I got a quick question, sort of a ‘rumor’ going around. I’ve got a scheduled eye exam on the 24th to get a current prescription for new contact lenses.
Thing is, that I heard that wearing contact lenses can “distort” your eyes from it’s actual, normal, glasses-wearing vision–in effect skewing the results. Supposedly, contact lenses actually make the eye change shape slightly.
Should I not wear contact lenses for a few days leading up to the appointment? Or, am I being misled?
Tripler
I’ve never heard this before, but I’m kinda/sorta worried.
I’ve been wearing contacts since I was ten years old, and I have never had an optometrist or ophthamologist ever even mention or hint at something like this.
I can’t imagine that if contacts were somehow to distort your eye that a couple of days off would allow them to return to normal. If your contacts were distorting your eyes, then you’d have to have your prescription adjusted every time you got a new pair. NadaHappyCamper, you could make an answer like that for many of the posts on the board. But then there would be no SDMB.
If you wear rigid gas permeable lenses (RGPs), they can change corneal curvature, depending on their fit. Other lenses do not.
Even if you wear RGPs, you should continue wearing them before an exam, especially if you are getting new contacts. The optometrist would like to see your eye in its most common conformation, and if you are wearing lenses, this means with lenses.
I can’t. I’m military, and go through the TRICARE service, in which one calls up a scheduler for non-emergency appointment, and they schedule you with a doctor/optometrist/dentist/what have you on a day and time. It’s actually a nifty system in that I don’t have to wait 3 weeks for an appointment. . .
In any case, I’ve never met or seen said doctor, and he probably hasn’t seen my file yet. So, asking him is more or less not an option. I was more curious to see if anyone out in the “real world” has heard of this. . .
O.K. then,
I have worn contacts for about 27 years , Whenever I am scheduled for an eye exam it is sans contacts. That incudes rigid,rigid gas permeable ,soft and soft extended wear.The reason being is that the optometrist needs to check the patients uncorrected vision.
I forgot to add that, I still think the patient should should get this kind of information from the attending doctor,or in your case the person who is doing the scheduling,as it is pretty much standord info.