Decompression Sickness

[adelito]

What is an easy, or simplest way of explaining the difference between Decompression sickness in a scuba diver and a freediver?

 

[Simos]

What difference do you mean?

 

[Chrillepille]

The easiest way is to say that there are no differences. The cause of it is the same.

However, the time of exposure of pressurized air is often very short when freediving. Maybe the amount of air passing the alveoli is a factor as well?

The difference that I have heard of is that in freediving it is more common that the symptoms are neurologic. One freediving doctor speculated that this might be due to the dive response focusing part of the bloodflow (and thereby the distribution of dissolved air) to the brain.

 

[Simos]

I guess one difference that might be resulting in different bubbles forming is that in freediving DCS is usually caused by repeated dives (unless you are going really deep In which case even one dive will cause DCS)... So the difference in pressure profile might cause different size of bubbles etc

 

[efattah]

In freediving the fast tissues are most likely to blame. Also, there is a theory that in freedivers, CO2 can bubble on the ascent. A freediver has a drastically higher CO2 level than a scuba diver-- in a scuba diver there is no chance of CO2 bubbling.