What could be going on?

[rubyslippers]

My doctor fit me with new contacts several months ago. When I wear them my dry eye can be horrible. Without them I am perfectly comfortable, although I don't see well at all with glasses. My contacts are gas permeable and I have been told they won't make dry eye worse at all like soft contacts will. My doctor says they appear to be fitting just fine. I quit using my contact solution and wet with just a preservative free drop as we were trying to figure out if if was the solution. I wash them with baby shampoo also.

Has anyone experienced this? What should I do next?

[acarol]

Maybe the baby shampoo is causing the problem, i know its fine to use to bathe the eye with warm water but i'm not sure if it would be suitable for cleaning contact lenses.

[rubyslippers]

I have used it for about 20 years. My doctor long ago figured out that the regular cleaners were bothering me. I will try something else to be sure, but they are washed with it, rinsed, and soaked overnight so it would be unusual for that to be enough to bother me. My current doctor prefers all his patients use the baby shampoo.

[acarol]

Ya i'm not sure so what the problem could be if you are doing that for 20 years. Would it be because your eyes are so dry that they are rejecting the lenses - that happened to me.

[rubyslippers]

That is exactly what I wondered. I am fine in glasses but my eyes go crazy with my gas permeables. I have worn hard contacts for 35 years and never had trouble before the last few months.

[Silverlady]

Have you considered?

One of the scleral lens sets. There may be someone local or if not, Texas has a competant doctor who can fit the scleral lens. Boston Foundation does this too. They are a last ditch thing for dry eye sufferers and there are people including our Rebecca who wears them and swears by them.

Billye

[LasikLady]

Perfectly Comfortable

I would give ANYTHING (almost) to be "perfectly comfortable". If you feel this way in glasses then I would wear the glasses. Even if your vision isn't the best, there are so many long term contact lens wearers that have really severe dry eyes and are now forced to live with constant pain and less than perfect vision in glasses. At least without contacts you are comfortable.
I would give up perfect vision and wear glasses for my eyes to feel that way again. If you continue to attempt the contacts you may push yourself over the edge into discomfort on a regular basis. Not to scare you, but I've read about it here and elsewhere.

Just something to think about.....

[rubyslippers]

LasikLady, that is exactly what I have worried about, but my vision is so severely impaired. What I have not added is that I am also hearing impaired. I have an implant and another hearing device but with my glasses I cannot lipread. 35% of my ability to understand language is through my lipreading. I work in a place where my safety depends upon being able to have awareness of all communication around me. This is why I need to be able to wear contacts. With glasses I lose my edge. I have made another appt. to see my doctor for more advice.

[odydnas]

Ruby, do you have meibomian gland problems? If so, maybe you can try wearing soft lenses. Yes, I know that soft lenses are bad for dry eyes and gas perms should be better, but when I went to Dr. L, he said that for people w/ meibomian gland problems, soft contacts may be more comfortable. Good luck!

[LasikLady]

You do have quite a challenge from what you describe. My heart goes out to you. I hope you find the answer you need to continue wearing your contacts. I would just hate to see you end up in daily intense or even moderate/mild pain and not be able to wear the contacts anyway. Be careful and the best of luck to you in finding a workable solution!

[rubyslippers]

I tried soft lenses twice in the past few years. I cannot pass a driving test with them. I am 20/1000 in each eye with extreme astigmatism.

Today I wore my gas permeables for 3 hours. First half hour uncomfortable, next hour tolerable, last 1.5 hours (was away from home and did not have my glasses) was miserable. For 2 hours after I switched to my glasses my eyes felt sandy and burned horribly. Now several hours later, I am quite comfortable in my glasses. Not even aware of my dry eye unless I think about it. I have a June 3 appt. and will just wear the contacts enough to get by and wear mainly my glasses until I can see him. If I have to I will go to glasses and hope I can manage.

[rubyslippers]

Odydynas, I do the eye spa as Dr. Latkany recommends but my doctor has never seen an MG problem. He said go ahead as it cannot hurt and I do believe it does help. My eyes are much less red now.

[Rebecca Petris]

Rubyslippers,

Like you I have vision that is not correctible with glasses or soft contacts.

The Boston scleral lenses which Silverlady mentions were invented to solve vision problems that can't be corrected with glasses but they have the added advantage over standard hard or RGP lenses that they keep the whole cornea bathed in saline all day long. Many of the people who are successful scleral wearers are keratoconus patients who could no longer wear smaller diameter lenses for various reasons. Based on what you've described of your vision this seems like a reasonable next step for you especially given the degree of disability imposed by NOT being in gas perms. I would describe Boston sclerals as the optimal gas perm lens for people whose vision cannot be corrected by any means but rigid lenses.

I'm a little concerned though about what's going on with you right now. Have they flipped your lids during exam? anything visible inside the lid that would explain the discomfort when you're wearing the lenses? Doesn't entirely make sense to me that dryness would be the cause of all the discomfort if you're completely comfortable WITHOUT lenses.

Edit:

If your doctor feels you have a well fitting lens and if he sees nothing unusual during the exam, personally, what I'd do is make sure you've had your lenses in for a couple of hours before going to the appointment and if necessary hang out for a few hours at their office so that they can see what happens to the fit and to your conj and cornea as the wearing time increases.

[rubyslippers]

Yes, I will be sure to wear the contacts to the next visit. I have had a sneaking suspicion since I got these contacts that something was not right, but between my bouts of pink eye, reactions to topical antibiotics, the dry eye that they can see upon exam, it is a muddy mess to figure out. Back in January my other doctor did roll my lids and said everything looked fine. I will ask this doctor to do it also. I am ALWAYS one of those people for whom any health problem baffles the doctors because I always have the unexpected response (this is part of the reason I lost my hearing--unexpected complications from what should have been a simple procedure). I always am that 1% when they read you the warnings.

I may call tomorrow and see if I can get in a bit sooner. I am at the point where I feel like I don't even want to put those contacts in my eyes at all, and if I do that he may not (after another week) be able to see what is going on. He is a good doctor. I am just a baffling patient.

[calli66]

Glasses over Contacts

RS

Have you tried this option? Are you able to wear soft lenses at all? With the astigmatism correction put into the glasses, and the minus corrected by soft lenses, could you see 20/20?

I know that soft lenses aren't the greatest solution with severe dry eyes---I finally had to give up on them myself.

Sounds like your gas perms aren't fitting well. It's amazing to me that your eyes recover so well after you take out the lenses. I used to get friction-caused roughness (of the cornea, I guess) from dried out soft lenses---it would take all night for my eyes to recover.

C