>>I just called him to confirm that he wore soft contacts.  I used to wear
>
> the GP lens style contact and experienced all of the nighttime problems you
> recounted.  They also used to drive me nuts on occasion after a dive when
> nitrogen bubbled out of the eye and clouded the lens.
>
> Thanks for that; getting back semi-on topic, after I did a chamber dive to
> 50m (intro chamber diver or some such thing; I just wanted to see what it
> was like <g>), the bubbles under the GP was so bad I was looking through a
> haze for quite some time (15 minutes or so) after. I couldn't take it off
> and rinse it due to location, which mean I had to tear and blink to clear
> it. Never had the experience after a dive though, but thinking about it, I
> tend to use disposables for anything deep or where I might lose a lens. How
> long out of the water after LASIK? And I assume you didn't have bubbles
> under the flap?
>
> Cheers,
> Poe
> [log in to unmask]

Fortunately, no bubbles under the flap! :-)   My doc is not a diver, but said that it would be best to wait a month to be safe.  However, he said that there was no reason physiologically to wait more than a week. The primary risk is with infection and secondarily with trauma from a poke in the eye.

He pioneered a procedure where by if an eye needs a bit of post procedure touching up, he employs a small spatula-like instrument and can reopen the flap, re-zap the cornea, and close it back up.  This technique is supposedly effectively available up to a month or so after surgery.  Elisa, my wife, also had LASIK with Dr. Tylock and, because her eyes changed so much after surgery, he went in and touched up her left eye in this way three weeks afterward.  No problem, fortunately!

Before LASIK a few years ago, I had worn contacts since 1964, learned to dive in them in '67, and in all the years of diving, literally 1000's of dives, I had never lost a lens underwater while diving.  Now I can't say that for water skiing, swimming, or in the boat after a dive, and practically everywhere else, but never diving.  :-)  If you squint, even with your eyes open, there's no way the contact can come out.

LASIK has been like a miracle for me.  No more cleaning lenses and glasses, trying to get painful specks out from under the lens that feel like logs, and fussing with all the chemicals and cleaners and stuff.  There is not a day goes by that I'm not consciously thankful to be through with all of that.  Sight without correction is a blessing and a freedom I will never take for granted again.

Best regards,
Russ