Mixing Breath Hold & Scuba Protocol Question

[johnfish]

I got back into freediving when my camera flooded in Raj Ampat ( too nice of a place ) and it was a blessing in disguise but now i'll attempt to integrate both .

The question is does a 2 morning scuba dive with the custormary 1 hour interval @ max 20 meters or less require a 12 or a 24 hour wait for a breathold freedive session with the max depth at 20 meters .

It is technically "multiple scuba dives on a single day" if i got that right and should require 24 hours ?

Now that i think about it my computer D4I should give me a no fly time that may work for the freedive.


Do i have the rule right ? Does two scuba dives require a 24 hour wait and well any feed back appreciated ,

thanks in advance

john


i drive to the dive site and am a bit older and fat

 

[Bill]

The big unknown is the affect of ascent time. If you use scuba tables up to the free dive, it will give you a max no decomp time for 20 meters. If you follow that table AND take over two minutes to ascend, your probably safe for one free dive and then your back in the unknown.

 

[subunit]

....as bill wrote : lots of unknown in this topic.
my advise would be not to freedive after you did two scubadives in the same day.
scubadive today and freedive the next day.
i once had dci-symptoms after mixing scuba and freedive, and it was not a good feeling.
that day i did 3 scubadives and was freediving after the first and the second scubadive.
on the way back to shore i had my hand getting numb and then my whole right arm followed.
i lost motoric control of the right arm and was feeling dizzy overall.
so my thought was if the symptoms keep getting worse and i have to go in the deco-chamber,
the people in charge wont even be able to set up the chamber the correct way because they cant rely
on the infos of my scubadives. how could they include an unknown number of freedives,depht,lenght,
intervalls into my scubaprofile ?
anyway, things turned out good for me. by the time i reached shore, the symptoms started to ease up.
after breathing oxigen for half an hour i was back to normal.
i pushed it hard that day, young stupid and ambitious, and i learned my lesson the hard way.
after that expirience i dont mix those two things anymore at the same day.
at least not freedive after scuba.
so why you dont freedive in the morning and scuba after ?
this would not cause any danger, if you not freediving extreme lenght and depht.

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Actually, there is quite a lot of thinking in this space. We reported on it back in 2015 after chatting with one of the most knowledgeable DAN Diving scientists Dr Neal W Pollock. Take a look: https://www.deeperblue.com/can-you-mix-scuba-diving-freediving/

 

[subunit]

Actually, there is quite a lot of thinking in this space. We reported on it back in 2015 after chatting with one of the most knowledgeable DAN Diving scientists Dr Neal W Pollock. Take a look: https://www.deeperblue.com/can-you-mix-scuba-diving-freediving/

..read the whole thing and find not much information in it. their conclusions made on that topic seemed to be done just by common knowledge, but not backed up by statistics, intensive research on the exact topic or field-studies.
bottomline they recommend almost the exact same things i did before. so nothing new here....but still a good advise....

QOUTE : " So what would we recommend? Ultimately to be as safe as possible any Freediving activity should not be mixed with Scuba Diving on the same day – follow the same principle as “no fly” guidance (i.e. wait till you have off-gassed completely) on dive computers.
If you feel compelled to combine both kinds of diving on the same day (which we strongly recommend you shouldn’t) it should only be before Scuba Diving and at a depth shallower than 15m/49ft with long surface intervals."

 

[Stephan Whelan]

..read the whole thing and find not much information in it. their conclusions made on that topic seemed to be done just by common knowledge, but not backed up by statistics, intensive research on the exact topic or field-studies.
bottomline they recommend almost the exact same things i did before. so nothing new here....but still a good advise....

You got it - the recommendation is to NOT mix the two types. If you feel compelled to then go Freediving BEFORE Scuba Diving and keep above 15m/49ft.

The recommendations are backed up by research by DAN (Divers Alert Network) not just "common sense".

 

[subunit]

The recommendations are backed up by research by DAN (Divers Alert Network) not just "common sense".

....checked again and now saw the link in the article that guided me to the DAN-article on the topic .
http://www.alertdiver.com/Could_Breath-Hold_Diving_after_Scuba_Cause_Decompression_Sickness_
....intresting, but not much news in that article neither. they basically admit that there are lots of "UNKNOWNS" on that topic.
it seems that even they have a lack of scuba-freedive-dcs-case-related-evidence.
so relating to dcs in breathhold diving and using common diving-dcs-knowledge made them coming to conclusions.
i do think that their advise is a good one to follow....