Open water nausea

[ray carlisle]

I have just been speaking with a woman who was once an enthusiastic member of our club. She wizzed through all the tests in the pool and the theory. However she had a problem in open water.
As soon as she submerged she began to feel sick. This happened on three different occassions with three different items of kit.
On the first occassion she actually passed out.
Needless to say she was quite worried by this and consulted a doctor who pronounced her fit to dive.She has not dived since but is wanting to come back to it.
Now always supposing that the doc was right and she is not pregnant can anyone suggest what might be the problem and a possible cure.

[Mike Halligan]

Three questions -

How deeply embedded is the pool and classroom work, i.e. is the science understood, rather than presented for assessment? This can have a significant effect on confidence when reality seaps, in the form of cold, salty, lumpy water. Better that students are enjoying their neutral buoyancy in a 3m pool, doing barrel-rolls, etc. before hitting the sea.

Has entry from a gently shelving sandy beach been attempted? Students are often surprised how much there is to distract their fears in only 2m of sea water, whereas falling headlong into 5m from a boat is not so re-assuring. Using a beach, they become accustomed to wave action more gradually - and don't have to worry whether the boat will be there later.

What incidents and near-misses were being discussed in the club around that time? Students suffer me-too syndrome. Whatever happens to anyone they know, they are convinced will happen to them. A fairly firm line is often needed to show that what one diver does in 50m on a silted wreck does not necessarily apply in 6m on a rocky bottom.

Sorry if I'm teaching Grandma, but I've faced the issues and got round them in like manner.

Best of luck,

Mike

[ray carlisle]

Thanks for the reply.
We do our initial open water training in a reservoir which sometimes is a bit murky but entry is by a concrete ramp which runs down to about 13m at its deepest point.
There is a training platform at 6m which all new divers are taken to (self included).
Although most of the chat is of the' if you can dive here you can dive anywhere' variety this woman is not faint hearted.I suspect that the fault does lie somewhere between her ears but it has suceeded in putting her off big time.
I am doing my best to get her back into diving but I am a great believer that this is a sport that you must want to do it. So I may not achieve my aim but thanks anyway for the thoughts.

ray carlisle

[Ceri Binding]

Now always supposing that the doc was right and she is not pregnant can anyone suggest what might be the problem and a possible cure.

I suffered a very similar problem on my first open water (shore) dives which made them a very uncomfortable experience, but noted that the nausea felt very like seasickness - I came up with a few explanations, eventually putting it down to a combination of increased disorientation due to the distorting effects of the mask underwater, the movement of particles in the water in front of my eyes and generally less light than in the pool.. whether any or none of these are the actual cause, seasickness medication resolved the problem for me - may be worth trying?