To Pee or Not To Pee?

Here is an article that I wrote some years ago for Scuba Diving Magazine.

By Ernest S Campbell, MD

What Makes Divers Want to Pee While Diving?

When diving, I suddenly get the urge to pee, even though I voided only minutes before. Why do I need to pee so soon?
via e-mail

This physiological phenomenon is known as immersion diuresis, a fancy term for your body’s response to feeling under pressure. Blood is shifted to your body’s core, and the hypothalamus gland thinks this means your total fluid volume is too high and instructs your kidneys to make urine. What can you do to avoid immersion diuresis?

Avoid diuretics like caffeine before you dive.

Intentionally dehydrating yourself might seem like a good idea, but dehydration increases fatigue and predisposes you to decompression sickness.

Try to stay warm. A side effect of your body’s response to cold is the production of urine. Wearing a hooded vest under your wetsuit may save you from having to empty your bladder when you least want to. On the boat, stay out of the wind, bundle up and wear a hat.

Be healthy, sober and rested. A variety of over-the-counter and prescription drugs can interfere with your body’s heat conservation mechanisms, typically by preventing the constriction of blood vessels near the skin. Antihistamines are particularly suspect. Alcohol is worse.

Although adipose tissue insulates well, allowing fat people to tolerate cold water immersion longer than lean people, it’s better to be physically fit.

The Science of Warming Your Wetsuit

You try to hold it in, but can’t. Desperate, you pee in your wetsuit. You hope no one will notice. But what can you do? Drink less water?

No, drink more.

The Dehydration Factor

Deliberately dehydrating yourself, in the hope you can hold it until the surface interval, just makes the embarrassment problem worse.

Because of immersion diuresis and your involuntary reaction to cold, chances are you’ll have to pee anyway.

Dehydration makes the result stronger in odor and color.

The Embarrassment Factor

There is a well-worn joke that divers belong to two schools regarding peeing in their wetsuit: Those who do and those who lie about it. If you do have to pee in your wetsuit, know this:

If you’re well-hydrated, your urine will be nearly clear and odorless. Almost like water. So who’s to know?

There’s no health risk to peeing in your wetsuit. Most people don’t realize that urine is sterile, unless you already have an infection of the urinary tract. The worst you have to fear is a case of diaper rash if the urine stays against your skin several hours, and this too is less of a problem when your urine is diluted. Solution: Open your wetsuit under water and rinse it between dives.

The Warmth Factor

True or false? Urinating in a wetsuit is a quick way to warm up. False, and here’s why: You may feel warm initially, but it will actually lower your body’s warmth. And, if you’re wearing a tight-fitting wetsuit that doesn’t flush easily, a semi-dry or dry suit, then this warming-up technique loses a lot of its appeal.

What To Do with a Wetsuit that Stinks

It couldn’t be helped. You felt the urge to pee during a dive, and so you did. Now you’re afraid your wetsuit will stink. What should you do?

Give it a hot rinse. This is the most important part of regular stink prevention. Walk right past the rinse tank where other divers are busy dunking their suits in the filth rinsed off other gear, and go back to your room at the resort or home and rinse it in hot, fresh water. The easiest way to do this is to take your suit in the shower with you. Hot water is better than lukewarm water for breaking down salts from the ocean and from your body.

Hang it. After rinsing, hang your suit to dry on a wide wooden or plastic hanger, preferably one made for wetsuits. Use a wide hanger to keep the front and back of the suit apart so it can dry more quickly.

Soap it. Every once in a while give your suit a soapy bath. Scrub it well inside and out. Use a sponge on the slick neoprene and a soft-bristled brush on any nylon linings. Just about any kind of soap will work to kill the odor, but some are better than others. The best soaps for the job are commercially available “wetsuit shampoos” (check your local dive store) or a gentle baby shampoo. Next best are regular bath soaps and shampoos. Dish and laundry soaps are too harsh to use regularly on your wetsuit, but will do the job in a pinch. Never have your suit dry cleaned.

Deodorize it. If your suit still reeks, you might want to deodorize it. “Sink the Stink”  is an all-natural deodorizer made specifically for de-stinking wetsuits. http://www.sinkthestink.com/

==============================================================================

Cirrhosis and Ascites

Because of what I consider significant risk, I would not certify this person as fit to dive.

Gestión de Accidentes de Buceo
A Power Point Presentation in Spanish

It is desirable to have a standard approach to the initial management (i.e. first-aid) of an injured diver.

Coincidentally, a diver may have a non-diving related illness or injury, but in general, symptoms and signs following a dive are likely to be due to that dive.

An injured diver must be removed from the water as quickly as possible. If the diver is unconscious and beneath the surface of the water, then they should be surfaced and decompressed in the head upright, normal anatomic position with special attention being paid by the rescuer to the maintenance of a patent airway. Surfacing feet first would delay the initiation of mouth to mouth for a short period. Air would continue to be forced from the lungs by ascent either way you raise the diver. PADI states that head up is the appropriate method. On the surface, the ‘do-ci-do’ left sided position is what is being taught for mouth to mouth initiation of breathing.

Getting the unconscious diver to the surface as fast as reasonably possible, head up and with the regulator in place would be my recommendation. NOAA does not address this in their new manual and I cannot find any reference to position of retrieval
in the Navy manual.

For other articles about diving safety see http://www.scuba-doc.com/dvsaf.html

A SCUBA diver in this context should have their regulator placed in their mouth, but no attempt at “purging” gas into the injured diver should be made. Divers using rebreathing systems, full-face masks, band masks or helmets should be “flushed-through’ with fresh gas, preferably from an alternative emergency gas supply, before swimming them to the surface or recovering them to a platform or bell. Specific techniques for recovery of a diver into and resuscitation of a diver in a bell or hyperbaric rescue vessel are needed and must be practiced.

In the absence of such a platform, the injured diver should be made positively buoyant by removing their weight-belt and perhaps by inflating their buoyancy-compensator (providing it neither limits access for the rescuer nor causes the injured diver to float “face-down’). The injured diver’s air tank should be left in-situ as it acts as a keel. The rescuer should adjust their own buoyancy by buoyancy-compensator inflation and not by dropping their weight-belt in case they lose hold of the injured diver and have to recover them again from underwater.

The utility of expired-air-resuscitation (EAR) in the water, either directly or via a snorkel, is debatable. Certainly there is a significant difference between conducting EAR in a swimming pool and in the ocean in this context, effective in-water EAR is only possible with continual practice in the ocean and, in general, an injured diver’s best interests are usually served by protecting their airway and getting them out of the water as quickly as possible.

Techniques should not vary between the diver who has drowned and the diver who has been envenomated, nor should it be altered for a hypothermic diver (in whom it must never be abandoned until after re-warming has been completed).

If any form of decompression illness (DCI) is suspected, then the diver must be laid flat and not allowed to sit-up or stand as this may cause bubbles to distribute from the left ventricle and aorta to the brain. Although such posture-induced phenomena are unusual (rare), they have a very poor outcome. This posture must be maintained until the injured diver with DCI is inside a recompression chamber (RCC). A headdown posture is no longer advocated as it may increase the return of and subsequent “arterialization” of venous bubbles, it causes cephalic-venous engorgement such that subsequent middle-ear inflation (e.g. in a RCC during treatment) is very difficult, it limits access for resuscitation and assessment, and, in animal-model studies it actually retards the recovery of brain function in comparison to the horizontal posture.

With the exception of oxygen toxicity, administration of 100% oxygen is useful in all diving accidents. Although divers who have pulmonary oxygen toxicity need to breathe a PiO2 of less than 0.6 Bars, many of those who have had an oxygen-induced convulsion will subsequently become hypoxic and need oxygen administration.

To administer 100% oxygen, a sealing anesthetic-type mask is needed (unless a mouthpiece and nose-clip in a conscious diver or an endotracheal tube is used) and a circuit with high gas flow-rates and a gas reservoir must be used. Air breaks, to retard pulmonary damage, may be needed, but should be minimized as must all other interruptions. This is one of the reasons why oral rehydration is not particularly useful.

It is noteworthy that administration of 100% oxygen is the definitive treatment of the salt-water aspiration syndrome and most pulmonary barotrauma, including the majority of pneumothoraces. Indeed, chest cannulation is rarely needed.

As with oxygen, aggressive intravenous rehydration is probably of benefit to all injured divers, even those who have drowned. Certainly, such therapy is of considerable benefit in DCI. Isotonic solutions should be used. Glucose solutions should be avoided as they have been shown to increase damage in neurological trauma.

An indwelling catheter should be inserted (filled with water, not air) and an accurate fluid balance is essential. A persistent poor urinary output despite adequate fluid replacement may indicate either persistent hemoconcentration or bladder dysfunction. Either indicates severe DCI and warrants both bladder catheterization and further fluid replacement.

There are no drugs of proven benefit in the treatment of DCI. Corticosteroids, anti-platelet drugs, aspirin have been tried without success. Lignocaine has been shown to improve neurological outcome of DCS, particularly when added to oxygen. Diazepam is used to prevent and treat oxygen convulsions and to control vestibular symptoms. It makes titration of treatment almost impossible because it masks the symptoms. Indomethacin is useful only when used in combination with prostaglandin and heparin.

Nasal decongestants and analgesics are useful in many divers with aural barotrauma, and, rarely, antibiotics may be indicated.

Some chemotherapy is useful for marine animal injuries. Many coelenterate (jelly-fish) tentacle nematocysts are inactivated by being doused with vinegar. Fish-sting pain is markedly reduced by immersion of the sting-site in hot water.

Box jelly fish injury

Box jelly fish

Compression-immobilization bandages should be used where possible. Analgesia often requires regional or local anesthetic-blockade and there are specific anti-venoms available for the box jelly fish (Sea wasp), the stone fish and for sea snakes

In-water treatment of DCI is practiced and advocated by some, but is logistically difficult, requires dedicated and effective equipment (e.g. full-face mask; umbilical and breathing system cleaned for oxygen; cradle, chair or platform that can be lowered to the desired depth; warm, calm water without current and dangerous marine animals; and, adequate supplies of oxygen), and clearly should not be used for unconscious, confused or nauseated divers. In general, the diver should be retrieved as quickly as possible to a definitive treatment facility.

As for any retrieval of an injured person, stabilization of the diver must precede transportation. This will include resuscitation, delivery of oxygen, insertion of an intravenous line, correction of hypothermia (in divers in the field this should be based on passive re-warming using dry clothes and blankets) or hyperthermia (most likely in closed-diving systems and again the response will need to be specifically developed and practiced), control of hemorrhage and splinting of fractures. A record of oxygen administration and fluid balance is essential.

If DCI is suspected, then the retrieval must not exceed 1000 ft above sea level. A transportable recompression chamber is ideal, but hyperbaric transportations are logistically difficult and considerable time-savings are needed to justify this activity. Many aircraft can be pressurized to “sea-level’ during flight, although this usually limits the altitude at which they can fly (and hence makes the retrieval slower and more fuel-expensive). Unpressurized aircraft are intrinsically unsuitable and must fly at less than 1000 feet, which is often not possible. Road transport may also be inappropriate depending upon the road’s altitude, contour and surface.

Management where no chamber is available

a. 100% O2 by tight-fitting mask in all cases. Continue to treat and transport even if becomes asymptomatic!
b. Oral fluids - 1 liter (non-alcoholic)per hour.
c. IV fluids as soon as possible. Avoid over-loading. One to 2 liters in first hour, then 100 cc per hour. Glucose containing fluids should not be given in the event of neurological DCS. Hyperglycemia increases the chance of neurological damage.
-Ringer’s solution without dextrose. Hartmann’s, Lactated Ringer’s or Normal saline preferred.
-Normal saline
-LMW Dextran (Dextran 40, Rheomacrodex) in saline (alters the charge of the RBC, preventing Rouleaux formation). 500 cc twice daily. Beware of adverse effects of anaphylaxis and pulmonary edema.
d. Medications
1. Glucocorticoids in neurological DCS.
2. Diazepam (Valium) 10-15 mg IV or per rectum to control seizures and severe vertigo.
3. Aspirin is given by some.
4. Lidocaine is being used by some but is still not yet proven.
e. Catheterization for the paraplegic. Use water in the balloon rather than air. Protect pressure points.
f. Pleurocentesis, if indicated.
Transport, transport, transport! Fly in aircraft pressurized at sea level or as low as possible. Beware driving through mountain passes. Have diver accompanied by a person familiar with the facts.

Safety First: In the Hyperbaric Environment

Posted on 18 May 2009
Tags: Hyperbaric Environment, Safety

Paul J. Shefflied, PhD, CasP, CHT
Robert B. Sheffield, BA, CHT

The rapid growth in hyperbaric medicine facilities in the United States and throughout the world has created a demand for large numbers of new employees, some of whom have no experience and little training. This has heightened the concern for patient safety.
Each individual who works at the hyperbaric facility must know the potential for mishaps and use that information to safely operate the chamber and its support equipment. Although the hyperbaric medicine community enjoys an enviable safety record, it is important to periodically review hyperbaric mishaps and consider the lessons learned from prior experience so we can avoid repeating them. There are five basic safety issues addressed herein: integrity of the pressure vessel, safe gas handling practices, decompression safety, fire safety, and staff training.

See the remainder of this article at http://www.todayswoundclinic.com/2009/05/saftey-first-in-the-hyperbaric-environment/