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My right eye has been red and irritated for about a week, so I finally went to the eye doctor yesterday. Turns out that I have permanent scar tissue damage to my eyeball, and my contact lens has been rubbing at it and irritating the scarred area, right at the edge of the iris. It also turns out that the damage was caused in the first place by long-time use of contact lenses.
Since the scar tissue won’t ever go away, this is probably going to be a periodic problem for the rest of my life. The only big-picture answer is to cut back on the amount of time I wear my contact lenses and to keep my eyes hydrated all the time with Optive eye drops.
Short-term, I’m off contacts for a week (thank god I replaced my ugly giant coke-bottle glasses with small cute new ones a year ago), and I have medicinal drops in addition to the Optive.
Sooner rather than later, I’ll have to get a new pair of contact lenses as well. I’ve had these for over a decade (waaaaay too long) and most likely they’re not fitting quite as well as they used to, which contributes to the irritation. I just have to figure out how long I have to wait before my insurance will help me out, in its very tiny way, with the cost.
I like the way my glasses look, but the problem is that they seem to collect and magnify sunlight, beaming it directly into my eyes. Sunny days are almost too much to bear. I probably need to buy some clip-on shades (that might be an errand for this weekend) or just wear a hat while outside.
Also, I’ve been having headaches for a while now (which I try not to complain about, for reasons that I hope are obvious) but I have to wonder if it’s not connected to the eye irritation and strain and light sensitivity. They’ve felt migrainey in nature, though not full-blown.
Ug, that sucks.Do you wear hard or soft lenses now? I had to switch to soft lenses about 8 years ago because the hard ones were becoming so painful. Luckily they are getting better with the soft ones and actually make them for my horrible eyessight with astigmatism
I use hard lenses now (well, “rigid gas perms” I think they call them). When I go to get my new pair, I think I will discuss my options for hard vs. soft.
I had to get the hard ones when I was about 15, after 2 years of the soft kind, because the rapid downhill progression of my eyesight was not stopping. I had to get a new prescription every few months. But once I got the hard lenses – dead stop. I’ve only ever had the prescription just tweaked since then.
Oh, in case you’re wondering, I”m at a -8.25 in my right eye and -8.75 in the left. No astigmatism so far.
You win. Looking at my contact lens box I appear to be -7.00 in both eyes. But the astigmatism has to count for something right? š
Actually, I really haven’t worn my contacts in a year and a half. I can’t see a damn thing at night with contacts and im usually to lazy to bother putting them in in the morning. Plus glasses make me look cool. Well, Mom says I’m cool, so that means I am, right? RIGHT?
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