Contact lenses...info please!

Hi all! Can anyone help me with info about diving with contacts.

One of the new trainees in my club has poor vision and wears contact lenses. Rather than go the route of a mask with prescription lenses for diving, he wants to use his contacts under the water with a standard mask.

I know from previous posts that there are issues about bacterial infection when diving with lenses, though that seems to be no more common than for those who wear lenses for protracted periods of time. My question really has to do with the PRACTICAL issues associated with diving with lenses:

* If you remove/lose your mask underwater, don't you also lose your lenses?
* If water seeps into the mask, isn't there a chance that your lenses will become displaced?
* If you DO lose your lenses, aren't you at risk because you can't see well enough to deal with - or assist your buddy in the event of - an emergency?

Surely if these points are correct - and I don't know if they are, there are no divers who dive with lenses in my club - then NOBODY should dive with lenses?

Info would be appreciated. Please excuse me if the answers to these questions are obvious. I'm not a contact lens wearer myself.

I have a friend who wears contacts. He had no trouble untill his mask dislodged and one washed out. He decided to get the lens bonded in the mask, wears a cheap pair of glasses while on the boat and his contacts on shore.

It would seem with a violent mask displacement/flooding the lenses would wash out. Since I can't wear contacts I would ask if you can even open your eyes with them on under water and have them remain in place?

89 warm water dives with contacts and I have never lost them. I have mask flooded and cleared without a problem. I just close my eyes. If I lost my lenses I am confident that although my vision would be impaired I could safely abort the dive. Tell your friend to practice in the pool without contacts so they have a feel for how it would be and have a reference point if it happens. Remember that the number one freak out for divers is mask flooding. Practice, practice, practice. By the way if you open your eyes underwater with contacts on you will lose them. They simply float off your eyes.

I have dived with lots of divers who wear contacts including students. If the mask floods or comes off the lenses may be lost if the diver doesn't close their eyes. How much of a risk the reduced vision is after contacts are lost depends on how bad the persons sight is I guess.

i have contact lenses and never had a problem...
first the answers:

Irishdiver once bubbled...

* If you remove/lose your mask underwater, don't you also lose your lenses?
* If water seeps into the mask, isn't there a chance that your lenses will become displaced?
* If you DO lose your lenses, aren't you at risk because you can't see well enough to deal with - or assist your buddy in the event of - an emergency?

Click to expand...

1. if you open you eyes the answer is yes
2. if the mask is completely flooded and you open your eyes the answer is again yes
3. as MikeFerrara already said: depends on how bad the persons sight is.

during the first days of my ow course my instructor made me practice without the lenses, just to get used to it. but that was it! after i got used to flooding, mask removal, and all those things he told me i can put my lenses on and i never had a problem...

I always wear contacts while diving. I have about 450 dives and never had a problem with them. I also wear them when I teach. When it comes to flooding or removing the mask, I just close my eyes. If I did lose my lenses and there was an emergency, I could see well enough. Whether others could as well, that depends on the individual.

I've used contacts since I started diving. I've never had a problem with infection.

My vision is so bad that I could not perform necessary tasks if I lost my lenses. Which is good because I did manage to lose one once. As far as I can tell, I blinked it out and lost it when I cleared my mask.

I would not recommend diving with contacts if you can't see well enough to complete the dive without them.

Irishdiver once bubbled...
* If you remove/lose your mask underwater, don't you also lose your lenses?
* If water seeps into the mask, isn't there a chance that your lenses will become displaced?
* If you DO lose your lenses, aren't you at risk because you can't see well enough to deal with - or assist your buddy in the event of - an emergency?

Click to expand...

as aquababe said, the answers to your questions is yes.... but with around 200 dives, I've never had a problem with wearing contacts.

I've only lost my mask once I closed my eyes, my buddy passed the mask to me, and we continued. A little water in the mask has never disloged a lens -- of course if water does get in, I clear it as soon as I can.

Should I loose a lens (or both) I can see well enough to abort the dive with safety. I can see larger items, not fine details. Just in case, I have a pair of glasses with me so I can at least drive home afterwards.

But I've never had a problem yet -- not in the pool or in open water situations of loosing a lens.

Irishdiver once bubbled...
Surely if these points are correct - and I don't know if they are, there are no divers who dive with lenses in my club - then NOBODY should dive with lenses?

Click to expand...

I've just realised how stupid this is...if you take it to its logical conclusion, then nobody who uses prescription lenses in their mask should be allowed to dive either, because if they lose their mask then then find themselves in the same position. I guess safety depends on how severe the impairment of each diver's vision is.

Aquababe:

if you open you eyes the answer is yes

Click to expand...

Doesn't every diver have to be able to have their eyes open during diving? I read on another thread somewhere on this board where divers said they kept their eyes closed - these weren't necessarily people wearing lenses, BTW - until they replaced their masks. I don't want to get off-topic here, but surely you have to be able to see under the water in order to deal safely with an emergency situation. Which is one of the reasons I ask my question in the first place...


Thanks for the responses so far. ut:

* If you remove/lose your mask underwater, don't you also lose your lenses?
* If water seeps into the mask, isn't there a chance that your lenses will become displaced?
* If you DO lose your lenses, aren't you at risk because you can't see well enough to deal with - or assist your buddy in the event of - an emergency?

Click to expand...

1. Not necessarily. When I remove my mask or it becomes dislodged, I close my eyes, and if I really need to see something, I can still see with my eyes barely open. Thus, I don't lose my lenses. Soft contact lenses stick to your eyes pretty well. I've parted company with jetskis at high speed, smacked my face pretty well, and haven't had any problems. Hard contacts are another matter, since a good blink can dislodge them.
2. There is a chance that water in the mask could dislodge the lenses, but if the water is merely "seeping" into the mask, you'll have plenty of notice of the problem.
3. Yes, there are additional risks if you lose your lenses. They may not be as severe as you think, though. If you are diving in 5 feet of visibility, and your buddy has a problem, how do you see him/her unless your buddy is right next to you? How would you avoid potential problems? You can apply the same reasoning to losing a contact. If your diving buddy has very bad eyesight, your rule should be "lose a lens, end the dive." At least that's my rule, and I've never had to end a dive because of a lost lens.

A prescription mask doesn't necessarily cure the problem, either. If the mask gets knocked off, you have a blind buddy and you're back in the soup.

You mentioned the need to keep one's eyes open in an emergency. If it's a matter of life and death, would you keep your eyes closed just so you wouldn't lose a $50 piece of plastic? Anyone who has worn contacts for any period of time knows how to deal with losing them. Again, though, use the "mud diving" analogy. You can deal with lost contact emergencies and "environmental" low visibility emergencies in similar fashions.

However, I think that divers who wear contacts should definitely carry a backup mask and be proficient in deploying it. Of course, that's sort of common sense for every diver.