The blood carries this nitrogen to all the body's tissues. When the diver returns to the surface, the process is reversed. The additional nitrogen goes back into the blood and then into the lungs and is exhaled. However, if the diver returns to the surface too rapidly, bubbles of nitrogen are formed in the diver ' s body and can cause a wide range of symptoms. A modest number of bubbles can be tolerated by the diver ' s body, and they remain without symptoms.
Many bubbles generally cause bends symptoms.
If the flow of blood to a diver ' s vital organ is blocked by the bubbles, paralysis or death may occur. In order to release nitrogen without a lot of bubbles from the system safely, a deep-sea diver usually comes to the surface slowly. Today, divers use special tables and even small dive computers to figure out how much time they need to spend decompressing as they surface after a dive. Self-treatment of the bends, by going back underwater, is risky. Decompression sickness may also lead to several other physical problems such as brain lesions and damage to bone tissue.