The skin squeeze effect in diving

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The skin squeeze effect in diving

By Jakob Jelling
http://www.divepilot.com

Skin squeeze is one of the barotrauma problems which divers can suffer due to the pressure factors involved in the practice of the sport. This way, a barotrauma can be caused due to the differences between the pressure of the water and the surface pressure to which the diver's body is adequate and used to. Barotraumas include problems such as external, inner and middle ear squeeze, eye squeeze, skin squeeze, sinus squeeze and lung squeeze.

While being into the water, a diver is in a heavier environment than when he is in the surface due to the fact that water is a denser medium than air. The relationship between the density of the environment, its pressure and the way it affects the human body are explained through several physic laws, among which we can specifically find Boyle's law, Dalton's law and Henry's law.

These physic laws explain that there is a constant relationship among the volume and the pressure multiplication. This way, it explains that the way in which the deeper a diver goes into the water, the more pressure he will be exposed to. Therefore, whenever they wish to go deep into the water, divers should have this law in mind and take the precautions necessary to avoid the effects which this pressure increase can have on them.

According to Boyle's law, while the pressure of the water increases as we go deeper the volume of the gases decrease. This way, when a diver goes deeper into the water, the air which might exist between his suit and his skin or into his mask would decrease and this could cause him to suffer a skin squeeze.

This way, skin squeeze can happen as a consequence of a change in volume in the air enclosed against the diver's skin. Most of the times, when this happens at an area covered by the diving suit it is called suit squeeze and usually happens to divers who are wearing a dry diving suit and it becomes tight around a specific skin area due to the air volume reduction.

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.divepilot.com. Please visit his website to discover the world of diving!