Avoiding Barotrauma

Barotrauma: Remember the first time you went underwater?

You were probably a little kid and wanted to see if you could touch the bottom of the deep end of the pool. You held your breath and started to kick down, but as you did you noticed that your ears started to hurt so you turned around and went back to the surface wondering what went wrong.

What did go wrong?

Think about your ear for a moment

Without getting into too much detail, your ear consists of an inner ear (with all the little parts and pieces that let you hear), a middle ear (basically an airspace), and an outer ear (the ear canal).

When you dive the increase in pressure will compress the air in your middle ear causing the eardrum to be sucked into the space.

That’s what causes you pain. If you were to keep descending, eventually the pressure would get so great that your eardrum would rupture and allow the water to rush into your inner ear. That’s a barotrauma, a pressure related injury

So how do you prevent this horrifyingly painful accident from occurring?

All you have to do is clear your ears early and often as you descend.

Fortunately the middle ear has a way to regulate the amount of air it holds. The way it does this is with tubes that go from your middle ear to your throat called Eustachian tubes.

To get a sense of what I’m talking about, jut your jaw forward a couple of times and wriggle it. Do you hear that light cracking sound in your ears? That’s the sound of your Eustachian tubes opening.

All you have to do to prevent barotrauma on descent is to clear your ears.

You do this by pinching your nose and blowing gently. That should force just enough air into your middle ear to equalize the pressure that the water is exerting on your eardrum.

Don’t wait too long to begin clearing your ears or your Eustachian tubes may close due to the pressure. You also don’t want to blow too hard or you might end up sending too much air into your middle ear and blow your eardrums out the other way.

The key is to clear early and often and blow slow and steady.

In addition, never dive with a cold.

A cold can clog up your Eustachian tubes and make it difficult or impossible to clear your ears. Some divers take medicine to clear their symptoms so they can dive even when they’re sick but this practice is ill advised.

If your medicine wears off while you’re on the bottom during a scuba dive, it could close your Eustachian tubes and prevent air from escaping your middle ear as you ascend. The pressure in your ears will increase as the air expands and it’ll eventually rupture your eardrum.

The three golden rules

Barotrauma is a painful, but easily preventable diving accident. All you have to do is follow these three rules:

1. Never dive when your sick.
2. Clear your ears early and often.
3. Blow gently when clearing your ears.

By following those three rules you’ll ensure that you keep your eardrums intact.

Have fun and safe diving!

For more information on other diving injuries have a look here.

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