Ana wrote:
I tried contacts 5 years ago and I was told I am not a candidate. I went skiing on a stormy day and had trouble with fogged up glasses I am determined to have contact lenses. I set up an appointment and was told I am a special case - It is not the cornea but the lens itself has to be corrected.
Here is what I have (Glasses)
-0.75 -075 075
-1.00 -075 075
I was given this as trial contact lenses.
-0.50 -075 080
-1.00 -075 080
Apart from the discomfort (initial?!), I have poor vision with these lenses. Though I was told I have 20/20 with these lenses, it’s nowhere close to the quality of vision that I have with my glasses. I am very frustrated and disappointed and I need better visual acuity. I have another appointment in about a week, and I was asked to wear them 8 hours a day - at least.

What Should I do? I am a private pilot and active in sports - vision quality is very important for me. Are there ANY contact lenses in the world that fit me…

ANSWER

Dear Ana,
I see from your prescription that you have astigmatism. In order for your lenses to give you clear vision, they must be oriented perfectly in front of your eyes. This is quite easy to accomplish in a pair of eyeglass lenses, because the prescription lenses can be ground precisely to the optometrist’s prescriptions and then they can be cut to fit your eyeglass frame precisely. Once they are fixed in the frame, and the frame adjusted correctly, they do not rotate. As a result, you are always looking through your exact prescription at the perfect orientation.

It is more difficult, however, to design and fit contact lenses to remain perfectly oriented on the eye. This is usually accomplished by either adding extra bulk to the bottom of the lens so that it remains bottom side down (like the pendulum on a clock), or by thickening the sides of the lenses so that the lids tend to squeeze on the lenses when you blink, keeping the prescription oriented correctly. Both of these methods can work well, but perhaps not quite as well as fixing a pair of eyeglass lenses in front of your eyes because, when fitted correctly to protect the health of your cornea, the contact lenses must move slightly each time you blink. This very slight, and temporary, shift in lens position is noticeable to some carefully observing contact lens wearers. However, most patients with a prescription like yours can achieve a quality of vision with contact lenses that is close or equal to the quality of vision that they have with their glasses
There are a number of contact lens companies that produce astigmatism correcting contact lenses in a variety of curvatures, materials and designs. Depending on your prescription and the physical characteristics of your eyes, you may be successful with one type of lens, and not another. It may take more than one set of trial contact lenses to determine which particular contact lens is best suited to your needs. Your level of comfort may also be better with one design than another, but in almost all cases, comfort improves significantly after a period of adaptation.

I would encourage you to give the fitting process a little more time.

Hope this is helpful.
Dr. Henry Smit

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