Can You Scuba Dive After Flying?

If you dive or travel —or both— you’d be well aware of how these activities affect the pressure in your body.

The sudden changes can have adverse effects on you, and when you reach your holiday destination using a play and intend to dive, you have to ask, “Can you scuba dive after flying?”

To cover this, let’s dive into the details of pressure changes and how they affect our health.

Can You Scuba Dive After Flying?

As many divers know, you have to wait sometime before flying after you dive. This is why there’s a common misconception that you also need to wait a while to dive after flying.

In reality, there’s no risk (scientifically speaking) to diving after flying with no buffer. In other words, you’re not going to be at risk of DCS (Decompression Sickness) if you dive straight into the water after a flight.

DCS occurs when the concentration of nitrogen increases after diving. With lower pressures associated with flying, there’s a risk of the blood becoming saturated and starting to form bubbles.

While flying doesn’t contribute to the changes in nitrogen concentration levels in the blood, it does take a negative toll on hydration. Since dehydration is a partial cause of DCS and can be said to boost it, so it’s generally not the best practice to dive after flying.

However, it’s not technically dangerous like flying after scuba diving, for example.

Are You at Any Risk if You Scuba Dive After Flying?

While diving after a flight doesn’t cause decompression issues in and of itself, there aren’t any guidelines or instructions regarding when you can first dive after flying.

However, how fit you are to dive after a flight may be affected by a few factors. These include the length of the flight, which can be both fatiguing and dehydrating.

Not to mention, longer flights cause physical and mental distress, which might affect your performance and organization during dives. This, in turn, negatively affects how safe you are during your diving session.

So, while it’s not necessary, it’s safer to account for some post-flight recovery time. It’s always better to have some rest before you engage in a rigorous activity that requires both physical strength and focus on coordination.

What Precautionary Measures Can You Take to Safely Scuba Dive After Flying?

Firstly, you should avoid drinking any alcohol during your flight as alcohol increases dehydration. Secondly, make sure you drink plenty of water to keep yourself well-hydrated.

How Is Scuba Diving After Flying Different from Flying After Diving?

For new divers, the two things might seem the same. However, the science behind each sequence is different.

While you can dive immediately after a flight, you have to wait from 12 to 24 hours or even more if you want to fly after scuba diving.

It’s worth mentioning that it’s not the flight itself but the altitude, or the distance above sea level, that makes a difference.

According to some studies, it’s safe to fly after scuba diving if you’re not going to cross the thousand-foot threshold.

However, plenty of insurers wouldn’t cover the person if they fly within 24 hours of diving, be it flying at high or low altitudes.

So, unless it’s a huge emergency, you should avoid any flights altogether.

Keep in mind that flying in an unpressurized vehicle, even at low altitudes, can put you at risk of altitude decompression sickness.

Are There Activities Besides Flying That I Should Avoid After Scuba Diving?

With all the information regarding altitude and pressure changes, it’s safe to say that there are plenty of high-altitude activities that should also be avoided after a diving session.

This is because, like flying, they would increase your risk of suffering from DCS symptoms. These include:

• Altitude diving
• Climbing or hiking
• Bungee jumping
• Zip wiring
• Mountain climbing
• Going to any location that’s a thousand feet or more above sea level

What Happens When You Fly After Scuba Diving?

During your scuba diving training, you’ve probably learned about decompression sickness symptoms and how dangerous they can be.

If the DCS case is too severe, it can even be fatal, and that’s why you should take the whole matter seriously.

To sum it up, the body starts taking in more nitrogen at huge depths, where the air becomes really compressed and pressure rises. This, in turn, increases the nitrogen levels in the bloodstream. You’ll need time for those levels to return to normal.

Otherwise, the nitrogen starts breaking from the solution and forms bubbles in the bloodstream as well as in the body’s tissues, and that’s where the real danger lies.

Naturally, the more diving sessions you participate in, the more recovery time you’ll need. So, it’s not only between a dive and a flight but even between dives that you should give your body some time to desaturate from the excess nitrogen.

This is why experts advise divers to regain the surface of the water slowly and to drink plenty of water before and after the session.

With that in mind, you should know that the low atmospheric pressure on planes facilitates the process of nitrogen entering your tissues faster and even reaching the joints.

Also, the longer the flights, the higher the risk of this happening. This is because longer flights often go to higher altitudes, lowering the pressure further and quickening your tissues’ nitrogen absorption process.

Dive Computers

To deal with the DCS risk issue, you can use a dive computer to calculate the time you should wait before a flight based on your no decompression limits and the nitrogen level in your blood based on your dives.

These computers also take into account the number of diving sessions as well as whether they were no decompression dives or not.

Then, with the calculated nitrogen accumulation in your bloodstream, the computer tells you the minimum amount of time you should wait before taking a flight.

Note: Taking decompression stops when you’re resurfacing can lower the nitrogen levels in your blood, making the process of returning to the norms quicker and more seamless. These stops are especially important for deep dives, as those dives are associated with more risks than DCS.

Final Words

So, when you’re wondering, “Can you scuba dive after flying?” the shortest answer would be yes.

The danger is in flying after a scuba diving session, as this is where the pressure changes affect nitrogen concentration.

Otherwise, there’s nothing scientifically dangerous about diving after flying. Still, there are some precautionary measures you can take to dive without any accidents.