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Fluid leaked from scuba diver’s blood vessels after 100-foot cave dive in uncommon medical case

userJuly 21, 2023

In an especially uncommon medical case, a scuba diver who descended deep into an underwater cave developed a lethal blood syndrome during which fluid leaked out of his blood vessels.

The syndrome was an odd complication of decompression illness, or “the bends,” during which air bubbles kind within the blood as folks go from excessive stress at depth to low stress on the floor. The situation normally causes joint ache, dizziness and excessive fatigue. It may be deadly, however most individuals reply to therapy, which normally entails being positioned in a hyperbaric chamber below excessive stress and oxygen movement.

Within the new case, described July 5 within the journal BMJ Case Reviews, the diver developed systemic capillary leak syndrome (SCLS), however survived due to immediate therapy.

The affected person, a person in his 40s, introduced on the emergency room with “worsening shortness of breath” following a deep cave dive to depths of “roughly [100-foot] 30 meter seawater” for “roughly 40 minutes” the day earlier than, the report famous.

Associated: Free divers’ coronary heart charges can drop as little as 11 beats per minute

Dr. Ali Ataya, an affiliate professor of drugs on the College of Florida and an knowledgeable on capillary leak syndrome, helped deal with the person and was capable of acknowledge a number of signs of SCLS.

SCLS is a extreme type of irritation that causes all of your blood vessels to leak a protein that usually retains fluid inside. In response, fluid flows out of the cells, Ataya advised Reside Science.

So what could have induced this uncommon complication?

“Within the man’s case, we expect that the air bubbles that kind from the ascent throughout decompression end in a pro-inflammatory cascade within the blood vessels which causes them to grow to be extra permeable, ensuing within the leakage of protein and fluid that results in SCLS,” Ataya mentioned.

SCLS is commonly lethal, however the truth that the staff rapidly recognized the issue, resuscitated the person and handled the inflammatory cascade could clarify why the person recovered sufficient to depart the hospital in “just below per week,” Ataya mentioned.

Dr. Jeffrey Cooper, a professor within the division of emergency medication on the College of Nebraska Medical Middle advised Reside Science that the case could increase common consciousness of the potential issues related to deep diving.

“If somebody got here into the emergency division like this man did, I might need thought-about decompression illness however because the presentation was so uncommon, I could have been misled and thought one thing else was happening, like sepsis or an allergy,” he advised Reside Science.

Ataya emphasised the necessity for physicians to concentrate on this potential complication.

“What we have realized from this case is that when somebody presents in shock with an unclear trigger that we should always all the time contemplate SCLS as a part of the analysis,” he mentioned.

However divers should not panic. Hundreds of thousands of individuals dive safely yearly with out getting this syndrome, he added.

userJuly 21, 2023