Warm fuzzy feeling after ascent

[Shadowkiller]

After being out of the water for 3 weeks due to work, bad weather and laziness I hit a nice spot near my place. A mate and I were diving along a drop-off, deepest part some 22m.

I dived for 3hrs, mainly 5-15m with my camera, dive duration was never longer than 1.30min, with no strong urge to breathe. Taking it easy. After a few hrs we decided to do some bounce dives to 22m. Breathed up, went down, hit the bottom, paused for 4-5secs to admire the sponges and went back up. 3m from the surface I got tangled in the bouy line which freaked me a little.. But no harm done. Dive time 45 secs.

After grabbing the first mouthful of fresh air I felt a warm rush to all parts of my body, especially my head. I felt a little fuzzy for 2-3 seconds, but all ok after that. No muscle weakness or light-headedness apart from that little burst. My dive buddy said he saw no signs of Samba, I had no twitching or tingling in the hands and feet.

I hadn't experienced that feeling before, even on longer dives to 30m, so we called it a day and headed home. 10 minutes later I had a pounding headache.

Any ideas anyone? What caused it, what was it?

[Longfins]

Adreneline release (from the tangle) causing vasodilation (warm 'rush' & headache afterward)?

Just a guess.

Peter S.

[efattah]

Could have been many things, including simple hypoxia--in particular, combined with low blood pressure which could have accompanied the dehydration which would have occurred after such a long time in the water.

[Shadowkiller]

Originally Posted by efattah

simple hypoxia--in particular, combined with low blood pressure which could have accompanied the dehydration which would have occurred after such a long time in the water.

Bingo. I was quite thirsty when we got back into the harbour...

Seems strange that a simple dive like that could cause such a strong physical response. In comps I often dive 20m, 10-20 times (over 1-2hrs) with no probs. And always have a major thirst after the 5-6hr comp.

Guess Im not as dive fit as I feel.

Actually... About an hour earlier I received an electric shop from a Numbray (electric stingray), which would have done little for my heartrate. Could the after-effects of an electric shock of around 200 Volts, with a possible peak value of almost 50 Amps (Aus Museum), be significant? If this kind of incident occurs out of the water it may well be fatal, especially with a shock across the chest, but underwater the current path is through the part of the body touching the Numbray only. The Numbrays generate the volts acorss their body. I had plenty of time to recover from a fairly mild shock, so the heart-rate was down, but what about other physical effects?

[efattah]

Surely the electric shock could have had lingering effects on the nervous system. The whole physiology of breath-holding and its effects are strongly related to the nervous system, so there could have been a link there, however the nervous system is still poorly understood even by the brightest minds.

[kingohyes]

The feeling you describe is somewhat similar to when im doing static with no wrmup or brthup.. I also get some swoosjing in my ears, and often I get a headache..