My Diving Accident End of June
Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 6:25 pm
Well here you go. What turned out I guess in the end to be a diving accident. I'm posting this varied places in the hope it will save someone the hell I went through.
End of June, I scratched my eye slightly taking out a contact lens. Weekend came around, Jeff and I were diving the Ruston Walls. Putting contact in, burned abit, no big deal l powered on.
By Monday, eye was infected.
Went to see the Doc, she did the stain, black light, said yeas, infected, heres some steroid drops.
Got abit better over the week, then go worse. Went to Optometrist next. He said dont see a DR again for issues, come directly to me. He prescribed some antibiotics. Its got abit better then got worse.
He kicked me to the super eye doctors at Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute, basic the minor leagues of eye docs..
Now during all this, I've expressed my concern it came from the salt water in my mask from diving, as when diving CCR, to dump counterlungs, I exhale out nose which gets some salt water bouncing around in there.
Over the next several weeks tried all sorts of stuff and schedules. It got better then got worse again. Finally they had to give up and kick me the major league. Dr Rotkis, commonly referred to as "they guy thats done it all and seen it all".
He looked at it, aand said it was an Amoebic Infection. He said like 60-70% chance.
So treated that for awhile, it never got better.
At that point, it was going on 4 weeks of unbearable pain. Most would never have tolerated the level of pain I was in.
We had sent a culture of the cornea in to grow a culture to get an idea what it was, as all antibiotics, and even virals wouldnt stop it. The concern was if it penetrated the cornea to the eye itself. But by end of the month, nothing back, and the clock was ticking. I'd had enough, it had finally reached even my breaking point. All the DR's where just amazed at my pain threshold. But even with that, theres a limit, and I'd reached it. The cornea was massively scarred. A transplant would have to happen anyways. So threw a Hail Mary, hoping to excise all the infected tissue.and hope to have got it all.
So had a corneal transplant around 7/31. Dont remember much of it, but Swedish was great. I was knocked out cold.
In my 1 week follow up, we finally got the culture back.. Yup, fungal infection. The really odd parts thats had everyone shaking there head, is it presented as an amoebic infection.. So even Dr Been there seen that was taken back. One for the record books.
So at this point I'm 2 weeks out of surgery, super sensitive to light, right eye barely works. Will get better over time.
I'm out of any sort of diving for 4 months, and that will be recreational only. Probably out of tech diving for 6 months..
The lesson to be learned here is theres some nasty stuff in Salt and even fresh water. If you have any sort of cut, scrape, dont expose it to either. Get fully healed first..
I wouldnt wish what I've gone through on anyone.
End of June, I scratched my eye slightly taking out a contact lens. Weekend came around, Jeff and I were diving the Ruston Walls. Putting contact in, burned abit, no big deal l powered on.
By Monday, eye was infected.
Went to see the Doc, she did the stain, black light, said yeas, infected, heres some steroid drops.
Got abit better over the week, then go worse. Went to Optometrist next. He said dont see a DR again for issues, come directly to me. He prescribed some antibiotics. Its got abit better then got worse.
He kicked me to the super eye doctors at Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute, basic the minor leagues of eye docs..
Now during all this, I've expressed my concern it came from the salt water in my mask from diving, as when diving CCR, to dump counterlungs, I exhale out nose which gets some salt water bouncing around in there.
Over the next several weeks tried all sorts of stuff and schedules. It got better then got worse again. Finally they had to give up and kick me the major league. Dr Rotkis, commonly referred to as "they guy thats done it all and seen it all".
He looked at it, aand said it was an Amoebic Infection. He said like 60-70% chance.
So treated that for awhile, it never got better.
At that point, it was going on 4 weeks of unbearable pain. Most would never have tolerated the level of pain I was in.
We had sent a culture of the cornea in to grow a culture to get an idea what it was, as all antibiotics, and even virals wouldnt stop it. The concern was if it penetrated the cornea to the eye itself. But by end of the month, nothing back, and the clock was ticking. I'd had enough, it had finally reached even my breaking point. All the DR's where just amazed at my pain threshold. But even with that, theres a limit, and I'd reached it. The cornea was massively scarred. A transplant would have to happen anyways. So threw a Hail Mary, hoping to excise all the infected tissue.and hope to have got it all.
So had a corneal transplant around 7/31. Dont remember much of it, but Swedish was great. I was knocked out cold.
In my 1 week follow up, we finally got the culture back.. Yup, fungal infection. The really odd parts thats had everyone shaking there head, is it presented as an amoebic infection.. So even Dr Been there seen that was taken back. One for the record books.
So at this point I'm 2 weeks out of surgery, super sensitive to light, right eye barely works. Will get better over time.
I'm out of any sort of diving for 4 months, and that will be recreational only. Probably out of tech diving for 6 months..
The lesson to be learned here is theres some nasty stuff in Salt and even fresh water. If you have any sort of cut, scrape, dont expose it to either. Get fully healed first..
I wouldnt wish what I've gone through on anyone.