"Bandage" contact lens make my vision worse

[mgshutterbug]

By the way, I use Systane or Genteal gel drops, and that's what I used with the BCL, and I've used Muro 128 ointment at night because of other problems, but it mostly prevents morning erosions. But Muro should only be used if prescribed by the doctor, is for increased corneal pressure.

[mgshutterbug]

Hi Poppy,

I wouldn't recommend this, but my doc recommended bandage contact lenses for 15 weeks worn 24/7 and changed weekly by her because I had so many abrasions and erosions in the cornea. The cornea was horribly fragile. Everything I've read said they shouldn't be worn 24/7 longer than a week or two because of oxygen deprivation primarily as far as I understand. She examined them very very carefully each week, spent a long time with me. Finally, after 15 weeks they were healed, and they were permanently removed. I still wore my glasses with them, they were not corrective. And I used a considerable amt of drops, but then I have to because my left eye is almost completely w/o tear production because of a botched neurosurgery which damaged nerves to lacrimal glands. My eye has been fine ever since, is in excellent health. After about 2 weeks without the BCL, I started with lower punctal plugs and lacriserts. They have resulted in improved maintenance of tear film. I'm not recommending any of this, just reporting on my experience. Good luck to you!

Maria

[indrep]

I would not use gel with contacts. Use a more liquid, or watery drop more frequently.

[poppy]

I have been trying wearing contact lenses as recommended by a doctor for my "dry eye", not primarily for refractive error.

They are "ordinary" disposable daily lenses of the brand recommended by the doc. I do not wear them every day and never for more than about 8 hours. Most of the time they don't seem to make my eyes more irritated etc nor do they seem to really improve them much.

But they do seem to often make me struggle with my vision more. Today was particularly bad. My vision is reasonable and my prescription is very mild, not bad enough to bother with contacts for refractive error. Generally vision is 20/30 in one eye which has corneal scarring and 20/25 in the other good eye but with both eyes open it is not far off 20/20 vision according to the eye chart but in real life I struggle. Today with my contacts which supposedly should correct my vision to 20/20 in each eye I was really struggling to read stuff on my computer screen, driving was more difficult, huge starbursts around car lights even during the day, etc. A colleague wanted to show me something on their computer and I had to lean right in to see anything, it was embarrasing, and struggled to read the clock on my phone or computer.

I am feeling that perhaps the lenses are causing a build up of gunk in my tear film? Anything I can do about this? Changing to a different artificial tear perhaps? I use genteal gel at the moment, feel I need the gel to protect my ocular surface but perhaps I should try something else whilst my contacts are in. I know that gels can blur the vision but I've been using genteal for years and never had vision as crappy as this.

Thanks