stupid me did another easy dive to 15. Going down and up it seemed as if air leaked out of my eardrum directly, but no pain or nausea. We ended our dive, and went home. No trouble, no pain, until an hour or 2 later......

My hearing became less and less, in the end hearing nothing through the left ear, and weird tones through my right ear. And then slowly the pain came. During the drive to my house i had to stop to vomit (sorry), took 2 ibuprofen but the pain got worse and worse. Only on the left side, radiating to my neck, cheek and teeth. That night i didn't sleep, 600mg ibuprofen and 5 hours later some air and fluid escaped from my ear and I thought it was solved, just a reverse block.

But in the morning I was still deaf and in pain at the left-hand side. Off to the doctor and yes indeed, a small rupture in the eardrum and an infected ear...

I did use the neti pot and did dry equalisations the week before, but I guess just the lack of training, cold water and the squeaks should have warned me to take it slower still....

So now no diving for at least 4-6 weeks(?)
So please people, listen to your body!

Yaffle.
Ouch.

[TRITON]

Wish you a fast recovery......

[glubglub]

Hi. I think I might have blown my oval / round window. I tried to post in another thread, but waiting for moderator to approve.

My symptoms now: fullness feeling in the ear, lost of high frequency hearing, only on my left. I always have trouble with equalizing my left one... my right one is always fine. No vertigo, no vomitting, but just tons of worries (I play piano as well, would hate losing my hearing, though Beethoven did amazing stuff deaf, I'm definitely no Beethoven).

Happened when I surfaced from 20 ft... Argh!! Similar story though, this was first time I went to the ocean after 2 weeks+.

Question: Am I done diving then?

Yes, I can still do long distance surface finswimming that would be fun too but I love finswimming on 20 - 30 ft more.

Comments?

[yaffle]

If you ruptered it like I did, yes, sorry, you're done for at least 4 to 6 weeks. 2 weeks no water at all in your ear, and after that no equalising for another 2 to 3 week. Just let it heal slowly, or you get more problems. You might swim after some time with proplugs I guess....
Good luck and get well soon...
@triton.... thanks!

Yaffle

[yaffle]

Update, don't listen to your local medic....grrrrr
He subscribed otosporin, 3x3 drops a day, but since the pain stayed, I talked to a dive medic, and it turns out otosporin is the worst drug you can use with a tear in your eardrum. It softens the drum and stalls recovery.
Back to square one, off to a specialist.

Yaffle

[glubglub]

Wow that sounds bad.

That's why I'm also worried listening to a non-diver doctor. I don't think they realize what we're putting ourselves into.

I wish you a very speedy recovery!!