Prevalence and Reasons of Barodontalgia in Non-Professional Divers

Background. Barodontalgia manifests with a toothache caused by sudden changes of pressure in environment. It appears in divers, pilots, aircraft crew, caisson workers and meteoropats. Objectives. The assessment how often barodontalgia occurrs in divers and determination of probable clinical reasons. Material and Methods. 62 non-professional divers aged 33.4 in average have been examined. They were put trough a dental examination preceded by general medical survey and detailed dental survey with taking into a consideration frequency and depth of diving occurrence of toothache during the diving and after that and also possible connection with previous dental treatment. Teeth were estimated with the use of indicator DMF/T. Results. It was found out that barodontalgia had occurred in 8 (12.9%) of 62 of examined divers. Toothache during diving appeared in 2 divers, in 2 of them after diving, and in 4 both during and after diving. In every case occurrence of ailment was connected with a clinical reason. However 7 people (11.3%) did not report any kind of toothache connected with diving in spite of decay cavities or not airtright fillings found by clinical examination. An average value according to DMF/T was lower in people with barodontalgia than people without toothache (8.0 vs. 12.4). Conclusions. The frequency of occurrence of barodontalgia in non-professional divers was 12.9% and in half of this number it had appeared during draught and after it. In face of rising number of people going diving, the knowledge about barodontalgia and its prevention is especially important for dentists.