Tell us about your journey to finding the right contact lens. Have you found your perfect contact lens yet? or are you still trying and waiting for the perfect fit?
Cartoon by Gabriel Acevedo
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Help other patients by sharing your keratoconus experiences. Email your stories and photos to story@keratoconusgroup.org
I grew up in a small town in NC. At age of 19 while getting my eyes examined the eye doctor called the other doctors to come and look-- he had only seen Keratoconous in a book and I was his first live case. I had no idea what was going on. No one really explained it to me but they were all excited. For the next 30 + years I have been trying to find a way to get my vision to the point that is productive. I was sent to duke hospital because I have difficulty putting contact lens in and removing them. I have gone to emergency rooms after sleeping in hard lens all night, to get the stick that removes lens out of ny eye, to get the hard lens out of bottom of my eye, -- you name it - I have experienced it. One duke doctor informed me that he had a 100 % success rate in teaching people like me how to put in and remove hard lens. After 3 + hours, he relented and said I was his first failure. He sent me to a doctor for glasses. My daughter was subsequently informed that she too had Keratoconous. She was in her 30s when diagnosed. I have seen specialists in NC, Virginia, Orlando, Florida -- 3 different ones in the Orlando area. My daughter is in the health profession field and she was trying to get me in studies in Virginia and Florida for something called cross linking -- I lived too far away. I even tried to get in a study in Europe. Keratoconous has impacted my vision in my left eye to the point that I cannot wear glasses-- the vision in the right eye is not bad because the cone is lower in the right eye but dead center in left eye. The corrected vision in the left eye would be too strong with the vision in the right. My last glasses have no corrected vision in the left eye. I was recently informed that the cone in the left eye is so pointy that it is difficult to place a lens in that eye. I'm a teacher and reading is becoming more of a challenge. In January of this year I was diagnosed with a thyroid condition and my left eye seems to be sore when I rub it.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing, my daughter wears contact lens, she is connected to a lot of groups and she does not have the same issues of removing and putting in her lens in. Although my 86 year old mother does not have Keratoconous, she wears contact lens. She puts them in and takes them out. I was told that I have a reflex that causes me to close my eyes when something gets close which impacts my ability to put in contact lens.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I was diagnosed with Keratoconus at the age of 19. I am now 56. I was diagnosed in Sacramento, California, by UCDavis Medical. I had the best doctors at this time. At the age of 38, I moved to Georgia and found a doctor who fitted my lenses perfectly the first time. She eventually retired, and that was 16 years ago. I have been unable to find the perfect fit since. I've had cornea ulcers from bad fitting lenses or simply an eye infection from wearing bad fitting lenses. On occasions, I take out my lenses and go without, simply hoping no one will ask me to read or walk anywhere out of the normal. I finally found a doctor that gets close to a perfect fit in one eye, but not the other. My left eye is worse, then the right eye. I've had to insist on a smaller lense in both eyes. Most doctors want to fit my eye with a lense that will cover the cornea, which, for me, causes the infections and/or ulcers. The best thing to do is communicate with your doctor and make sure they are more than familiar with the term keratoconus.
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