This Zombie thread was revisited. I’m very interested in hearing about MortorGirl’s experience, so I figured I would start this new thread.
I think I had one of the precursors to it lo these many moons ago. It was presented as cutting edge then, it would have been the very late 70s to early 80s. I was then very nearsighted and my vision began to worsen rapidly just as I was entering my teens. At one point I was getting new lenses in my glasses six weeks after we had gotten the last set of new ones.
So the doc decided to try out this new thing where I would wear a series of hard contact lenses at night to try and slow down the changes. It did seem to work; at least my vision did not get any worse and improved to about -6. It seemed to flatten out there (as it were) and they stopped trying to improve my vision. I then wore hard contact lenses during the day for about four years to try to maintain what gains had been achieved. Combining the two was said to be a bad idea because of oxygen deprivation to the eye.
I later switched to soft lenses which I still wear and my vision is now -7.5. But the trip from -4 or -4.5 to -7.5 and then back to -6 (with the lenses) took about a year and the trip from -6 to -7.5 took two decades.
Now that I read the zombie I may look into it again, it sort of worked the first time and it had in any event no major side effects.
I tried it for awhile. My eye-doc was worried about the rate of change in my vision (needing new glasses every 8 months or so) and asked me to try wearing the ortho-k lenses at night.
Here’s my experience (this occurred last year):
Comfort. The lenses were quite comfortable, and I could see OK while I wore them (before bed). I could navigate around the house, but couldn’t read. I was worried because I had been led to believe the lenses could feel “tight”.
Focusing: Immediately after removing the lenses in the morning, I could see almost as well as with glasses, but the focus wasn’t exactly right. Reading was a chore, but driving was fine. It seemed like my eyes were set at exactly one focal length and as long as I was attempting to see things at that particular distance, all was well. When I tried to use my computer at work, I needed additional glasses (Doc had included a coupla of different ones for me to try). The disturbing thing was the inconsistency: My eyes never seemed focussed the same way from day to day (hence the different reading glasses strengths).
Time: Throughout the day, my vision deteriorated to the point I was afraid to drive after dinner. Since I am a flight instructor and often airborne with students until 9 or 10 at night, this was simply unacceptable*. I found that the correction was temporary and didn’t last more than 8-10 hours. During this time my vision was continually shifting and it was a chore to find reading/supplemental lenses that enabled me to function.
Sorry if you had hoped for good news, but my experience left a lot to be desired. To his credit, my doc refunded everything and supplied me with regular glasses and a set of clip on lenses to use when at the computer (or reading). Here’s hoping your experience will be better.
*Don’t worry, I didn’t fly during this period 
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I’m disappointed. **Motorgirl **promised us in the other thread to tell us about her experience if there were a suitable thread for it… That is mainly why I opened the thread.
Many apologies! I was at a conference in South Dakota when I originally posted, and now I am back. 
My husband and I both tried orthokeratology in the Spring of 2005, as part of an ortho-k fitting workshop at my place of employment ( an optometry college) so lenses and office visits were free.
My husband responded very well to ortho-k. He had around a -2 myopia with just a slight astigmatism. The first morning he woke with near-20/20 correction which lasted for about 3-4 hours. Then he needed to put in the soft lenses they gave him.
Each day the correction lasted longer and longer. Two years later he can now skip wearing his lenses occasionally and his correction lasts through the day. He has had only one problem during his ortho-k tenure and that was a period about a year ago where he was experiencing some blurriness due to his lenses not centering properly - he took them in, they cleaned them ultrasonically and advised him to switch his cleanser to a more abrasive product.
He has been glasses-free for two years now.
I, on the other hand, did not do well on ortho-k. I went through a series of lenses while they tried to find the right fit. During this time I experienced blurry vision, double vision, corneal staining and the inability to focus on close-up objects, such as a book, a computer screen, etc. I had many headaches because my brain did not like what my eyes were doing. My doctor and I agreed to give up after 3 months of on-again off-again use. He plans to use my corneal topography images and the photographs of my corneal staining in a journal article tho, so that is kind of fun.
To be honest, I went into the workshop knowing I was not an ideal candidate for the lenses they were working with. My myopia was at the high end of what can be regularly corrected with that particular lens material (I have a -5 in one eye and a -5.25 in the other) and a fairly high astigmatism for that type of lens, and a somewhat uncommon axis. I knew I wasn’t an ideal candidate, but talked it over with my doctor and we decided to try it anyway. It was an interesting experience and in some ways I’m glad the students got a chance to evaluate an unsuccessful patient.
My doctor is going to contact me if they do a trial of another type of lens which has been approved for use on higher-myopia patients, but so far they’ve only been doing the Paragon trials.
Also, my eye doctor has been using ortho-k lenses for a few years himself and has been successful.
bump
Thanks for the info! My eyes are pretty bad and I would love to try this, but wasn’t sure if there was a limit to how bad an eye could be and still be treatable. I am reluctant to get lazer surgery. Does one need to see a special eye doc or will my regular eye doc know about this?
Your regular eye doctor can at least refer you to someone who does CRT/Ortho-k. If you are a not-quite-ideal candidate it is, IMO, pretty important that you go to an experienced practitioner. At the very least you need to go to a doctor who has an in-office corneal topography system.
If you feel comfortable letting me know what town/city you live in, I could ask my doctor if he knows anyone in that area he would recommend. He and his clinical/teaching partners are quite active in the field.
Out of curiosity, what’s your contact lens or eyeglass prescription?
I don’t know what the numbers mean, so I’m just going to report them:
Left eye: BC 8.4 PWR -7 DIA 14.0
Right eye: BC 8.4, PWR -8 DIA 14.0
BC = Base Curve, the degree of curvature of the lens
PWR = Power, measure in diopters
DIA = Diameter, the size of the lens
There’s no axis or cylinder listed for that prescription, so it’s not for toric lenses. Do you know if you have no astigmatism, or if you are wearing contacts that don’t correct it?
a -7 and a -8 are within the range of myopia that can be corrected by certain types of ortho-k lens. You’re not a good candidate for the type of lens I tried, and you probably couldn’t find a doctor willing to try you on that particular lens, since you’re more than a -6.
I’ll see if I can find info about the type of lens they’re developing for myopia up to a -10.
AFAIK, I do not have astigmatism.