oneeyedraz wrote:Can anyone elaborate if Kerasoft IC is similar to No7 SoClear (Optimum Extra)?
These lenses are completely different, Kerasoft IC is a silicon hydrogel soft contact lens designed for irregular corneas (IC) which includes Keratoconus whereas the No7 Soclear is a corneo-scleral lens made from a rigid gas permeable material (RGP).
I completly sympathise with your situation of alternating between lenses, I did this for a few years but I still had to go weekends with no vision correction to allow my eyes to recover and even then gradualy my lens wear came down to about an hour in each eye per day with regular visits to eye casualty because my eyes would cry enough. We tried different types of RGP based contact lenses with no improvement to lens wear time despite the good quality of vision and we eventually concuded that I had become sensitised to either the RGP material or having something rigid against the cornea. At this point I was already looking at the Keraasoft 3 lenses (forerunner to Kerasoft IC) and instantly got vision comparable with an RGP lens and all day lens wear. A couple of years later the Kerasoft IC was launched and I moved on to that which was even better still.
There was a period where my corneas had to demould from the RGP lenses but we found the Kerasoft lenses were robust enough that we could start with 6/6 vision or better and as my eye demoulded over a coupe of months the vision would drop to 6/12 which is Ok to drive with and do close work on a computer at which point we would refit the lenses back to the 6/6 mark and let the demoulding continue. We got through a few lens changes in a 12 month period as my corneas demoulded from 4 - 5 years lens wear but since then everything has pretty much been stable. Only a couple of minor changes that relate to the age of my grafts and my own age in the past five years but now I only require an annual check up at the hospital.
I also find that I no longer suffer neovascularization which I did get with RGP's, I think it was also a case of being caused by lens irritation rather than lack of oxygen. I know the hospital were concerend with this when we started looking at soft lenses despite Kerasoft IC having a comparable oxygen permeability to a more conventional corneal RGP lens. This is one reason I looked at a soft lens over the scleral type lenses because I considered that the larger tear layer would mean further distance for any oxygen to travel between the lens and get to my cornea. For me there was also the sensitisation issue because my eye lid would still be incontact with an RGP material.
The bottom line is, until you try the enses you will never know which suits you best.
