I got the bends once. I was careful. Followed my charts and my computer. Had appropriate depths and surface time. But I didn’t drink enough water so I was all out of wack.
Felt fine until I got home, mild headache. Then I woke up and it was just pain in my left arm. Elbows. fingers. Couldn’t even bend them without bad pain. My headache was intense and I was so dizzy. Called my older more experienced dive buddy and I got rushed to the hospital.
Docs got me hooked up and fluids, checked my dive logs while the decompression chamber was set up. And then got me in there with a nurse. 8 hours in a tube about the length of a car but as wide as maybe a double bed? I was on oxygen and hooked up to an IV and it was so loud, with all the air rushing in. As soon as I got to “depth” the pain vanished. It was crazy.
I’m fine now obviously. But I wasn’t allowed to dive for a month which sucked but hey. The dives were pretty great