Subject: Post: <p>Some hours after the last two dives my leg started hurting and continued worsening during the night. That could be a symptom of the decompression sickness (nitrogen bubbles stuck in tissues causing damage) which is always a threat to divers, so I became a bit worried and finally called the hotline of the diving insurance organization DAN to ask for guidance. </p><p></p><p>Their service was actually excellent, without any delay I was able to speak with a Finnish dive-specialist doctor. She couldn't really rule out DCS, although the symptoms did not sound very typical for that, so she suggested I should meet up with a local doctor for assessment. DAN organized me contact information of the local dive doctor who happened to live almost next door to us, so she came to meet me and do the basic neurological tests.</p><p></p><p>The conclusion was again the same, most likely it would be something else than DCS but DCS couldn't be ruled out either. The only way to be sure would be to visit a hyperbaric chamber which is used to treat diving injuries and especially DCS, but the nearest chamber is on another island, Koh Samui. Also even if it was DCS it would be a very mild case anyway and over 24h were already passed since the beginning of the symptoms, so I would not be in hurry to the chamber. We decided to see how the situation develops overnight and consider next actions in the morning.</p><p></p><p>Later in the afternoon we were discussing more with the doctor and she was pretty confident the problem was actually not DCS but sciatica, a nerve being pinched in the lower back. The symptoms match perfectly, paracetamol and ibuprofein work (they would not for DCS) and I had very similar leg pain also last summer and a couple of times before.</p><p></p><p>By the morning the leg was already much better, so our diagnosis of sciatica was most likely correct and no further treatment would be needed. I think I just moved my back somehow in a wrong way with the heavy diving gear on me during the dives. During today almost all pain disappeared, just like it did last summer too in a day or two.</p><p></p><p>As diving was still not a good idea today we spent the day in another way, chartering a longtail boat for snorkeling around the island. It was actually fun, although I burned my back in the hot sun. :)</p><p></p><p>Now in the evening the leg is fine and I think we will be even diving tomorrow morning again.</p> Latitude: Longitude: Security Code:
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