Diving After Radial Keratotomy
DAN polls its members for their personal experiences.
BY DONNA M. UGUCCIONI, DAN RESEARCH,
AND JOEL DOVENBARGER, DAN DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL SERVICES

Good vision is essential to good diving - and for enjoying the underwater environment. For those divers who require vision correction, many options are available to the recreational diver to ensure good vision. However, not all divers are willing to invest in a corrective lens for the faceplate, and others worry about mask flooding and the loss of a contact lens or the consequences of diving at some depths with contacts.

Because of these considerations, some divers have chosen another option - Radial Keratotomy (RK). This is a popular procedure to correct nearsightedness (myopia) by making radial incisions (to a 90-percent depth) in the cornea of the eye. RK has become popular with individuals who have trouble with or cannot wear contact lenses and don't feel that glasses are an acceptable solution.

But what about RK for scuba divers?

"Can I dive after RK surgery?" and "How long should I wait to return to diving?" have become commonly asked questions for DAN medical specialists. In order to gather information about diving with RK and the suggested waiting period after surgery, DAN has asked for the personal experience of DAN members with RK surgery and diving.

This request was published in the September/October 1994 issue of Alert Diver. At that time, DAN membership was over 105,000. DAN received 60 responses to the request through November 1994 and did a follow-up questionnaire with the respondents during the spring of 1995.

The average age of the survey respondent was 40, with an average of 10 years of dive experience. Some had 100 dives or more since surgery. Of the 60 respondents, only nine (15 percent) reported having any problems while diving. Of the 15 percent who had problems, only five divers had an associated mask squeeze, and only one of those had any accompanying eye pain. Two individuals had problems with stinging in their eyes, while one individual had vision change associated at depth.

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