I'm giving contact lenses a try for the, oh, fiftieth time in my life. I have had glasses since I was five years old but I only wear my glasses at home to read and use the computer (even though I should probably wear them all the time). I have tried contacts many, many times and have been unsuccessful every time. I have astigmatism which makes contact-wearing difficult in the first place. One must use weighted toric lenses that only focus when the weighted side sits at the bottom of your eye. For me, the contacts never quite settled properly and therefore my vision was always blurry. I tried every brand of toric lenses before finally moving on to hard lenses.
Hard lenses are, well, hard. They take a while to get used to because you can feel them in your eye. Supposedly, after wearing them for awhile your eye develops a callous (gross!) which desensitizes your eye and you don't feel the hard lenses any more. The last time I tried hard lenses I was never able to get used to them. To further complicate things, I also have very dry eyes. As a result, I was putting eye drops into my eyes as frequently as less than every 30 minutes. That makes for a very long, uncomfortable day. With all these factors together, I decided to give up on contact lenses and just go through life being partially blind.
Then I got pregnant.
I found out that pregnancy can make your eyes even dryer and make your vision worse. What I wasn't told, was that after pregnancy your eyesight never goes back to the way it was pre-pregnancy. Um, does this mean that with each child I just keep getting blinder??? Well anyway, last week I decided it was time to visit the eye doctor to renew my 10+ year old glasses prescription. While I was there, I decided to give contacts another go. After all, it would be nice to be able to see at work.
The doctor had me try on all the toric lenses they had in stock, even newer ones that are especially for dry eyes. I couldn't see. Not even a little bit. The doctor determined that I have flat corneas which prevent the weighted lenses from ever settling properly. I was grateful to finally find out the reason behind my life of contact drama! The solution? Hard lenses or glasses. I ordered a pair of hard lenses (not covered by insurance, thank you very much) and my total bill was $400+ without even ordering the glasses. *Gulp* No wonder I haven't been to the eye doctor in so long! I will go back to buy a pair of glasses when my FCPS insurance kicks in (did you know that frames and lenses are sold separately???).
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