smithy

Why is it that you need to wait a few hours and even a day after diving before you can take a plane? Does it have to do with the pressure changement?Could someone please explain

Luna

yes i'd say that it has something to do with the pressure. isn't the pressure underwater low and the one in a plane high? They could do this to avoid passong from one pressure to another too fast

MidnightDiver

yes i'm sure that's the only probable answer, the difference in pressure, it surely could cause very big problems if your organism

Gibraltar

A diver still has residual nitrogen in his blood vessels after a dive so is exposed to more danger during decompression than a normal passanger. Think of the bottle of champagne effect

DownThere

I hadn't ever thought of this as being an issue before. I shall take note of it from now on because i always like diving and taht till the last day of a vacation.
I wonder why no profesional ever mentionned this to me before!

octopus

Normaly they recommend to wait at least 24 h between both, another solution if you can't wait as long it so spend some time on pure oxygen after your dive, it can apparantly help a lot

glynneco

The busiest chamber around here is near the airport. People getting off the plane after a carib vacation and not waiting 24 hours before flying.

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Is that the bottom of the quarry or is the vis just really bad today?

CountThis

The official PADI word at this time (and it changes all the time) is you need to wait at least 12 hours before flying and at least 18 hours if you made an emergency decompression stop or multiple dives. The PADI Master Instructor at my local dive shop suggests waiting at least 24 hours. The reason for all this is because the cabin in a comercial airliner is pressurized to approximatly 8000 ft. This means that Nitrogen can escape into your blood stream more easily than at 0 ft. It's the same reason that water boils faster at altitude: There is less air pressure to keep the gasses in the water, and therefore they escape more easily from the water surface tension. As for private airlines, you could be in worse shape because the cabin is not presurized. Bottom line, try to wait 24 hours before flying.

Scuba Mama

Good question, there are many theories on fly time. A lot of divers choose to use a Conservative time of 24hours or more. Yes, the bubbles will come out of solution (blood stream) when the pressure changes at altitude, if you do not allow time for the bubble to come out of solution normally, how do you do that (time) thats it. You should also be drinking water as much as you can.

If you have done multiple days of diving PADI recommends 18 hours, for a single dive 12hours. PADI uses information used from Diver Alert Network for the table information. The last time PADI changed there dive tables was two years ago after D.A.N. had completed some extensive research based on real recreational divers profiles and DCS hits. Not all the time as someone suggested.

One treatment in a chamber is $20,000 it may take two or three to fix a DCS if you get it and thats if it can be fixed. Most dive computers I have used have taken a Conservative approach and fly time is 24hours. So, what is the 24hours worth to you. Every island I have been on has had cool topside stuff take the last day and check it out. BTW if you have medical questions and what answers you can trust check out www.diversalertnetwork.org

BrianSquid

apparantly this can be compared to the bottle of champagne effect if you see what I mean...aouch..could be dangerous for sure