Need help figuring out what to do about my contacts?!
Question: I am having serious trouble with the contacts I have now. For years, I have used toric contact lenses, but when I changed doctors, he said I didn't have enough of an astigmatism to warrant toric lenses. I thought, great, cheaper lenses, but I have had nothing but problems with them. After trying several different brands and solutions, my vision is still blurred after an hour of wearing them, and it's gotten to the point where I get terrible headaches because I can't see. I work at a computer all day, and I can't tell the difference between certain characters that I type.
I can't have another exam until May because of insurance purposes, so I was going to buy contacts online. But I only have an old toric presciption for one eye, and my doctor won't alter my prescription for my astigmatism. Is there some way I can convert my old toric prescription to one that makes me see clearly?
Answers: I am having serious trouble with the contacts I have now. For years, I have used toric contact lenses, but when I changed doctors, he said I didn't have enough of an astigmatism to warrant toric lenses. I thought, great, cheaper lenses, but I have had nothing but problems with them. After trying several different brands and solutions, my vision is still blurred after an hour of wearing them, and it's gotten to the point where I get terrible headaches because I can't see. I work at a computer all day, and I can't tell the difference between certain characters that I type.
I can't have another exam until May because of insurance purposes, so I was going to buy contacts online. But I only have an old toric presciption for one eye, and my doctor won't alter my prescription for my astigmatism. Is there some way I can convert my old toric prescription to one that makes me see clearly?
That happens to alot of our patients here(i work at an optometrists office). But our doctor usually works with our patients if they are having that type of problem. You have to have at least an -1.00 in astigmatism to get it put in a toric contact. After you have worn that lens for so long it seems that your eyes are just used to that. I would recommend trying one more time to tell your doctor that you just want to stay with your old Rx and if he wont then i wouldn't go to him anymore. Just recently the FDA has put restrictions on optometrists so you must have an eye exam every year to get any contacts. I dont know of anyway to get around it unless you order from 800 contacts and tell them some bogus place like wal-mart is where you had your eyes examined and wal-mart only has 8 business hours to respond and if they dont reply within the time allowed they will fill your old Rx!! Hey its worth a try, but we work with our patients with situations like that so i cant understand why the doc wont help out!!!
Try Acuve Advanced contact lense. That is the kind I wear. And if they start to get blurry, try putting two drops of Bink n' Clean directly on them before you put them into your eyes.
First there is no simple way to convert from one lens to the other in this case. So much depends upon how the lens sits on your eye, and there can be significant differences between each lens' positioning once it is inserted. If your old toric lens corrects for too much astigmatism, then you could experience the same symptoms as you are having with the new lenses.
Eye doctors will typically not recommend toric soft contact lenses if the amount of astigmatism falls below a certain point. However, experience has shown that some of the people whose astigmatism falls below the cut-off point are very, very sensitive to the missing astigmatic correction in their soft lenses. Doctors will resort to various non-astigmatic designs, especially ones called "aspheric". Many times these designs will provide adequate vision. Obviously this is not the case with you. There are toric lenses for people like you to try. You might ask the doctor if one of these lenses would be more appropriate. You can mention the name of one lens which is the "Extreme H2O 54, LC". It has worked very well for my patients who are in the same situation as you.
You should tell the Doctor about it and they should give you a new prescription for free. You should always go back right away when a lense isn't working out.
Try to find another eye doctor and you tell him what kind of problems that you got! Go to Walmart they got a eye doctor there!