View Full Version : please help can i wear my contact lenses?
i am going to thailand and want to do a diving course, i have never dived before and am blind as a bat with out my lenses in will i be able to dive with my lenses in. and if your a beginner do you have to swap masks under water etc for your test? please help!!!!!:confused:
I've worn contact lenses for just over twenty years and have been diving in them since day one. Yes, you do have to clear masks etc but it achieveable with a little care - make sure you explain to your instructor that you wear them and he will brief you accordingly.
Yep been diving in mine for 8 years.
I just close my eyes when I mask clear saying that I have once flooded my mask with my eyes open and my lenses stayed in place.
Tony Dwyer
23-02-2006, 13:13
i am going to thailand and want to do a diving course, i have never dived before and am blind as a bat with out my lenses in will i be able to dive with my lenses in. and if your a beginner do you have to swap masks under water etc for your test? please help!!!!!:confused:
I also am visually challenged! I often wear soft contacts (daily disposables) while diving and do not have any problems. That said, I'm a little more experienced than you.
You should be able to manage OK, but you will need to close your eyes when you flood your mask and clear it. This is an exercise you will do many times during your training, as it's a fundamental skill for divers. Accidental floods do happen, so we need to be able to clear the mask easily and comfortably. If you don't close your eyes there is a danger that your lenses will be washed out.
Another option worth considering is a mask with prescription lenses. Depending on your prescription requirements, such masks work really well. I have been using the system for over 20 years. They are VERY cheap when compared to buying glasses! (at least for me).
There is no requirement to 'swap' your mask with another in any training programme that I know of. However, all of them require that you be able to remove your mask, replace and clear it without difficulty. If you use contacts you will need to close your eyes while you perform the skill.
It would be a good idea to tell the instructor that you wear contacts and that you will close your eyes while mask clearing. If you use a prescription mask, you won't need to close your eyes. BUT in salt water I always close my eyes when my mask floods, regardless of which optical system I am using. I find that salt water stings somewhat!
Are you planning to do a course while on holiday? Better to get trained before you go, then you can enjoy the diving more!:)
Best of luck.
Paul Morris
23-02-2006, 13:18
I used to dive with lenses for a few years. Never had a problem, never lost a lens. I have now ended up using a prescription mask, no reason apart from the fact I got lazy about using contact lenses generally, and glasses became fashionable again :o
Only thing I would add (from using both hard and soft contact lenses), I never dived in hard (GP) contact lenses. They're probably better for you, being gas permeable, but they are much more likely to fall out (£££) or if your eyes do get salty there is a risk of abrasion and irritation. Even when I switched to GPs I asked for a 3-month supply of daily disposables which I then used mainly for diving - extra cost, but easily lasted over 12-18 months.
Soft lenses stay in much better, are less prone to abrasion, and if your eyes get even remotely sore later that day just discard and pop in a fresh pair if you're using disposables, or just wear your glasses home.
Regards,
Paul.
thankyou everybody for the extemely quick response and such good advice, many thanks for helping a heroin in distress, my heroes xxxxx;)
Helen Howard
23-02-2006, 13:20
Like the others who have replied, I'm also blind as a bat without my lenses and so wear them for diving. One thing to add: I wear daily disposable soft lenses which are great but I do find that they feel very dry after a dive. My optician recommended that I use refreshing eye drops (I get the cheap ones from Boots) as soon as I can after getting out of the water and again before taking the lenses out. He suggested I wait at least an hour after using the drops the first time before removing the lenses - I guess this gives a bit of time for the eye drops to work. Having followed his advice, I find it's far more comfortable and it doesn't feel like I'm trying to pull out my eyeballs when I take my lenses out after diving any more!
Good luck with your diving.
Helen
I think the others have pretty much covered this and like some of them I also wear lenses from time to time without problems.
If you are badly short sighted you may have an issue reading your gauges or computer with corrected vision, having contact lenses gives you the option of wearing just one (normally the dominant one) to over come this problem if it applies. I followed this advice and it works for me.
You may also find this useful: http://www.bsac.org/techserv/tecpubt3.htm
HTH.
Ben Thompson
23-02-2006, 14:54
Only thing I would add (from using both hard and soft contact lenses), I never dived in hard (GP) contact lenses. They're probably better for you, being gas permeable, but they are much more likely to fall out (£££) or if your eyes do get salty there is a risk of abrasion and irritation. Even when I switched to GPs I asked for a 3-month supply of daily disposables which I then used mainly for diving - extra cost, but easily lasted over 12-18 months.
Er... Don't go diving with Gas Permeable lenses! Althought they're gas permeable, they're not *that* permeable- and will fog up as your cornea's off gas! This happened to me when a sport diver (so spent ten minutes thinking I was bent) and has also happened to people I've trained since who ask why the world's gone foggy.
Daily's or monthlys are the way to go- I use dailys now, as I can just chuck them away. Mask clearing isn't a problem, as they're much bigger than the GP's (one of which fell out whilst doing mask clearing in the pool, but a mate found it on the bottom, so I stuck it back in... ouch) If you squint with the dailys in, you can still see fine- if you open your eyes the whole way, yes, they fall out.
After a long day your eyes will dry out a bit- so just chuck the lenses. I've found it much less of a problem with the dailies compared with the GP's.
That all said, if you've got a bad stigmatism, then you're probably using the harder lenses anyway! Might be better investing in some monthly soft ones, unless it's a really bad stig...
Hope that helps...
I wear fortnightly disposables and have always dived in them. However- when I was learning, rather than buying a prescription mask I got a normal mask, unscrewed the arms from a pair of old specs and stuffed them into the mask. The silicone skirt holds them in place and it works surprisingly well.
Now I just shut my eyes.
Paul Oliver
23-02-2006, 18:31
I've always dived with contact lenses in. I use monthly disposables and keep my eyes open underwater with no mask on, no problems for about 12 years.
My latest ones though are thinner like daily disposables, i tried and they tend to come out when i am actually clearing the mask. Still ok for eyes open during a length of the pool with no mask on though :)
I am also blind as a bat but don't use contacts because I can not get lenses which are compatible with both my eye condition and diving. YOU SHOULD ASK YOUR OPTICIAN.
For 8 years I did not use any eye correction underwater relying on the fact that everything looks 25% bigger. I finally coughed up small fortune required for a suitable prescription mask last year and I am reasonably happy with it.
Tristan Green
24-02-2006, 02:29
Now I just shut my eyes.
I didn't realise the vis was really that bad that it made no difference whether you dive with your eyes open or closed in the UK. :D
Cheers,
Tristan
[Joint King of the 4 minute, 8 m dive with 5 cm vis in Hong Kong!]
Ben Field
24-02-2006, 10:57
Ask your optican... I don't know if anyone else who replied is a qualified optican but I say again- ask your own.
I've dived for 10years with a pescription mask without problems and recently got dailies for going snowboarding, my optican advised VERY strongly against diving with them on, not entirely sure why.
All I can say is that I had no problem snowboarding with them (with a mask on) so I couldn't get to my eyes quickly to reseat them if necessary and would probably try them while diving as so many others have with success....
Having said that a simple pescription mask is pretty cheap, less that £75 and will make learning to dive just a fraction easier (won't have to worry about your contacts!)
Whatever you choose enjoy your trip and best of luck with the diving course :)
BEN
Tony Dwyer
24-02-2006, 11:07
Ask your optican... I don't know if anyone else who replied is a qualified optican but I say again- ask your own.
I've dived for 10years with a pescription mask without problems and recently got dailies for going snowboarding, my optican advised VERY strongly against diving with them on, not entirely sure why.
All I can say is that I had no problem snowboarding with them (with a mask on) so I couldn't get to my eyes quickly to reseat them if necessary and would probably try them while diving as so many others have with success....
Having said that a simple pescription mask is pretty cheap, less that £75 and will make learning to dive just a fraction easier (won't have to worry about your contacts!)
Whatever you choose enjoy your trip and best of luck with the diving course :)
BEN
Interesting, it was my optician that suggested I try daily contact lenses (reading in the left and regular in the right) to help overcome difficulty reading my instruments. So far, no problems at al.
Paul Morris
24-02-2006, 12:05
Interesting, it was my optician that suggested I try daily contact lenses (reading in the left and regular in the right) to help overcome difficulty reading my instruments. So far, no problems at al.
Me too, I was a soft contact lens wearer for about ten years before I needed to go to hard lenses (long term damage caused by falling asleep with them in during my student years, possibly too drunk to extract them - couldn't possibly comment :o ). Even at that point, my optician suggested the soft lenses for diving, as has every other optician. Most warned to watch out for irritation or infection, so reccomended drops, take glasses to wear home, or ideally daily disposables for diving.
You really should ask your optician though, as you may have special circumstances. The response depends on their knowledge and experience though, as with doctors. We have diving doctors we can go to, but where do you find a diving optician :confused:
With the price of glasses these days I guess all the diving opticians are off diving some exotic private island resort in the tropics :D
I've dived for 10years with a pescription mask without problems and recently got dailies for going snowboarding, my optican advised VERY strongly against diving with them on, not entirely sure why.
My optician was less than impressed with me diving in my lenses - but then I use continuous-wear lenses, so I'm a little more prone to infection anyway.
He suggested I get some daily disposables for diving. I think I might, at that...
Vic.
Me too - been diving whislt wearing lenses for years. ..... oh and years, apparently! :)
Just make sure that you put them away in their correct pot after diving - thirsty divers have been known to eat mine. Anyway - that's another story. I teach mask clearing most weeks and just squint if I need to see my students. I have never lost a lens through diving!
Sophie
Just to clear matters up for you - I have been attending the contact lens research centre in London for about 10 years.I have been diving all this time. They are the specialists and test all the new lenses which come on the market. There is no problem whatsoever in diving with contacts. The only thing I can think of is that if you allow your mask to squeeze and are wearing hard lenses then these could press on the cornea. Soft ones and gas perms can't as they have air in them.
Hope this helps.
Sophie
There is no problem whatsoever in diving with contacts. The only thing I can think of is that if you allow your mask to squeeze and are wearing hard lenses then these could press on the cornea. Soft ones and gas perms can't as they have air in them.
The way my optician described it is that soft lenses contain (some) water.
If they come into contact with seawater/muddy puddle water, there is the potential for water transfer, which means that bacteria can get into the lens.
If this happens at the beginning of the month, that means that I'll have a bacteria-loaded lens in contact with my eye for 30 days - and as I don't take my lenses out at night, this is a full 30 days. This is likely to mean an eye infection...
Vic.
Ben Thompson
27-02-2006, 10:48
thirsty divers have been known to eat mine.
Hee hee, that was quite an amusing day really! :D
John Williams
02-03-2006, 12:19
Me too - been diving whislt wearing lenses for years. ..... oh and years, apparently! :)
Been diving in mine for 20-odd years
Started in hard lenses..and was worried about those coming out (£££) and also found then more "gritty" at the end of the day.
Moved to monthly disposable softs and was still worried about the £££ - but never so much about comfort (and was more confident about not losing them because my eyelids held them in better as they are bigger)
Then moved to daily disposables...and had no worries at all. They were comfortable, stable in my eyes and I was gouing to chuck them at the end of the day anyway..so I never worried about £££
Now wear continuous wear lenses...so I guess I'm more worried about the £££ again...but since I think I've only ever lost one daily disposable (in about 1000 dives) I don't suppose the cost is that much of an issue.
(I would take a couple of spare sets of lenses away on a long exped though...just in case!)
I've always found lenses more convenient that prescription masks (I find that being forced to breather trhough my mouth all day in order to be able to see made me terribly seasick and/or dehydrated.
Using spectacles meant that I still could not see in the sea spray or the rain (same problem with an optical mask on the surface too!)
I'd recommend lenses to anyone involved in outdoor sports (subject to qualified advice from your optician)
HTH
John
Ben Thompson
02-03-2006, 15:09
I'd recommend lenses to anyone involved in outdoor sports (subject to qualified advice from your optician)
Also, it's quite difficult to rollerblade over contact lenses... having munched one pair of glasses that way :eek:
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