My bifocal contact lenses suck!?!

My bifocal contact lenses suck!?

Is this as good as it gets? I can see fine close up now but I can't even see to drive when I have them in. Did my optometrist screw up? I hate wearing glasses but these lenses just ain't gonna get it.

4 weeks ago
If it's like y'all say, would RK surgery be able to correct what is wrong with my eyes? I'm really hating wearing glasses...

Not really surprising to hear this complaint. About a year ago I was attending some continuing education. I was in an audience of probably 300 optometric physicians. We were in a round table discussion with six "contact lens specialists" fielding questions from the audience. One physician complained to the panel of doctors up front that he was having trouble getting much success with soft bifocal contact lenses. The doctor at the left end of the table asked the doctor at the right end to pass him the microphone. He then said to all the doctors there "If you will remember just 5 words I promise you will never have another failed bifocal contact lens fit the rest of your career!"

As you can image EVERY doctor present sat up straight and listened intently to the coming words of wisdom. The specialist then said "Here are the 5 words. I will say them slowly so you can write them down. BIFOCAL CONTACTS DON'T EVER WORK!"

Now having said all this I definitely have success stories with bifocal contact lenses. Success though is very subjective. Almost every bifocal contact lens wearer will notice a decrease in their distance visual acuity in order to achieve improved near visual acuity. Success is not measured in whether the patient is 20/20. The question is ------ is the patient 20/happy. You can be 20/happy with bifocal contacts without being 20/20 IF for you the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. That is really what measures succesful bifocal wear. For some people the decrease in distance visual acuity is simply unacceptable. For others the improvement in their near acuity is significant enough that they are willing to accept the distance vision drawbacks. If you are lucky enough to be a patient that can interpret blur well your distance vision drawbacks may not be that significant.

Give your doctor the opportunity to make some adjustments. But you need to set some realistic expectations and understand that no matter what your doctor does you will probably not see as clearly at distance with the bifocal contacts as you may have come to expect with standard contacts or glasses. Not trying to be discouraging. I have found if I discuss these issues with a patient before even starting the bifocal fit I see many more successes because the patient goes into the fit with realistic expectations and is less likely to be disappointed when the inevitable distance vision blurring occurs. Hope this helped.