Contacts - Symptoms of the wrong prescription

[jrmose]

I have a rather bizarre situation that I've never encountered in my
nearly 20 years of wearing contacts.

For the past two or three years, I've had the same prescription: -3.75
in both eyes. Recently, I was due for a check-up and went to a new
doctor because my insurance has changed. When he conducted his eye
chart tests, he said that my prescription was actually too strong, so
he reduced it down to -3.25. It took me about six hours with the trial
set to realize that they were too weak. I returned the next day and he
increased the vision to -3.50. This seemed to help significantly and
so I ordered a year's supply. Having worn the trial set for the two
weeks, I changed to new ones and within hours noticed that my eyes were
blurring, that I had trouble focusing, and that I would become slightly
nauseated. After wearing them half a day, my eyes were exhausted.

By this point, feeling like an absolute freak, I returned to his office
and said that while the trial pair seemed to work fine, the new set
that I had in was making me feel strange. He convinced me that they
were the same exact prescription. I have no reason to question that
other than the blurriness, lack of focus, and feeling rather nauseated
from time to time.

I should also say that these symptoms go away when I take out the
contacts and put on my glasses (that I wear only at night because the
prescription is old).

So, based on all these symptoms and patterns, I do wonder if my eyes
are so used to the -3.75 prescription that it's difficult for the eye
if you try to weaken the prescription. If a prescription is weak (or
strong) are the above symptoms normal? Is it rare to reverse a
prescription like this?

Or, is it all in my head and I just need to give the contacts time?

My sense is that I need to convince him to put me back at -3.75, when I
felt that I could see fine and I never experienced any of these
symptoms.

I would be grateful for any advice or feedback. I'm supposed to see
him tomorrow (April 20th) for one last follow-up . . .

Thanks.

[doctor...@msn.com]

There are two groups of people that were put on this earth to make
their optometrist go insane. ;) Those two groups are "habitually
undercorrected hyperopes" and "habitually overcorrected myopes". As
you would think, these are two sides of the same coin.

When you look at something far away, and your eyes are used to being a
little overcorrected, your eye naturally accomodates a little bit to
cancel the extra power in the contact. If you are young enough, this
little accomodation is pretty harmless and actually makes things look
smaller, darker and more defined than what a "normal" emmetropic eye
would see.

So...if you are under 45 years old, I would probably have left you
overcorrected until you get old enough to lose your ability to
accomodate that extra .50D. If you are over 45ish you should try
really hard to get used to the lesser power.

The little vertigo that you get from wearing less power suggests that
you might have a little muscle imbalance that doesn't show up until you
stop overcorrecting yourself.
When you are wearing extra strong contacts, you pull the lens in the
eye to cancel the extra prescription, but that little pull also causes
the eyes to turn in towards each other.
If the natural, relaxed position of your eyes is to be a little
"wall-eyed" (exophoric) you are cancelling that exophoria when your
eyes pull in to cancel the strong contact.

When you put on your glasses, even if they are weaker than your
contacts, you look down and in through a portion of the lens when you
read that acts like a little pair of base-in prisms that helps relax
your exophoria. Thats why long term contact lens wearers often like
reading in the evening with their glasses on more than with their
contacts.

This ain't brain surgery, and we are not talking about you having the
"wrong" prescription. If you visit your doctor and complain you have a
"wrong" Rx he has every reason to become defensive and think you are
just a nutcase. BUT, if you enter the exam room with this little bit
of knowledge and talk to him about finding the COMFORTABLE RX he will
be more open to listening to your needs.

[jrmose]

I'm actually 35, so being overcorrected may be the way to go. In any
regard, this is excellent advice and I appreciate your help.

[acem...@yahoo.com]

wow he explained it really well! If you are indeed seeing a blur with
-3.25 contacts then -3.75 is in fact NOT too strong, otherwise you will
have great difficulty seeing from near. I am only 24 and with the
CORRECT power contacts, I cant see from near without reading glasses.
Glasses are indeed more forgiving because as the poster above said,
they act like mild prisms and also the minification makes nearby
objects seem a little further away so its less blurry.

Forget what the optometrist thinks, tell him whatever you want is what
you get. I like being undercorrected and I dont care what others think,
its right for me and helps my eyes relax and see clearly from near and
intermediate. Full power glasses give me eyestrain and a headache!

[Dan Abel]

In article <1145486667.0...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
acem...@yahoo.com wrote:

> Glasses are indeed more forgiving because as the poster above said,
> they act like mild prisms and also the minification makes nearby
> objects seem a little further away so its less blurry.

That's an interesting theory. Do you just lay awake nights making this
stuff up?

> Forget what the optometrist thinks,

That's an idea also. Why pay somebody for an expert opinion when you
can just make stuff up instead?

--
Dan Abel
da...@sonic.net
Petaluma, California, USA

[Philip D Izaac]

Care to explain your statement ACE
<acem...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1145486667.0...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Snoped................and also the minification makes nearby

> objects seem a little further away so its less blurry.
>
>

Roland J. Izaac

[The Real Bev]

jrmose wrote:

> I have a rather bizarre situation that I've never encountered in my
> nearly 20 years of wearing contacts.
>
> For the past two or three years, I've had the same prescription: -3.75
> in both eyes. Recently, I was due for a check-up and went to a new
> doctor because my insurance has changed. When he conducted his eye
> chart tests, he said that my prescription was actually too strong, so
> he reduced it down to -3.25. It took me about six hours with the trial
> set to realize that they were too weak. I returned the next day and he
> increased the vision to -3.50. This seemed to help significantly and
> so I ordered a year's supply. Having worn the trial set for the two
> weeks, I changed to new ones and within hours noticed that my eyes were
> blurring, that I had trouble focusing, and that I would become slightly
> nauseated. After wearing them half a day, my eyes were exhausted.

While I don't have any physical symptoms, my experience is similar: the
trial lenses are really good, but the lenses (same exact prescription,
no errors) in the ordered multi-pack vary considerably -- in different
ways -- from the good trial lenses and from each other. Apparently this
is so rare that everybody involved has never heard of such a thing. I
guess I'm just lucky.

Any chance that your lenses are Cooper or one of their subsidiaries?
Cooper wouldn't answer either my email or snail mail.

> By this point, feeling like an absolute freak, I returned to his office
> and said that while the trial pair seemed to work fine, the new set
> that I had in was making me feel strange. He convinced me that they
> were the same exact prescription. I have no reason to question that
> other than the blurriness, lack of focus, and feeling rather nauseated
> from time to time.

Do the trial lenses still feel OK?

> I should also say that these symptoms go away when I take out the
> contacts and put on my glasses (that I wear only at night because the
> prescription is old).
>
> So, based on all these symptoms and patterns, I do wonder if my eyes
> are so used to the -3.75 prescription that it's difficult for the eye
> if you try to weaken the prescription. If a prescription is weak (or
> strong) are the above symptoms normal? Is it rare to reverse a
> prescription like this?
>
> Or, is it all in my head and I just need to give the contacts time?

I'm bothered by the difference between the trial lenses and the ones
that were ordered. Apparently there are two of us now...

> My sense is that I need to convince him to put me back at -3.75, when I
> felt that I could see fine and I never experienced any of these
> symptoms.
>
> I would be grateful for any advice or feedback. I'm supposed to see
> him tomorrow (April 20th) for one last follow-up . . .

My guy ordered me one more pair of lenses and gave up. I hope there's
some new technology when I can't wear the good ones any more.

--
Cheers, Bev
===============================================================
Never try to extort more than it would cost to have you killed.

[Dom]

Just a few thoughts:

One suggestion would be to ask if he'd mind giving you another pair of
trial lenses in the same power again as a way of double checking.

It's possible, though not that likely, that your own lenses are from a
'bad batch' (it has happened).

I must admit that my first 'gut feeling' was that you had previously
been over-minused and just had to get used to the lesser powered lenses
(as another poster suggested).

Another possibility I suppose is that the second pair of trials which
you were happy with were in fact -375 rather than -350 as the
optometrist believed - mistake on the optometrist's part?

Having said all of this, a difference of 0.25 shouldn't make that much
difference except for the clarity of distance vision - vision around the
room and close up should be pretty much the same either way. What brand
of contacts are they?

As I said, just a few thoughts!

Let us know how you go on the 20th.

Dom

[jrmose]

An update:

I went back to the doctor this morning and used the good advice of
doctor_my_eye. We basically came to an understanding that for the next
few weeks I will continue to wear the -3.50 Acuvue Advance in both eyes
(previously, I was wearing -3.75 Acuvue 2 in both eyes).

If my eyes adjust to the new prescription, I will continue to wear them
for the next year.

It turns out that since I last wrote, I'm actually doing better with
them. The nauseating feeling has gone away, for instance (and
incidentally, I recall that when I first started wearing melanin
polarized sunglasses, I had the same feeling the first few days I wore
them -- all of this therefore seems symptomatic of a larger issue,
which is that my eyes are sensitive to change, however minor).

The blurriness is still there, however, and I've pin-pointed it to the
left eye which was prescribed -3.75 years ago, even before the right
eye was. Regardless, the doctor thinks my eyes are -3.50 and I'm
putting my faith in him and hoping that my eyes will "learn" to see
through the new prescription.

Thanks for all the helpful advice and suggestions. Best wishes.

[acem...@yahoo.com]

good luck! Ive never seen someone with such senestive eyes that 1/4
diopter wrecks havoc!

[Neil Brooks]

On 20 Apr 2006 11:10:08 -0700, acem...@yahoo.com wrote:

>good luck! Ive never seen someone with such senestive eyes that 1/4
>diopter wrecks havoc!

...in all of your years of looking at the Internet, you mean?

[acem...@yahoo.com]

and in real life. I know not a single friend or person like that. In
fact the majority of my friends choose to forgo glasses if they are
very mildly myopic(-.75 to -1.5) my brother himself is -1.25 and only
needs glasses for driving.

[Neil Brooks]

Ah, anecdotal evidence :-)

Let's say, for argument's sake, Ace, that you have 25 friends
(including your brother). That means that your sample size represents
0.00000833% of the approximate US population.

In order to achieve a confidence level of 95%, with a .90 CI, you
would need to base your assessment on roughly 11,856 people.

Statistics 101

See: http://www.cas.lancs.ac.uk/glossary_v1.1/confint.html

That's why there are inherent risks--even for the eye docs here who
don't usually lead with "in my practice, I have seen...." unless
there's no more compelling data on a given subject.

Also, compensating for uncorrective refractive error is at least in
part dependent, I imagine, on the functionality of the accommodative
mechanism--younger people probably compensate better. This, more than
likely, explains why *your* circle may have fewer problems with this
than others'.

BTW: After such a harrowing experience with your ol' pal, I'm rather
sensitive to logical fallacies ;-)

[Dan Abel]

In article <1145570277.3...@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
acem...@yahoo.com wrote:

> and in real life. I know not a single friend or person like that.

Otis doesn't wear glasses?

[Quick]

> On 20 Apr 2006 14:57:57 -0700, acem...@yahoo.com wrote:
>

>> In fact the majority of my friends ...

That could be 2.

-Quick

[acem...@yahoo.com]

"Ah, anecdotal evidence :-)"

You can see it for youself that alot of very low myopes are not full
time glasses wearers.
If a young person is hyperopic, he can accomodate around it unless his
hyperopia is high.