Soft Contact - Burning

[Shogan]

Any thoughts on why when I put in a soft hydrogel contact lens in my left eye the burning sensation goes away? Post-lasik almost 8 months and I have constant burning in my left eye. The soft contact seems to get rid of it almost completely.

It also almost eliminates all of the ghosting/starbursting.

[Guest]

Interesting... can't wait to hear from others who have tried the soft lenses... my doc suggested I try some daily disposables to see if they help my eyes feel any better when at work (that's one of the places where they tend to get bothered the most)... I have to admit I'm not terribly hopeful that they will help, but I'm thinking I'll give it a try just to see... maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised!

[patrick]

maybe because the lens initially contains a lot of water it works somewhat like a bandagelens.
if you wear the lens a little longer and the water in it starts to evaporate i cannot imagine that it would still be comfortable in an irritated eye.
but if wearing the lens even for a prolonged time gets rid of the burning sensation,then there must be some explanation for it.
hope someone here can explain things a bit.

good luck

patrick...

[RobLIC]

I believe this is entirely related to the bandage contact lens idea that Patrick notes. I sometimes use daily wear disposables when I don't feel like dealing with the sclerals. If you have any degree of MGD - which so many of us post-LASIK get - then you are spreading thick, amino acid-laden lipids onto the surface of your cornea every time you blink. Putting the lens there - whether it's soft or hard - creates a barrier, and so you get reduced buring. You're keeping the enflamed eyelid off the surface of the eye, to a degree.

[indrep]

A couple of guesses:
Perhaps the edge of the flap creates irritation and when the lens is placed over it the lid is no longer rubbing against the flap edge.

The ghosting starburst is eliminated due the contact lens causing a more spherical refractive surface. The LASIK flap creates a bend/angle in the cornea which refracts light at a different angle than a "normal" cornea. The contact corrects that.