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Warm fuzzy feeling after ascent

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Shadowkiller

Digital Hunter
Jul 30, 2002
1,272
267
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45
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?
 
Adreneline release (from the tangle) causing vasodilation (warm 'rush' & headache afterward)?

Just a guess.

Peter S.
 
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.
 
efattah said:
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. :hungover

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?
 
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.
 
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..
 
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