In Reply to: Re: alternobaric vertigo posted by Elaine on April 27, 2008 at 21:21:53:

I just had a similar experience to Elaine'. I had a bad head cold 5 days prior to a dive, and tried to dry my head out with AlegraD. I had an expensive Saturday charter paid for and didn't want to miss the fun. I did a shallow test shore dive on the AlegraD on a Friday to only around 35 feet. Perfect. I felt so good that I didn't take any more medicine that night.

Saturday morning I felt fine so tried a deep dive to 95'. I didn't want to go deep on the AlegraD because I've been taught that a 12 hour formula at 100' will turn into more of a 20 minute formula, and I might run the risk of a reverse block. So I tried without. My rule of thumb has been if you can clear your way down, coming up will always work. Well, even though I felt fine I was too congested to clear all the way down (bummer). It took 5 minutes to get down to only 30' and that's all I could go. I signaled my buddy that I was going up and he should join the others and slowly started back up. I went up 10' at a normal ascent rate and then the whole world started spinning. It hit hard and fast. If I hadn't been holding the anchor line I'm not sure I would have been able to stop my ascent, or even tell which way was up. I held steady at 20' for about 2 minutes before the spinning stopped. I then went up about 1' per minute for the last 20 feet. Any faster started the spinning again. At the surface I was fine.

Crazy experience and I feel for you if it's happening more often than just after a cold. Good luck in the future.

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