The bends how can you be sure

Last Updated: January 5, The bends might sound like a dance move or a cool hangout. The reality is much less fun, I promise you. The bends is a common term used to refer to decompression sickness. Caused by a sudden change in pressure, the bends can kill in extreme cases. Even mild cases can cause long-lasting damage to your tissues, joints, and lungs. The oxygen is used by your muscles and organs to continue functioning.

The nitrogen is not used. It dissolves into your blood and hangs out there until it can be filtered out by the liver and the kidneys. The deeper you go, the more pressure your body is put under. This pressure encourages the gases in your body to dissolve into your blood more quickly and efficiently. This goes for the good and bad gasses. This reduces the pressure on your body. Less pressure means that the gases that were previously dissolved in your blood become gas again.

Think of it like a bottle of soda. Before you open the bottle it looks liquid. When you turn the cap, bubbles rise out of nowhere to the surface. Now, think about what happens when you open an agitated bottle of soda. It fizzes over, right? If you rise to the surface too quickly, the dissolved nitrogen turns back into gas and bubbles out of your tissues.

In large quantities, this causes significant problems for your tissues. After all, your blood and other bodily tissues are not designed to have huge amounts of high energy bubbles ripping through them. The symptoms of the bends develop within 48 hours of the dive though in extreme cases they can develop within the first hour. One of the first symptoms of the bends is severe joint pain. It affects big joints like shoulders, hips, and elbows most severely. Flying after diving increases decompression stress because the pressure in an aircraft cabin is lower than atmospheric pressure on the ground.

The recommended guidelines for flying after diving are as follows:. Adhering to the guidelines above can reduce your risk, but offers no guarantee against DCS.

Nearly 25 years later, RCAP supports chambers worldwide. Through RCAP, chambers in need receive operational assessments, staff training and replacements for worn equipment. Poor health and physical fitness can compromise individual safety when diving and may increase risk of DCS.

Regular exercise improves fitness and cardiovascular health, which translates into the ability to cope with emergencies and mitigates risk of DCS. Adults need two types of regular activity to maintain or improve their health: aerobics and strength training.

The breathing gas mixture a diver uses can play a role in the development of DCS. Enriched air nitrox, also known as nitrox, includes an increased percentage of oxygen and, therefore, a reduced percentage of nitrogen. When diving nitrox and using the decompression schedule for air diving, the risk of DCS is reduced. The higher oxygen content of nitrox comes with an increased risk of developing oxygen toxicity if safe depth limit is exceeded. Figure taken with permission from Wikipedia Commons.

The Solubility as a Function of Temperature In water solvents, the higher the temperature, the less soluble the gas is. In organic solvents, the higher the temperature, the more soluble the gas is. The Solubility as a Function of Pressure English chemist William Henry discovered that as the pressure increases, the solubility of a gas increases. Following Henry's Law; as the pressure increases, the solubility of nitrogen in the diver's bloodstream increases.

As a result, nitrogen from the compressed air stays in the bloodstream and other tissues However, since the diver is in a highy-pressurized environment, the excess N 2 can only be relieved when the diver ascends to levels with lower external pressure Ideally, this should happen during the diver's gradual rise to the surface Unfortunately, sometimes , the diver ascends too quickly, resulting in the rapid formation of bubbles, which interfers with nerves, blood and lymphatic vessels and leads to excruciating joint pain and clotting.

Symptoms of the Bends Joint pain Fatigue Itching and rashes Coughing and chest pain Dizziness and paralysis Unconsciousness Death Most symptoms occur 24 hours after decompression, but can occur up to 3 days after. The slower the diver surfaces, the more slowly the excess nitrogen is equilibrated and the lower the impact on the diver Spending time in a decompression chamber Chambers that high-pressured divers are placed in.

Once in the chamber, the diver is immersed in a high pressure environment which is slowly reduced, minimizing any effect. Breathing a compressed air mixture of helium and oxygen with no nitrogen. For deep dives, in addition to the Bends, excess nitrogen can lead to decreased mental function. This is called nitrogen narcosis. Helium is less soluble in the blood stream and thus does not build up as much, providing a smaller threat to divers and is used for deep dives.