About SCUBA Diving Disease

While it is a popular recreational sport, scuba diving is also sometimes hazardous. Breathing compressed air under pressure can cause health risks or compound and aggravate existing problems. The fundamentals of these health issues are always addressed in basic diving courses, but it is useful to examine them before enrolling in such a program.

  1. Diver's Disease

    • The foremost concern for scuba divers is the condition popularly known as "the bends," but also sometimes called "diver's disease." Decompression sickness, as it is known medically, occurs because when the body is placed under pressure, it absorbs more inert nitrogen gas than would ordinarily be the case at standard atmospheric pressure. The greater the pressure, the greater the level of absorption. If the pressure is suddenly reduced, this nitrogen can form harmful bubbles in the bloodstream. Decompression sickness can result in situations where pressure rapidly drops below normal, such as in the explosive decompression of an airliner flying at high altitude.

    Type I

    • Type I decompression sickness is mild or moderate. The symptoms include joint pain, skin itching or the sensation of insects crawling on the skin. The joint pain is where the term "the bends" comes from. Mild cases are usually best treated simply by not going diving for the next couple of days. Moderate cases are treated by having the diver breathe pure oxygen and possibly putting him in a decompression chamber to repressurize his body and arrest the decompression sickness.

    Type II

    • Type II decompression sickness is severe. It is usually the result of an accidental or emergency ascent from very deep dives. The symptoms include confusion, memory loss, headache, bad vision, seizures, nausea, weakness, tingling in the spine, shortness of breath and burning in the lungs. This kind of severe decompression sickness needs to be treated with repressurization immediately, lest it lead to serious injury or death.

    Nitrogen Narcosis

    • A related problem is nitrogen narcosis. This is the effect that nitrogen-saturated blood has on the brain. It becomes a problem starting at depths after 30 meters, and the effects are very similar to breathing the nitrous oxide used by many dentists as a mild anesthesia.

    Prevention/Solution

    • The traditional method of preventing "diver's disease" is the decompression stop. By staging his ascent with regular stops, a diver can give his body a chance to expel excess nitrogen safely via regular exhalation from the lungs. These stops are usually 3 to 5 minutes in length, but the exact timing of both the safety stop's duration and the depth at which it takes place can vary with the dive plan. Divers also rely on specialized gas mixes to minimize the inhalation of nitrogen, such as NITROX and TRIMIX.