UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Just a quickie....

Had a DALK in September and a have also had a rather nasty cough/chesty thing going on since about Mid-Septemeber. I was originally told it was a viral thing and would clear up - here I am 2 months later still having a chesty coughy thing, slight shortness in breath and discomfort around my lower ribs and diaphragm.

Today my doctor told me to get my chest x-rayed but I just wanted to check that it was safe to do so after a DALK.

I will contact the clinic I got the DALK done tomorrow but just wondered if anyone here had had an x-ray after the op and could tell me whether it's safe...

Cheers

Hi there Fatar

I have a lot of sympathy. I got seasonal flu a couple of months back and while I shook off most of the usual symptoms within a week or so, a cough that lessened only gradually and a general feeling of not being quite up to par only lifted a couple of weeks ago. Hope you feel your usual self soon.

As for the x-ray, while a chest x-ray is a high dose compared with, say, what you might get at the dentist, it won't affect your graft. I should of course point out that I've got zero medical qualifications so you're right to discuss everything as you would with any underlying health condition -- definitely speak with the radiographer when you get the x-ray done. But a) they will take the usual precautions to limit the exposure to the radiation only to the area being looked at as far as possible and b) even if there is some small degree of exposure in the eye area (unlikely) the x-ray radiation will have no effect on the surgical suture, the cornea tissue (native and transplanted) or the union where the graft is.

We're all exposed to ionising radiation every day -- at a much, much lower dose than a chest x-ray of course but the cumulative effect adds up. I've read that a modern chest x-ray has around the same dose as a long haul flight, which sounds entirely plausible.

So, please don't worry.

Cheers

Chris