I just got some contacts recently. I have never worn any before. I skipped the follow-up appt at the doc, so I didn’t get to ask this question.
The contacts feel very good in every way. I can hardly tell they are there throughout the day. I only wear them every once in a while though, for sports and night time activities (twice a week on average). Every time I wear them, by the end of the day, my blood vessels near the inside corner of my eye are red and irritated. Is there any cause for alarm with this? Maybe I should try wearing them everyday to see if my eyes adjust? Is this normal?
I guess I should add that I assume a little irritation like this is normal, so I guess I should ask how long should I wait for my eyes to adjust and not get red before going to a doc or quitting wearing them?
Um, there’s some reason why you can’t call the doc now and ask? Trust me, any optometrist worth his diploma would much rather have you call him, late, with your questions, than have you putter around on an Internet message board and possibly get the wrong answer. You may have some condition that, unbeknownst to us, would make you have red eyes, and the doc would go, “Oh, yeah, that’s because of such-and-such,” whereas we wouldn’t have a clue, not having seen you in a doctor’s office.
duckduckgoose Um, I have no conditions, my eyes are totally normal. Making an appt with a doc costs me 10 bucks and at least 2 hours of my free time (You can’t call a doctor and get medical advice over the phone! Sheesh!). It’s a little easier to ask here, since it’s not very serious and a general question which I know at least several people on this board can answer.
If you don’t know the answer, and nobody out there does either, then the post will trickle down the board and I will seek another source of information, no big whoop.
I have worn contacts for over 10 years. In a properly sized set of contacts, that are properly cleaned, disinfected and put in with clean hands, there should never be any irritation of the eye, assuming that therre is no underlying problem with the eye. Nor should you be able to feel them at all. Go back to your doctor. The reason for the followup visit is to get these kinds of problems resolved. You should never ignore red eye when you wear contacts because it could be a sign of something more serious, like infection. (that happended to me once, it was not fun) In short, do not wait, and do not use your contacts again until after you have visited the doctor. These are your eyes we are talking about, do not take any chances.
My eyeballs are normal size and my eye openings, according to the doc are bigger than most peoples’, which she said would be good for contacts. My eye openings don’t look big at all, but that’s what she said.
Based on my experience, they don’t fit right. At first, I thought that they were just supposed to be kind of uncomfortable and make my eyes red after wearing them for a while. I asked my optometrist, and he said they didn’t fit right, and we tried 2-3 more brands until we hit on one that fit right.
Properly fitted contacts are virtually unnoticeable most of the time- sure, you’ll notice them if you rub your eyes the wrong way, but 99% of the time you won’t know you’re wearing them except that you can see straight.
One other thing you may want to ask about is cleaning/replacement. Some friends of mine with non-disposable contacts occasionally have trouble if they get lazy on cleaning their contacts.
I tend to agree with bump, the first set I had were daily wear that did not fit right and caused problems. Then I moved to extended wear and now I use disposables. Of the various types, disposables are by far the best because as soon as they give you any trouble, just dispose of them and put in new ones.
Glasses, are measured in dipoters only, contacts have 2 other units of measurments, curvature angle of the eye and diamater. If either measurement is off, it could result in irratation. So go to the doctor and get a properly fitted set and you will be fine.
I did not mean to alarm you in my last post, but your OP sounded a little cavailer and it is important that you take this seriously.
Fuel, I assumed that by “skipped the followup” you were saying that you skipped the free-of-charge “how are your contacts working out for you?” followup visit that was included in your contacts package. There wasn’t one?
Nevertheless, many optometrists will still tell you over the phone what it means that the contact lenses you just bought from them are making your eyes red. Did you even call him and ask, or did you simply assume that it would be a $10 visit?
I just spent about 15 years raising small children whose pediatrician gave me free advice over the phone. “Give him some Tylenol and if the fever doesn’t go down, bring him in to see me…”
When you buy contacts from a licensed optometrist, it’s in his best interest to make sure you don’t go blind because you’re wearing your contacts wrong, or that they don’t fit, or something, so yes, I’d expect the optometrist from whom you bought the contacts to “give you free advice over the phone.”
Did you get a ramp-up schedule for accommodating your eyes to the lenses? Way back when I first got lenses, it was something like two hours the first two days, four hours the next four days, eight hours for the next eight, and if well-tolerated, on to overnight wear (assuming extended wear lenses)
Contacts seriously decrease the amount of oxygen your corneas get, and they need to get used to the difference. (Cornea cells can’t get their oxygen from blood, otherwise you’d be seeing the world through blood cells, which I suspect would make the world red.)
The doc was too busy to talk. I just made an appt. I just wanted to ask here before I went out of my way to go to the office. Plus, I am always interested in what the Dopers have to say about things like this. I learn something new everyday from you guys/gals. It’s been my own personal experience that doctors never answer phone calls, but just tell you to coem see them. And come to think of it, I doubt they will charge me for this visit.
I know it’s sort of out of line for someone with 500 posts to give someone with 10k posts advice on posting, but 'Goose, don’t say “Um” before your post. You know very well it sounds conceited and belittling to many people’s frame of reference, so don’t be suprised when you get a retalitory post in return.
I suspect that you’re just not wearing them enough to get your eyes used to them.
A couple of months ago I was fitted for a completely different brand of disposables than I’d been wearing. I had thought for several years that disposables just didn’t quite fit me right (I have a high curvature); it turned out that the BRAND I’d been in was the problem. I was told that since the ones I’d been wearing were the first ones on the market, EVERYBODY had been put in them. Since they’d always fit a bit oddly I assumed that was normal and never mentioned it to an optometrist, even when better ones were on the market (unknown to ME.)
All soft contacts, even the newly advertised Night and Day from Ciba, reduce the ammount of oxygen that gets to the eye to some degree. For most people this isn’t a serious issue, but it can lead to neovascularization of the cornea. It’s a long term condition that is common amoung contact wearing patients, and in fact, I’ve refused to allow several patients to continue with contacts due to this condition.
Generally, how I do things in my office, is I give out the trials and have people wear them for one week before seeing them again. If I see redness, or hear about it in a patient report (it’s not always there when the patient comes in, depending on the cause) I’ll evaluate it and consider sometimes refitting the patient into a different lens.
And it’s not as simple as changing the base curve (typically the fitting number between 8.3 and 8.9, depending on the lens). The way the lens is made, the material that it’s made of, and the water content (soft lenses are between about 33% and 66% water) can all effect how the lens fits and feels, and even how well you can see with them. So there are a lot of reasons why you might need a different lens, or maybe no lens will work for you.
That all being said, I’ll add as a side note that it drives me up the wall when we have people fail to show for followups without a good reason. I don’t write an Rx for a trial lens until I’ve seen it on the eye for a few days myself, so I’ve had patients who have refused to come in get angry with me becaue they missed it. And it’s not because I charge for them, the fee for the trial lenses and visits are all included.
In a nutshell, if this happens again, don’t wait to go in. Even for a $10 office fee, it’s well worth it if it’s an easily correctable problem.
Fuel, just FYI, no, I don’t know that saying “um” sounds “conceited and belittling”. Maybe you should stop reading too much emotion into people’s posts.
You might not want to hear this, but yes, contacts are unhealthy in the long term, especially if over-worn. Corneal ulcerations and infections are the primary hazards.
This is why it’s critical to make and keep all the follow-up appointments with the optometrist and follow all instructions on wearing and caring for the lenses.
Thanks for the info. I think I will continue to wear contacts sparingly. I like to keep my body as natural as possible, diet and medicine-wise. I’ll be in on Monday for the appt. Thanks for your guidance, it was kinda stupid to skip that appt, but the front desk girl said it wasn’t important…
DDG Ok, why did you write “um” in your OP? What was the purpose of your Um?