Well, presbyopia probably isn’t it, then. 
I have severe astigmatism and have been wearing toric lenses for years. I find them extremely comfortable and see just as well, if not better, than I can with my glasses. I never have a problem with them moving around in my eye - they stay right where they’re supposed to be. I swim, bike, hike, ride, etc. with my contacts in. I love them.
I hate glasses. With a passion. I hate not having any peripheral vision and hate to turn my whole head to see what is beside me. I hate wearing anything on my head/face. I hate if they are even a little dirty and will compulsively clean them. Lets just say I hate everything about wearing glasses.
As several people have mentioned by now… have you asked your eye doc about rigid gas-permeables? Have you tried them?
If you haven’t, just so you know, they do take some getting used to, so don’t just give up after the first couple days. Talk to your doc about how long it generally takes to adjust to them.
Yeah, I was told exactly the opposite of this by my own Optometrist/Ophthalmologist. She was excited when I came in asking about contacts, “Oh, you’re going to be SO HAPPY about how much BETTER you see in them!”
And she was right. But contrary to thelurkinghorror’s experience, my prescription for glasses is exactly the same as my prescription for contacts, I don’t think it changes. The level of correction needed to perfect your vision should not depend on the medium through which it’s being corrected.
You need to study harder.
And make sure you get plenty of sleep and a healthy breakfast!
Actually, it does change, and for exactly the reason thelurkinghorror says. The Rx will change depending on what’s known as the “vertex distance,” or the distance between the lens and your eye. For lower prescriptions (less than 4 diopteres or so) the difference is negligible, so your CL Rx and specs Rx will be the same. On the other hand, I’m a -9.75 (right eye) in glasses and a -8.50 in contacts, so you can see that at higher prescriptions the difference is quite significant.
One thing that I’ve always found annoying is that the doctors don’t tell you that you can say “I can’t tell.” They give you only two options. Most people, when presented with a binary question will only choose one of the available answers. In fact, it’s a common rhetorical/sales technique to trick someone into thinking they only have two choices. “False dichotomy”, anyone?
I remember when I first found out (on this board no less), that a doctor wants to get to the point where you can’t tell the difference. That means both options are equally off, and that one in the middle will likely be perfect. I’d always wondered why my tests went on so dadblasted long. By the fifth iteration, I usually can’t tell a difference, but, because I don’t tell them that, they keep on at least 3 times that.
So, why don’t patients tell their doctor everything? Because the doctor asks the wrong question.
To be honest, I am a bit baffled by this response. I guess I think pretty differently from you do, because I’ve never had any problems with telling the doctor “I don’t know” or “I can’t tell.” It never occurred to me that I was supposed to be that precise in my eye exams.
Are you, out of curiosity, a perfectionist? That seems like something the perfectionists I know might say.
I have my eye prescriptions going back several years, all slightly different.
I wrote them down on a small chart and show the optometrist ahead of the test so he knows what he is dealing with.
I don’t like to go back to the same one year after year for some reason so this helps a lot.
My wife had this problem with her contacts, and the problem wasn’t the size of them, but that they didn’t fit properly (wrong curvature, I’m pretty sure).
It was my understanding, when I was prescribed toric lenses in the very early 80’s, that they are weighted at the bottom, to help keep them from sliding around. My eye doctor had mine also cropped off at the bottom, to help me know how to place them onto my eye. Seemed to work ok.
My problem was calcium deposits, which caused me to have to have the lenses specially cleaned (which was expensive and didn’t completely remove the calcium). Been wearing only glasses since then. Wouldn’t mind trying contacts again if I knew I wouldn’t have the same problems.
I have the torics that are replaced every two weeks. I never worry about which way I put them in; they turn due to the marks at the bottom and stay there. I’ve never had a problem with deposits, bt I replace them often enough it doesn’t get to be a problem. I’ve been wearing contacts since the mid 70’s, and they’ve come a long way since then. Even in the 80’s I had comfort issues, but I love the disposables.
During my eye exams I never say “I can’t tell” or “I don’t know”; if they look the same I say " the same" and that’s that.
I have to agree with BigT. I am not even close to being a perfectionist, unfortunately, but my first few exams as a kid, I didn’t realize I had a third choice of “can’t tell” or “the same” or “don’t know” because the eye doctor didn’t tell me.
As for toric lenses, I have astigmatism, so I must order torics. They are fantastic. I don’t wear them much, because I’m too lazy to put my contacts in and out every day, but they’ve always felt great in my eyes and offered better vision than my glasses. Unless I accidentally fall asleep in them, I don’t know they’re even there.
I started wearing glasses when I was 10 and 19 years later, I still get tense when I have to start that damn test. I wish there was some scanning type test so all I have to do is sit there and let the scanner figure out what I need.
It sometimes seemed like the doc was just as frustrated as I was by my inability to give a straight answer.
It took about 15 years for a doc to figure out that I had a very minor astigmatism. It took 3 more years after that for a doc to try me on asymmetric lenses. I still can’t get a friggen glasses prescription that works as well as I’d like. The astigmatism correction is too much and makes me feel sick but without any correction, things are still blurry.
With contacts, I use asymmetric lenses and they work great.
I still get very tense at the eye doctor appointments though. I’d rather have a pap smear than go to the eye doctor.
I just wish they would get new eye charts. I didn’t really me too, but I have them memorized, just something my brain does. Both the big distance chart and the tiny chart in the view-master.