Contact Lenses - advice please?

[Ness]

Hiya all,
Have just gotten a new contract and with the huge payrise comes an excuse for me to spend some money.
Aside from the 2 week trip to the Red Sea I'm going to book, I'd also like to buy some contact lenses.
I currently wear glasses on land and when diving I just put up with things being a little blurry.
I haven't been to the opticians yet but from looking on the net I see there are lots of different types of lenses. I'm considering either the monthly disposable type (e.g. wear daily, take out nightly, throw away after 30 days) or maybe the monthly all day all night type (e.g. put in, wear all day and all night, only remove at the 30 day mark and throw away, put in new pair) simply coz that would mean less playing with my eyeballs which I think might gross me out a bit to start with.

Does anyone know if different types of contacts can not be worn under water, or if there are any medical problems with contacts and diving?

Any personal anecdotes about your contacts or website links would be greatfully recieved.

Thanks heaps

Ness

[Paul Sharman]

Hi

I dived for about a year with Gas permeable hard lenses, I may well be wrong but i think if the lens aint GP you effectively create an Air space [Ouch]

To be horniest I found that salt and contacts a pain.

Put my prescription in me mask, same vision less hassle.

Cheers.
Paul

[Scuba1]

Cressie Do some masks where you can get perscirption lenses in half dioptrine steps.
HTH
Michael

[Muddweller]

Originally Posted by Paul Sharman

Hi

I dived for about a year with Gas permeable hard lenses, I may well be wrong but i think if the lens aint GP you effectively create an Air space [Ouch]

To be horniest I found that salt and contacts a pain.

Put my prescription in me mask, same vision less hassle.

Cheers.
Paul

I wear daily disposables when diving, they are soft lenses and 63% water content and as with all soft lenses oxygen is able to penetrate, there is no air space to worry about. Only thing is I'm going to need varifocals in a few years so then I'll be stuffed

Regards
Karl

[Ferg3333]

I dive wearing specsavers monthlys, yesterday I started Iantd Advanced Nitrox I did my no mask swim couldnt see a thing once my mask came off except my instructors fins followed them eyes open for a while when he gave me my mask back, still had my contacts in what a result. I have always worn my lens when diving and never had a problem or lost them while diving, but if you plan to do any teaching when you need to remove your mask frequently I would recommend a prescription mask and you get can inserts for almost all masks.

[J.D.]

If you want to wear them when diving the best type to get would be the soft daily disposable lenses, which is the type I wear and haven't had any problems. With disposables if you lose a pair then it'll just be one out of 30 pairs, and not your only pair. Also if they did get salt water on them I wouldn't like to have to put them back in, so you can just throw them away.

I've spoken to a couple of opticians in my club and I don't think theres a problem with wearing soft lenses. And the advantage of lenses over a prescription mask is you can still see once you've taken the mask off, so don't need to take your glasses along.

HTH
James

[Mr T.]

Hi Ness,

It all depends on your prescription - for example, do you have astigmatism in either or both eyes? This might preclude you from having 'hard lenses' etc.

I ended up having to wear soft daily disposables, which were fine.

Good luck and see ya soon for that beer and trough

[J.D.]

Forgot to say, I was advised that if you lose your mask or it floods and your lenses stay in, don't try and take them out of your eyes straight away as they may have stuck slightly to your eyes

[SilvaFish]

My ex-husband wore contact lenses for diving, he has the monthly ones for normal land wear and did start diving with these. On advice of opticians he opted for daily disposables for diving because there is a risk of infection, with either fresh or sea water and was advised to dispose of the lenses after EACH dive! Whether the optician was being overly cautious or not, he personally didn't want to take the chance of getting some nasty eye infection.

HTH
Lou

[Adrian Kelland]

Replace lenses after each dive was the advice to me too.

As I make a complete mess of getting contact lenses in and out, I still use a mask with lenses. Luckily I have a simple prescription, so can get away with a Typhoon Exel mask with changed inserts off the shelf to within .25 Dioptre. The mask shape has not changed in years and has allowed me to use the same lenses in a more recent model.

Adrian