Contact Lenses to correct ghosting? 5 years later
John Q.
to correct their vision defects in one or both eyes due to
the lasik procedure?
For 5 years since the surgery, I have gotten used to seeing
more out of my left eye which sees much more clearly
than the right. I see multiple ghost images out of the right.,
depending on the color and lighting, bottom line is that
the right eye just sees blurry usually, and my brain has
gotten used to filtering out that data and correcting the picture
with the left eye.
My brain is wanting use my right eye more, either that or
the right eye vision is decreasing in quality, because
I've noticed vision inconsistencies lately.
If left brain uses right eye, then my shift may be
due to getting into more analytical left-brain work.
In any case, I am wanting to see clearly again in both
eyes.
This gives me hope:
http://www.allaboutvision.com/contacts/postop-contact-lenses.htm
and I am scheduling to see a very good doctor to
prescribe a solution.
Would appreciate hearing the impacts and results
of others with the lens solution. I am not wanting to
go under the laser again -- too risky, IMHO.
Have contacts fixed all the problems for you? Any still
lingering? And what kinds did you try?
Thanks for responses
serebel
who can fit post refractives with GP lenses. Not only that, 2008
technology is leaps and bounds better than that of 2003. You may also
have a relatively easy surgical option.
Consider ALL your options and good luck.
Glenn Hagele - USAEyes.org
without Lasik surgery.
In addition to wearing a soft toric contact lens that corrects your
astigmatism or a rigid gas permeable (RGP) lens, you may want to
consider Orthokeratology (Ortho-K).
Ortho-K is the process of wearing a RGP contact lens fitted to reshape
your cornea while you sleep. In the morning the lens is removed, but
the reshaping remains. This may be ideal for a small amount of
astigmatism.
As SERebel mentioned, there are new techniques and technologies
available now that should be at least researched to determine if there
may be an appropriate surgical option.
Best of luck, and let us know your decision/result.
Glenn Hagele
Executive Director
USAEyes (R)
Patient Advocacy Surgeon Certification
"Consider and Choose With Confidence" (TM)
Email to glenn dot hagele at usaeyes dot org
Lasik Bulletin Board
http://www.USAEyes.org/Ask-Lasik-Expert/
I am not a doctor.
Copyright 2008
All Rights Reserved
John Q.
don't want surgery because ya never know.
At least with contacts, if they don't work,
you can just take them out.
I'll see the doctor and review my options.
It will be nice to see with both eyes again.
On Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:39:32 -0700 (PDT), serebel <ser...@aol.com>
wrote:
John Q.
My question was about ghosting,
not astigmatism. In any case,
thanks for the info.
Glenn Hagele - USAEyes.org
>Glen, is this a templated reply?
>My question was about ghosting,
>not astigmatism. In any case,
>thanks for the info.
No, not a template at all.
Ghosting after Lasik is usually caused by an irregularity in the
cornea. Very often this irregularity is regular corneal astigmatism.
Astigmatism is when the cornea is not spherical like the top of a
ball, but is elliptical like the back of a spoon.
The "tip" of the spoon will catch light and focus it off center at the
retina. Since only a portion of the light is focused off center, a
faint image is created. Because the faint image is just off of the
primary image, it creates a ghost.
This is why I spoke of astigmatism. It is undoubtedly the underlying
cause of the ghosting you described.
Pre-existing astigmatism may not have been corrected, or astigmatism
may have been induced during your Lasik surgery.
Do you have a current eye prescription? It would show how much regular
astigmatism you have, if any.
If you have multiple ghosts, then it is more likely that you have
irregular astigmatism. Like regular astigmatism, a portion of the
light passing through the cornea is focused off-center. Irregular
astigmatism means multiple corneal irregularities are causing multiple
points of light to be focused off-center.
You may want to read our article about ghosting after Lasik at:
http://www.usaeyes.org/lasik/faq/lasik-ghosting.htm
I hope this is more helpful.
John Q.
I have irregular astigmatism induced by lasik.
I had no astigmatism previously, my eyes
were very round, and I was supposedly a "good"
candidate. Actually the opposite is true.
For people with excellent vision with glasses,
lasik can cause a drop in quality.
I'm not complaining, I knew the risks.
As I am now approaching 40, I realize that vision
loses quality with age naturally anyway.
I am hopeful that one contact in my right eye
will correct my irregular astigmatism, and
get me back the functionality and experience
of life that I was knew.
It is said the left brain controls the right side,
including the eye. My experience tells me
that this is the case.
Interestingly, a friend of mine has monovision
and they made the right eye the close-up
eye and the left eye the distance vision eye.
Left brain is involved in analytical things
like numbers and reading, so this makes
sense to see with right eye up close.
Glenn Hagele - USAEyes.org
dominant, eye dominance refers to which eye looks directly at an
object.
Humans look at an object with two eyes, but the eyes are at different
angles to the object. The dominant eye looks directly at the object in
a straight line. The non-dominant eye looks at the same object at an
angle. Eye dominance is not necessarily affected by if a person is
left or right hand dominant or left or right brain dominant. A right
handed person can be left eye dominant.
If you would like to download a free eye dominance test, visit
http://www.usaeyes.org/lasik/faq/lasik-monovision-dominant-eye.htm
If an eye provides poor vision quality the eye dominance can change.
The brain learns to look directly at the object with the eye with the
best vision. If the poor eye's vision quality is sufficiently poor,
the brain can "turn off" the information coming from that eye. This is
relatively rare for vision problems that present in adult years, but
is very common with infants and young children who have misaligned
eyes.
When the brain starts to shut down an eye - called amblyopia -
patching the "good" eye to force the brain to use the "bad" eye can
often keep the brain from shutting down the "bad" eye.
I put "bad" and "good" in quotes because the eye may function
perfectly, but simply misaligned.
You apparently were around age 34 when you had your Lasik. It is not
likely that you would suffer from significant amblyopia (although
possible), but it is likely that you could have a change in eye
dominance. This change would likely be transparent to you.
Depending upon the amount of your irregular astigmatism, it may be
improved with even a soft contact lens and very likely be corrected
with a rigid gas permeable (RGP) lens.
Irregular astigmatism is more challenging to correct, but there are
surgical techniques, such as PTK or Trans-epithelial PRK that may be
appropriate, if you ever consider surgery as an alternative.
Now that you are getting to age 40 and suffering from presbyopia -
poor near vision without reading glasses - you may want to try
monovision correction with that contact lens. For more about
monovision, visit:
http://www.usaeyes.org/lasik/faq/lasik-monovision.htm