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In case you're interested I just thought I'd catch you up with my 10-year old daughter's experience with nighttime contact lenses. She has been wearing them for almost two months now. They are hard, gas permeable lenses that are put in at night-time and taken out in the morning. They temporarily flatten the cornea, and the entire next day you see with 20/20 vision. Her vision was 20/70 in one eye and 20/200 in the other, so this is a pretty big difference. The long-term effect is that it acts as a brace and all those hours of keeping the cornea in its flattened shape stop it from growing the wrong way and proceeding to bulge out as children go through the years when the eyes change the most. This way, when they they reach age 17 or 18 when the eyes stabilize, the vision will be the same as it was when they started wearing the lenses, no better and no worse.
Two years ago she could see just fine - her eyes deteriorated tremendously in that short time, so I felt that I had to do something, and wish I started this earlier. It's amazing that she can see everything now, without the hassle of wearing glasses or contact lenses in the daytime.
I must admit, it was so hard for her to get the lenses out of her eyes at first, but it gets easier and easier as the cornea gets reshaped and used to the lenses. This has been around for a long time (around 40 years) but the technology has changed over the years and more doctors are getting trained to do this. I'm amazed that I've never heard of it before this year. My conventional eye doctor was against this, needless to say, but probably has no problem with Lasix.
If anyone else has had any experiences with this, I'd be interested to hear about it.
I thank you, Dr. Stoll, because reading this site has made me more aware and interested in alternative types of therapy, and I looked on the internet for a behavioral vision therapist, which is how I found this doctor who recommended this technique.
In Reply to: Night-time contact lenses - update posted by Reader on June 13, 2002 at 10:31:33:
Man O man.
I wish I'd known about this when I was a kid. Maybe I wouldn't have to wear glasses
now. Any chance this modality works for adults?
I could see why an optomotist would never recommend such a thing. No money to be made selling lenses.
Lightwalking,
Gregory
In Reply to: Re: Night-time contact lenses - update posted by Gregory on June 13, 2002 at 12:30:22:
Gregory,
They're called "Ortho-K" lenses. I used them up until I moved away from the city where the prescribing doc was located. I loved them and was able to see for longer and longer periods of time without them in.
I did have problems in that my eyes are dry -I had 2 corneal abrasions during the last couple of months that I used them. Still, I was sorry to give them up.
They were kind of expensive but worth it!
~~~8>
In Reply to: Night-time contact lenses - update posted by Reader on June 13, 2002 at 10:31:33:
Thanks, Reader.
You are most welcome. You must know how it makes us feel when someone tries what we have recommended and gets better.
Walt
In Reply to: Night-time contact lenses - update posted by Reader on June 13, 2002 at 10:31:33:
I wear gas permeable lenses (hard) to correct my vision. I have a problem with "dry eye," and have found that using artificial tears, the kind without preservatives, helps alot.
I wonder if using a drop of artificial tears in her eyes in the morning would help when your daughter is trying to remove the lenses.
Just a thought.
In Reply to: Re: Night-time contact lenses posted by Carol B. on June 15, 2002 at 03:24:50:
Thank you, she does use the drops. She doesn't seem to have any trouble taking them out now, but in the beginning it seemed impossible!
In Reply to: yes, I had these lenses... posted by labrat on June 13, 2002 at 13:46:54:
How many years did you use them? Did your eye prescription stay the same over the years? I have never met anybody else who has used them, so I'm very interested to know the long-term affects. I don't know if my daughter has dry eyes - it doesn't seem like she has a problem. But it's good to know that that corneal abrasions can happen so we'll be on the lookout.
Yes, the doctor said that occasionally you can skip a night after using them for a long time. The expense is worth it if it keeps your cornea in place, though I don't enjoy continuously spending the money on wetting solution, cleaning solution, etc. Don't you think you can find another doctor in your area? I found mine on the internet through the "see clearly" website. He's a behavioral optomitrist and also does vision therapy.
In Reply to: Re: Night-time contact lenses - update posted by Gregory on June 13, 2002 at 12:30:22:
Hi Gregory,
I asked the doctor about this because my vision is changing - I'm having more problems focusing and seem to be getting a little farsighted. He said that it wouldn't help me because my problem is different because of my age. I think it mostly helps children with growing corneas. I know that lots of people with hard contacts find that their vision is better right after they take them out (Carol B, have you noticed that?)but it seems that the only time to have a permanent difference is when you're rather young, or when your cornea is just beginning to change. But it would be worth checking up on it and finding a behavioral optomitrist or looking on the internet under Ortho-K and finding a doctor near you. The other thing that I'd recommend that you do is look into eye exercises. I think everybody would benefit from doing focusing exercises, such as threading three balls on a string inches apart, holding it up from the nose and focusing on each one for about 5-10 minutes a day.
In Reply to: Re: For Labrat: Nighttime lenses... posted by Reader on June 15, 2002 at 16:17:09:
Hi Reader...
I think I had them for just under a year...I've been a hard contact wearer for oh-my-god 27 years now...at the time, I'd been wearing either hard or rigid gas permeable for 24-25 years, so I had experience with the whole thing. My vision was and is again about 20/400.
The ones I had used a succession of different thicknesses - a thinner one first then progressively thicker, while at the same time correcting my vision. I only used 2 sets of these, so my best pressure was achieved with the second prescription.
The benefit was that I could walk around without the lenses for increasing amounts of time and still have MUCH better vision than I used to when I was bare-eyed. I wish I remembered how much better, but I don't.
I had a great doctor who was into light therapy and all sorts of other alternative/cutting edge stuff. Since I moved, I didn't feel good about continuing with another doc. Plus the fact that I got abrasions seemed to indicate that maybe I wasn't the best candidate for using htem long term. Like your daughter, the idea is that with time - say if I'd kept wearing them for a year or two - I would be able to go for hours at a time without them. Maybe even skip days eventually.
For me, the expense for maintenance was the same, since I already wore contact lenses(and still do)...so still have to clean and soak them.
As an interesting sideline, I had a great conversation with the doctor when I realized that this increased acuity brought along with it a different sort of stress - I had suddenly increased the size of my world - the relative "safety" of my blurred vision had always allowed me to sort of retreat from my surroundings. With my new clearer vision I was aware, and therefore "responsible" for a larger world. I haven't gotten the idea across exactly, but it's the best I can do here...anyway, he told me that some folks who are able to see after being blind have actually NOT been happy about it - it was too much for them somehow...aren't we an amazingly bizarre species?!
:-)
Take care,
~~~8>
In Reply to: Re: For Labrat: Nighttime lenses... posted by labrat on June 15, 2002 at 19:24:00:
I forgot to mention that I wore these lenses during the day - for increasing amounts of time. They were approved for nighttime use, but I was not comfortable doing that since they were rigid - I was afraid I'd scratch my cornea rolling over on the pillow or something, plus with my "dry" eyes, I thought it would be a bad idea.
~~~8>
In Reply to: p.s. posted by labrat on June 15, 2002 at 19:27:19:
Thank you for your posts! Dr. Oliver Sachs wrote about someone who was blind and had surgery that allowed him to see and how difficult it was for him to learn to interpret what he saw and the stress that came along with it. It was either in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, or An Anthropologist on Mars, both fascinating books.
Well, as far as the nighttime lenses, she only wears them at night and sees all day with 20/20 vision, which seems miraculous. I hope it really keeps her eyesight in place long-term, I guess it will take years to find out, but I'll keep you posted.
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