Neil's back

[neil0502]

Assume the position

Everybody familiar with this position ... originally perfected at Guantanamo Bay?

http://nbeener.com/P1010839.JPG

Nothing better than the feeling the moment the clinician RIPS the Schirmer's strips off your bone dry conjunctiva....

Forgive the hat hair, but ... did I mention how COLD it was in Boston??

[YGB]

*as it turns out, the pool had NOT been heated in several days and was probably in the low 50's, inducing something just shy of a heart attack, but that's a different story.....

As a brief aside, we used to be members at the YMCA and I was convinced that the folks there kept the pool temperature cold in the winter just to torture the swimmers. Every time I went to the YMCA, it always felt like bizzaro land with all of the rules and regulations that the teenage staff tried to enforce. However, that experience can't hold a candle to what I have experienced since I entered my post-LASIK bizzaro world.

Okay, now back to your BSL experience ... interestingly, is it possible that going to the clinic in the winter time may help give you more instant feedback on the success of the lens? After all, you noticed dramatic improvement in comfort when ... the heat came on in the clinic (it was darned cold out), you walked back to the hotel, or your buddy turned the car defroster on." These are all winter related and gave you good indicators of how your eyes felt in "big test" conditions.

As severe dry eye sufferers, I know we experience dry eyes year around, but for a small snapshot of time in a foreign environment (i.e. Boston), perhaps winter time is the time to go to get the best understanding of how the BSL will feel in a relatively short time. After all, going during a humid time may skew the results to at least some degree although I know they have tests like the "wind test". Just a thought.

P.S. Nice picture and I can certainly relate with the dreaded RIP of the strip. At Dr. Tseng's office, they do 5 schirmer tests in 1 minute increments. That's 4 rips more than I'm used to. It was so much fun, that I have decided that the schirmer experience alone warranted a return trip to see Tseng in a couple of weeks. Also, I wouldn't have noticed the hat hair unless you mentioned it .

[calli66]

Neil--good to hear the BSL are working! I thought about you while you were "away" from DEZ. Maybe we all did--sending you prayers and support.

Questions:
You mentioned you took Vicodin for pain while you were going through the fitting. Does that actually stop the pain in your eyes? I sometimes take Advil-for eye pain, and it does help.

Can you really jump in a swimming pool with scleral lenses? Wow! Do you have to wear swim goggles?

I noticed the Schirmer test strips in the photo are at the center of the lower eyelid. I've always had mine placed in the outer corners of the eye. Does it make a difference where they're placed, do you think? And yeah, the strips usually stick and break, and the doc has to remove the rest with some tweezer-thing.

Thanks--great to have you back.

C66

[Rebecca Petris]

Can you really jump in a swimming pool with scleral lenses? Wow! Do you have to wear swim goggles?

I never thought to mention this before (haven't been in a pool in awhile) but I can swim much more comfortably in sclerals. Before that, I'd either wear nothing, in which case my eyes would turn bright red and hurt, or my Macros, in which case my eyes would turn bright red and hurt AND the lenses would adhere by the time I was done.

[neil0502]

Thanks, Shells. I have renewed empathy for those of you who live where there truly are four seasons

Cali, thanks for the well-wishes. Vicodin: the best description I could ever give is that it "takes the edge off," but--if I actually take enough to substantively relieve the pain--then I'm pretty darned dopey. I'm about 20yrs past enjoying that feeling!

As to the pool: I'm sure I'd use my goggles, but for this brief endeavor, I just kept my face out of the water and/or my eyes closed if I dunked. My lenses are SO big that I'm quite sure I COULD leave my eyes open underwater without losing them, but .... naaahhhhh. Not today.

As to the Schirmer's: I have no idea if results would vary, if ease of removal would vary, or if anything else would vary depending on where the practitioner put the strips. In my case, notable was how thorough they were (who had this recently: Shells??) in drying out my eye--using a Q-tip to wipe my eye dry (really, really painful. See note on Vicodin)--before the test. Yuck.

My take on this issue is: there really DOES need to be standardization across practitioners to do this stupid test (anesthetic? dry first? where in the eye? tell the Pt to squeeze, or only close eyes? etc., etc.). Until/unless one method proves more "accurate" than another, the important thing will be consistency across results.

Meanwhile, if they approach you with that Q-tip, defend yourself vigorously!

Rebecca: stuck lenses and the laughter of little children really are two of life's little pleasures, huh? NOT!

I asked the Boston Foundation whether or not I could add a couple of goldfish in each scleral lens before inserting it. Might have a calming effect on people who were talking with me face-to-face. Just guppies, likely, but ... still....

[Rebecca Petris]

Rebecca: stuck lenses and the laughter of little children really are two of life's little pleasures, huh? NOT!

Apropos of freezing pools and the laughter of little children, your post brought back a memory from last winter, when I was living near Tampa. I saw a couple of people in our unheated neighborhood pool one day and thought Wow, the water's warm enough to swim? Great. (We normally would swim only say April to October at that pool, but it was a VERY warm mid-winter day.) So my daughter and I got in our suits and went to check it out. - I dipped my toes in the water at the steps and watched them turn blue. I was in the middle of saying "Sorry, honey, it's just too cold, we'll go home and find something else to do" when I turned around just in time to see her go flying off the deep end in a cannonball. (She was 3 years old at the time.) Her eyes went pretty wide, and she chattered a bit, but I still couldn't talk her into coming out of the pool for half an hour - and I wasn't about to go in after her

[neil0502]

Isn't there an old joke about how to keep your kid from becoming spoiled ... ?

I sat in the sauna (again: scleral test) for about 25 minutes after the pool 'incident.' Apparently, it was stiflingly hot in there, as everybody else complained. I was still ice cold toward the end!

Kids: apparently they're rubber AND asbestos (or some insulation that is NOT carcinogenic).

[Lucy]

Neil's Risky Behavior

Last night's venture to the gym, incidentally, allowed me to test two other things: the sclerals do NOT stick to my eyes after a steam bath (soft lenses did, in my case), and I was able to leap, rather carefree, into the swimming pool*

Neil, Neil, Neil.
I have to make a note of caution to your carefree leap into the pool. This is for folks wearing scleral lens only, namely $8,000 lens. YOU might feel safe enough doing this; I do not. I've had my scleral lens fall out of my eye on the kitchen counter while preparing to remove them, , but before I actually made the move.[/I] I'd venture to guess had I done this in/near a pool I'd be in deep trouble. You may feel free doing so, but being Miss Cautious, I have to warn others I think your behavior is risky to say the least. But, they are your lens to wear as you will. I go to pool exercise classes twice a week and those mornings, my lens stay put in their case at home. If my lens can fall out over my kitchen counter, they can fall out in a pool. Notice, I say my lens because I don't know what yours may do.

One other thing, and thing might be worth checking out. When I first got my lens, Dr. Rosenthal told me not to wear the lens in the pool because the chlorine could cause harm. I specifically asked him. Now, he might have different advice for you, or he might have changed his mind in the last year, or maybe this rule was just for me, but I took heed to his warning.

There aren't too many people on here wearing boston sclerals, so I'm not too concerned, but I have to put my Devil's Advocate witchy advice here.

If I was wearing my lens and could not remove them and just HAD to use the pool, I'd wear swim goggles over the sclerals.

I can tell you that diving for a scleral lens would probably be in vain. I recently lost an earring in a pool, stepped on it, and thought I had it recovered. Well, I didn't and after 3 diving attempts, I thought to hell with the earring. I coudln't see it anyhow.

[neil0502]

Certainly good points, Lucy, as always, but ....

1) Are you aware that Lucy is the Patron Saint of Eyes? I learned that at the BFS. I wondered why Lynnette kept praying to you even after you had left

2) Note that I DID recommend use of swim goggles if swimming. That's what I'd use. I really jumped in the pool only to cool off (and DID I!). I intentionally kept my head above the water. If/as a swim stroke caused splashing, I closed my eyes. I've swum with contact lenses for decades without ever having lost one, so the odds of ME losing THESE lenses were even lower, but you're right: it does have some level of risk that should be appropriately minimized and managed.

3) I'll reach out to BFS just to be sure about that chlorine thing. That's another very valid concern, though--again--I'd think swim goggles would eliminate it.

[Lucy]

Neil, I have one intelligent and pertinent question for you! I know we talked about this before, on this board and otherwise.........

Do the sclerals leave much of your eye unprotected? In other words, can you see the lens on your eyes? (I really mean can others visibly notice the lens if they look carefully?) I, apparently have little open space and my lens are much less visible than some others, and we thought maybe due to lighter (blue) eyes. Do you show much bare peeper while wearing the lens? I do not.

[neil0502]

My mother comments that there is very little unprotected eye visible to the naked eye (!), and that what IS visible ... is red.

Yeah. Makes sense. Probably should develop some sort of eye drop regimen, but I don't wanna', I don't wanna', I don't wanna'

Going to Vegas for three days. Was hoping to test out the sclerals en casino, but ... fighting a sinus infection.

So ... fix one thing, break another (as always )

[20/20_Hindsight]

Neil,

Glad you are experiencing some relief!

Do you know the diameter size of your lenses?

[dianat]

Neil,

Welcome back. Forget all this serious stuff. I want to see the picture of you jumping into 50 degree water!

D

[Flick]

Neil - curious to hear how you've been getting along with your new lenses, now that you've had some time to develop a routine. Are things still going well?

[neil0502]

Diana-

I'll send you the photos. They were originally in large format, but you'll notice some shrinkage to avoid cluttering up your inbox

Messr. Flick-

Things are still awfully good (far from great, but awfully good) with the lenses, but ... I'm still seeing about 20/60 or 20/70. Tomorrow is the eye doc appointment to start getting some glasses together. Then, I'll have a better idea of how much of the residual pain is accommodative and binocular vs. ocular surface from the parts of my eye that the sclerals don't cover.

Haven't been online much. Reading's a real chore right now. Soon, though.....

Thanks for asking