Distortion from astigmatism correction

[Chuck]

My RX is all astigmatism, -1D in my left eye and -1.75D in the right.
My glasses put things in focus but I have that "swimming" thing all the
time, resulting in a dizzy, spaced out sensation. It's like as I look
around, my eyes are chasing each other and at some angles the two of
them can't cooperate at all. It could be that I'm crazy and it's not
my eyes, but when I wear my RGP contacts everything is great - except
the discomfort of having chunks of plastic on my eyes which are mild to
moderately dry.

Is this normal, to basically never "adapt" to high astigmatism
correction? Is there anything that can be done to help? My only idea
is to start wearing my RGPs again as much as I can stand, because after
wearing them a while I get a good 0.5-0.75D reduction in astigmatism
(which takes 6-8 months to completely come back, I learned the
expensive way). I could get glasses in that reduced RX which would
hopefully be more tolerable.

I don't have the nerve to do eye surgery with all the horror stories
I've read. My dry eye is a real concern too.
--

[Mike Tyner]

If all you had were glasses, you'd adapt to spectacle vision. But your
vision wouldn't vary so much and the stable conditions would foster
adaptation.

People in your range are often happy with soft toric contacts. As a bonus,
spectacle refraction is generally more stable with soft lenses than with RGP
on and off all the time.

Dry eye isn't really dry eye if you only experience it when wearing
contacts.

Normally you don't feel soft lenses.

-MT, OD

"Chuck" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:vL2dnUallJpMSavW...@mchsi.com...

[Chuck]

Well, I went purely with glasses for almost a year. My vision was/is
driving me nuts, I just didn't know it was specifically glasses related
until I decided to give my RGPs a shot again a couple days ago. Aside
from the discomfort it was a great relief.

We've tried a bunch of different soft contacts. Maybe my eye doc is
messing up, but so far I've never tried a soft contact that didn't make
my vision worse with them in. I can only assume they are rotating
wrong somehow. It was never even close.

Regarding dry eye, I have symptoms with glasses, just not drastic. The
doc finds dry spots on my eyes every visit and my glands are "80%"
plugged. I'm not in pain, but my vision goes foggy now and then. The
RGPs stick a little and go foggy. They certainly don't "bob" as much
as they should, which concerns my from the perspective of starving my
corneas of oxygen.

Mike Tyner wrote:

--

[Jane]

It was my experience that different brands of toric contacts varied in
how much they rotated. After some experimentation, I was able to find
a brand that gave me the same crisp vision as my RGP contacts but were
SO much more comfortable. So I'd recommend that you continue
experimenting.

[Neil Brooks]

Some, too, are "truncated," if I recall correctly. Rather than use
ballast, they notch the bottom to achieve better centration.

I've been out of soft contacts for so long, that I can't give you the
specifics (PAGING DR. TYNER!), but ... for drier eyes ... the water
content of the lens is pretty important. I just can't remember
whether you want higher or lower, and am reluctant to guess.

I leave that to Otis ;-)

Good luck!

[Mike Tyner]

"Neil Brooks" <neil...@yahoo.com> wrote

> I've been out of soft contacts for so long, that I can't give you the
> specifics (PAGING DR. TYNER!), but ... for drier eyes ... the water
> content of the lens is pretty important. I just can't remember
> whether you want higher or lower

Neither one guarantees success.

During the 80s the assumption was more water=more oxygen=more comfortable
but by the twenty-oughts we had figured out that more water in the lens
means more water to lose, sometimes.

The first toric I reach for these days would be a silicone hydrogel where
water content is pretty irrelevant.

Torics certainly require trying several lenses before you decide what will
and what won't work.

-MT