Last year, I went to the eye doctor when it was time to get my eyes checked. I was also having trouble seeing with my glasses and contacts. Things were a little blurry. It turns out my eyes had gotten worse and I now had an astigmatism. I had to start wearing a new kind of contacts. They were never comfortable and I stopped wearing contacts except for when I worked out. And even with a brand new pair I sometimes cannot go more than an hour without discomfort. I am going to get my eyes checked again and will see what the doctor has to say about more comfortable contacts.
But I am looking for advice from anyone here who has to wear the special contacts for astigmatism. Have you found a comfortable pair? Can you read for hours without your eyes drying out?
The kind I currently have are Acuvue Advance for Astigmatism. Before them I was wearing Acuvue Oasys, which were much, much more comfortable.
Will an eye doctor write a prescription for non-astigmatism even if I have slightly blurry vision? I am willing to trade sharpness for comfort, but only if it will not damage my vision further.
I’ve got astigmatism correcting contacts and they don’t bother me at all. I’ve had cataract surgery which resulted in pretty bad astigmatism with a cylinder measurement of about 3. Before the surgery I was pretty much blind with a dioptier of -6 to -8. I didn’t have any astigmatism before, and my corrected vision was excellent. I didn’t notice any difference in comfort before and after surgery. Now I’m not so blind, but the astigmatism kind of sucks.
I have astigmatism, and tried hard lenses for a year and they sucked. All I could wear them for was a few hours each weekend during karate.
I finally got soft ones, and they still suck. I wore them to my brother’s wedding shortly after I got them and did fine having them in all day. But I highly doubt I could have read anything more than the wedding program that day.
Since then I still only wear them on occasion, and on Sundays for karate. They still dry out and I can’t read while wearing them. They’d undoubtedly be better if I wore them more regularly, in longer increments, but I still can’t wear them while working at the computer so there’s 8-10 hours a day where I can’t wear them anyway.
I used to wear the gas-permeable kind, but as I aged they began to be uncomfortable. I didn’t think that, with my astigmatism, I could wear soft ones, but my eye doctor assured me that I could.
The only problem I have with them is that my vision is not quite as sharp with the soft ones.
I don’t remember what brand they are, but I could probably find out if it would help you, 2.5.
I’ve been wearing contacts to correct for astigmatism for 17 or so years. I wore soft ones at first and now I am wearing gas-permable ones. Besides the occassional bit of dust in my eye, I find them plenty comfortable and never have any problems. I think mostly it is just a function of time.
I had a doctor suggest that I get regular contacts to correct my far-sightedness, and then wear some lightweight glasses for the astigmatism. This might be an option for you.
I have astigmatism. I’ve been wearing either ProFlex toric (when I order from my eye doc) or Focus Toric (When I order from VisionDirect). Both are very comfortable.
I’m nearsighted with an astigmatism, and have been wearing contacts for 16 hours a day for, damn, 30 years. Currently have rigid-gas-permeable, and use reading glasses to correct my presbyopia.
I wear Bausch and Lomb Soflens contacts now, and they’re okay. I can wear them all day, but I’ve only been wearing contacts for a month (astigmatism of about 1.25).
My vision gets a little bit blurry at the end of the day, though…
I’m another Bausch and Lomb SofLens 66 wearer, for a couple years now, and I wear them without major problems pretty much every waking hour of every day (and, rarely, the sleeping ones). The only problems I ever do have are due to either allergies or my own irresponsibility when it comes to eye care (I refuse to swap a current lens for a new one until it rips, for example). My eyes do tend to dry out, but I just use rewetting drops.
Speaking purely from anecdotal experience, you may need to try a few different optometrists before finding someone who will actually listen and give you what you want, rather than what’s most expensive/what the latest drug rep to stop by was pushing/what they randomly decide is best for you.
My husband never found toric contacts that were comfortable to him. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t have found the regular variety comfortable, either.
I have noticed that the older I get, the less time I can wear my contacts without dry eyes. Mine never bothered me 10 years ago. Lately I can’t stand them past 10:00 p.m. It’s worse if I’ve been reading.
I’ve been wearing soft toric lenses for a few years, and find them just as comfortable as my old non-toric kind. My vision is vastly better since finally getting a doctor who prescribed them. I can read signs in the far distance that others can’t, in some cases.
GOOD GRIEF. I have astigmatism and my eye doctor gave me the Acuvue Advance when my previous brand was discontinued.
Almost immediately, I started having extremely dry eyes and nearly constant irritation. I could wear them for about an hour, max. At first I thought I needed more time to “get used to” this new brand, but after each wearing, the problem seemed to get worse, not better. It was so awful I thought perhaps the actual lenses were defective, but going to the next set of lenses didn’t help.
Obviously, I went back to the eye doctor and said I needed another brand of contacts. I got the Bausch & Lomb PureVision Toric. They are fine and do what they are supposed to do.
I did ask the eye doctor if other people reported having those problems with the Acuvue Advance, and she did not know of anyone. It was insane how bad it was, I was surprised to learn it wasn’t a more common reaction. I wonder if it was some sort of allergy. Later, I met another person who had the same issues with Acuvue Advance, and I felt validated.
I know you didn’t bring this up in your op, but have you considered lasik? After wearing glasses from the sixth grade and into my teen years I got sick of them and tried to get contacts. I couldn’t handle anything touching my eye as when I was a kid a had a coat hanger jabbed through my eyelid and into my eyeball. After I realized I couldn’t get contacts I pitched my glasses because they were annoying and generaly didn’t look cool, so I just squinted a lot until I was about 33 I believe when I got lasik. I had heard you couldn’t get it for astigmatism but that turned out to be false and I’ve been able to see well ever since. At 43 things are getting a little blurry but I don’t need reading glasses yet. Good thing, those kind you get at the drug store are a little on the dorky side, in my opinion. Well, you should give it some consideration. When I had it done it was a new out fit that opened in town and I got both eyes done for 1000 dollars. I see them on sale on a regular basis in the newspaper. I can’t tell you how good it feels to do hard work under the sun and not worry about your glasses slipping off because your sweating etc.
I also used Bausch & Lomb torics for probably a dozen years for my astigmatism. They were fine; the only time that they really bothered me was when I slept with them in. The sensation of peeling plastic off your eyeball isn’t a very comfortable one. But then a few years ago I got lasik, which means no more contacts.
But I agree you need to look around to see what works for you.
I’ve never understood how contacts work with an astigmatism prescription. Is there an index mark on the lens that goes “up” so the cylinder axis is correctly oriented? Once in place, is there no tendency for the lens to rotate? It always seemed to me that getting brushed by your eyelids every few seconds might make them move around a bit.
I’m not sure of exactly how it works, but while there is (obviously) an up and down, it doesn’t matter how you put them in. After (in my case) a few seconds to a minute of blinking, depending on how dry your eyes/lenses are, they automatically rotate to the correct orientation. I believe that they’re kind of ‘weighted’ somehow - I know that one of the mysterious numbers on my prescription is the “axis”. Blinking does not noticeably upset the orientation. Rubbing your eyes does, at least for me - a good rub or two and I’ll need to take the contact out, put a couple rewetting/solution drops on the inside surface, and put it back in.
A friend of mine has eyesight so bad we’re fairly certain her eyeballs are square. She wears toric soft contacts; she says that unlike my ordinary soft lenses, hers are a slightly different thickness on the bottom, and have a flattened edge. I gather the flat bit rests sort of on your lower eyelid. Very rarely, she has to poke at one of the lenses to settle it back the right way up, but normally they keep themselves righted rather well.
Optometrists frown vaguely in the direction of people who wear their contacts while sleeping, but hers are rated for it, and she doesn’t have any more problems than I do with the ones you’re supposed to wear continuously for a month and then toss. She says the correction is just as good as the hard gas-perms she used to wear. She’s something between -8 and -10, so if they can correct for her vision, I’d say that ordinary, non-mutant humans are no sweat.
