Hi everyone,
I was in Marsa Alam diving with my husband last week 3rd March - 11th March) and things didnt quite go to plan!
The 1st few days of the trip were amazing, the diving around Marsa Alam was excellent. The coral was the most pristine we've ever seen, and the reefs were bursting with life. Absolutely stunning!
But following a dive on Sat 7th, I surfaced feeling unusually dizzy, that night I still felt dizzy, but we put it down to the heat or something Id eaten.
Then we were up at 6am on Sun 8th to go to Dolphin House reef, I still felt dizzy but not that bad. From our hotel it was an hour by car and then an hour by boat to the dive site.
I did the 1st dive at Dolphin house reef - which was fantastic! Sandy bottom with huge pinnacles, beautiful corals, plenty of life. It was lovely. But when I surfaced I felt very dizzy & very nauseous. After I took my dive kit off I went and lay on the upper deck, I felt so bad I couldn’t lift my head. The dive master from Coraya divers said he thought I had sea sickness, the journey over was a tad rough but I've experienced far worse. No one suspected it had anything to do with diving, and I wasnt offered oxygen or any form of 1st aid. Sunday night & nearly all of Monday were spent lying in bed feeling awful. By Monday morning I had developed blurred vision, pains in my abdomen & jaw. A burning sensation in my legs and the dizziness was very strong, as was the nausea. Monday evening I went to the hotel doctor. He immediately suspected decompression sickness. I said that was impossible as I hadn’t done anything wrong on my dive. I was at 16 metres ,had carried out a safety stop & I didn’t come up too quickly, I couldnt think of anything I'd done wrong!
He put me on a drip and called an ambulance. So 2 1/2 hours later at 11:45pm I arrive at El Gouna hospital and was taken straight into the decompression ward. The specialist examined me, then after 40 minutes of oxygen and another drip he re-examined me, he diagnosed DCI and told me Id have to spend time in the recompression chamber! I had to spend 5 hours in there!! The 1st 3hrs or so went by pretty quickly as I was so dizzy and disorientated I didn’t really notice time, but the last 2 odd hours dragged in! I got out around 6am - I was exhausted! I then had to spend another night in hospital - luckily they allowed my husband to stay too. We were given a nice private ward, I was surprised by the standard of the hospital it was cleaner than some of the places over here! I was discharged at 10am on Wednesday morning, and my flight home was at 19:35 that evening.
The doctors aren’t sure why I got deco sickness and said some people are more susceptible to it than others, an underlying heart condition can also cause it. I have low blood pressure and this combined with a bit of dehydration could have been the cause. I am going to have an echo scan done to check that out as I don’t want to give up diving but if I have a hole the heart I guess I'll have too.
Since I got home I’ve been feeling really dizzy, I went to see NI's hyberbar specialist on Monday and he told me the dizziness was being caused by some small swelling on my brain and spinal cord and would resolve itself. Thankfully I’m feeling much better now. The specialist also said I wont have any long term effects which was a huge relief!
I thought I'd share this with you guys - not to scare you but just to raise awareness - and to especially raise awareness that if someone feels ill following a dive you should assume the worse and administer oxygen. I cant help thinking had I been given oxygen after surfacing from the dive my condition may not have got so bad - and I would have been treated for DCI sooner.
