This is truly mundane and pointless, but I’m so psyched, I had to post it.
Yesterday, eleven days before my 40th birthday, I finally got contact lenses!!!
I had tried to wear them about 15 years ago, but I have astigmatism and they were semi-gas permiable lenses. They hurt incredibly bad, made my eyes so bloodshot it looked like I was stoned, and they kept turning and settling so badly that I couldn’t see.
Over the past few years, I’ve been hearing about the advances made for people with astigmatism and how there are many new options (including soft lenses), so I thought I’d give it one more try. Yesterday, I went for me initial fitting. Let’s just say it’s like night and day.
These (soft lenses) are very comfortable. My mascara is irritating my eyes this morning, but the lenses are perfectly fine in the comfort department. My vision isn’t as good as it is with glasses, but my eye doc says that because of my astigmatism, it won’t be as good with contacts as with my glasses, but my vision isn’t horrible. (Short distance is actually much sharper with the contacts.)
I had a bit of trouble this morning putting in the left one (I’m right handed), but it eventually went in okay, and I still feel a bit “naked” without my glasses. I did, however, go last night and get a pair of funky new sun glasses (and it’s overcast today!!!), but I am so excited about my contacts!!!
Okay, enough mundane and pointless. This thread can now sink.
This kind of thing always reminds me of coming out of the glasses store for the first time and bouncing up and down like I’d suddenly developed the world’s worst case of ADHD. I was so excited I couldn’t even talk. Finally I was able to articulate “the tree! It’s got leaves!”
Mom: “it’s always had leaves”
Me: “yes but I mean individual ones! It was just a big green blob!”
Mom: “oh my, I guess you did need glasses.”
OK…this is weird. That was the first thing I said when I got my glasses in the first grade. It was just soooo amazing to me that the leaves came off the TREES ! ! ! I mean, who knew. I’m going to switch back to contacts when I lose some weight. So I’ve got at least one thing to look forward to when I diet.
Gratz again on your new contacts. Hope you keep loving them.
I have astigmatism too, and tried the soft lenses in 2000, when they were still pretty new. They made my eyes feel so dry, I stopped wearing them… maybe they’ve improved since then?
I’m going to ask my doc about those new hybrid lenses. They’re gas perms in the middle, surrounded by an outer ring of soft lens. Supposed to be the best of both worlds for us astimatiggy folks- crisp vision and soft comfort. Anyone have any experience with them?
My only worry is the whole touching my eyeball thing to remove them. I’ve worn gas perms for 20 years now, and can only manage it because I can blink them out instead of pinching them off my eye. The thought of pinching something off my eye makes me want to hurl. But my contacts are starting to hurt more and more, and I’ve been wearing my glasses almost exclusively for the last few months, which gives me headaches and stuff, so I need a different solution.
That’s how I felt 2 years ago when I finally found soft contacts that work for me: I use the Acuvue Advance for Astigmatism lenses, and I love them. (Sattua, these were brand new to the market when I got them, so you might want to ask your eye doc about them.)
I was first fitted with contact lenses when I was 13. They were rigid gas permeables, and I wore that kind of lens with very few problems for almost 20 years. But then I started having problems with them scratching my eyes, and with scars building up on my corneas, and every year my ophthalmologist would tell me that he didn’t like them and wanted me to switch to soft lenses – but he couldn’t find a pair of soft lenses that I could see out of! I think I tried every brand of soft lens known to man, even a soft-rigid hybrid, and nothing worked. But in 2003 I got to a point where I really couldn’t wear the gas permeables anymore, so I spent a year in glasses for the first time since grade school.
Then, in 2004, I switched eye doctors: my company started offering vision insurance, and I’d been a little frustrated with my ophthalmologist anyway (not just because of the contacts stuff), so I went to a local optometrist. He told me about the then-new Acuvue lenses, I tried them out, and right away I knew they were the ones for me. I was so happy to be able to wear contacts again! The soft lenses are so much more comfortable than the gas perms, too: at the end of a day wearing gas perms my eyes were always bloodshot and sore (likewise if I needed to put them in very early, or when I was otherwise already tired), but I have no issues like that with the soft lenses. Like phall0106 my vision isn’t as good as with glasses, but it’s definitely good enough.
You posted while I was composing the above: as I said, I tried the hybrid lenses a couple of years ago, but they didn’t work for me. They weren’t uncomfortable, I just couldn’t see well enough out of them. They look really weird, though. I recommend giving them a shot!
Another who had the “leaves” conversation here! (Made me parents feel really guilty, because I’d been telling them I thought I needed glasses, and they get my eyes checked until I failed the vision test for my learner’s permit.) And congratulations on the new contacts!
Thanks for all the congrats. Who knew something so simple could bring about such a change?
When Hallgirl1 initially got glasses (she was about seven), we were driving home from the eye doctors and we passed a billboard sign. “Oh,” she said excitedly,“There are words on them!” I almost cried, and it remains today on my Top 10 List of Times I Felt Like a Crappy Parent (for not recognizing how badly she couldn’t see).
There was a link here not too long ago in which a poster was some sort of tech who works in the eye business and she (he?) really encouraged the exploration of the new lenses. Honestly, that’s what pushed me in the direction to really begin thinking of contacts again.
*:::insert profound statement here::: * I guess you could say a Doper has once again changed my life.
I remember wandering around in a daze going ‘oh… oh, wow’ and ‘oh my God’ for about fifteen or twenty minutes after getting my first pair of glasses. That feeling really is unbelievable.
I recall the horror of looking into the mirror wearing my new pair of glasses and seeing just how many freckles I had! But I’ve grown to love my freckles.
I got contacts before glasses, and my first experience with them was “I can read the signs on the walls ! See the leaves on the trees ! I can . . . urk get real dizzy . . . motion sickness . . . I’ll lie down now . . .”
It was at least a week before just turning my head or even moving my eyes stopped inducing nausea. Still, it was cool as hell being actually being able to see clearly for the first time.
I sit here REALLY hoping I’m that Doper. In fact, I really wish you were my patient (I’m in PA too). I’m happy for you. I hope you’re able to wear contact lenses successfully until you inevitably develop cataracts, and then, I hope the technology continues to improve to the point where neither of us needs external corrective lenses!
I had the exact same reaction when I got my glasses in sixth grade. “The trees! They have leaves!”
Two years later, I decided I wanted to paint in an Impressionist style, so I stopped wearing my glasses, because I didn’t want to see the leaves anymore.
See, Mom is. So when she started dating Dad, Grandma told her “oh please, not the one with glasses! Otherwise all your kids will need glasses!”
And yet, as one after another of her three children was found out to need glasses, she was surprised every time and she took more than a year before taking us to the eye doctor every time (we were all detected as four-eyed by our teachers). It’s genetic, people, Grandma only got to 4th grade and she knew about it.
I think noticing leaves is universal! It’s the first thing I noticed as well. I’m kind of the opposite though. I got contacts when I was 10 and never wore glasses. Finally, about a year ago, at 27, I finally decided enough was enough and I was sick of contacts. I finally got glasses. Yay for being lazy!
(Sattua, these were brand new to the market when I got them, so you might want to ask your eye doc about them.)
I recommend giving them a shot!
tickle PHall