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#3936
DCS non-treatment...
seawolfdiving - 8/28/2011 3:05 PM
Category: Health & Safety
Replies: 5

As divers, we are concerned about the physiological effects that the hyperbaric environment has on our bodies. We train ourselves and our fellow divers on how to prevent decompression illness, how to recognize if decompression illness occurs, and how to seek help and treatment for suspected DCS hits…

What if a diver took a DCS hit and never went for treatment? What would be the likely outcome for that diver? Would the condition resolve itself over time, or would it get worse? Is there a time limit past which it is no longer effective to do recompression/HBOT therapy and, if so, then what options are available for treatment (if any)?

There have been many studies conducted in terms of recompression/HBOT and its effectiveness at treating DCS, but have we studied DCS in terms of symptomatic, yet untreated DCS conditions in divers?


#20384
LatitudeAdjustment - 8/28/2011 7:43 PM
A good spot to start a study would be on the Honduran divers who collect for Red Lobster, they only go to the chamber when their wife/girlfriend makes them because to miss a dive would get them fired.. Those who didn’t get treatment can been seen seated on skateboards scooting around Roatan using their hands.
#338
Subscribed
divemedic035 - 8/29/2011 1:16 PM
caisson disease (DCS) has had neumerous studies completed and several with respect to your question about non treatment..

Many misconceptions surrounding this disease are the mistaken asymptamatic treatments being provided by family health care providers based on the individual pts complaint and them not revealing to health care providers they have been diving in the last 72 - 96 hours.

 There are very few people who actualy require a table 6 deco chamber ride (285hrs).

Daryl Heisman has authored several books and published several papers on these issues as well as reemerssion therapy for SUSPECTED DCS.

 
#5082
divershaun - 5/25/2012 1:03 PM
TT6 is only 258min, not hours, by the navy’s standards anyway.
#5082
divershaun - 5/26/2012 7:30 AM
and everyone with age or type II symptoms requires a TT6 at a minimum.
#12
Tweco - 5/26/2012 8:08 AM
Untreated DCS can cause well an almost endless amount of things, i will list a few since i am not a novelist. If the "bubble" affected muscle alone it can resolve on it’s own free of issues, This is a huge maybe though.
Now if it had affected neural tissue such as nerves the damage could be much more permanent, Neural tissue can only survive about 10 minutes without oxygen so if the "bubble" has pressed on the nerve for 10 minute or cause a type of ischemic event that starved the nerve of blood for longer than 10 mins permanent neurological deficits could result.

My friend did a treatment of a Haitian diver who had been bounce diving his entire life off of compressor hoses (scary shit huh.) The man had issues his whole life really, but one day he just went unconscious which is when they sought out the help of my friend. They did a TT6, the man regained consciousness, full mental status, but now one of his legs is weak about 3/5 strength. This man will need a cane or walker to move around forever now. unless his body repair the neural tissue, probably won’t though. So this case here is a guy who probably didn’t know what DCS was and most likely had symptoms his whole life and just brushed them off as pains of age. But it reached a breaking point, Luckily they did a TT6 on him and he is a gimp instead of a corpse.

DO i know people who had DCS symptoms and let it resolve on it’s own yes are they idiots yes do they have unresolved issues years later? some do some don’t.

To dive medic,
wrong wrong wrong. firstly caission disease? really that was what DCS was called before they new what it was what caused it how to treat it, before we even understood the fact that diving increased partial pressures of gasses in the body. I hope you aren’t reading medical sources circa 1910.

TT6 is 285hrs! what is shocking here is not the length of treatment but how wrong you are.
The most disappointing thing is that you claim to be a dive medic i hope to god you don’t avoid treating patients soley on the fact that the treatments take a long time and i really hope if you do treat someone you don’t keep them in the tube for 286 god damn hours. You sir may kill someone one day. Get your head back in the books or find a new job were you can’t kill those in need of medical attention.