The skin squeeze effect in diving
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.