Spectacles Post-grafts ?

[piper]

Greetings all! I have looked in the archives and somehow can't find what I want. That is, now that I have had both eyes grafted, what are my chances of wearing spectacles successfully? I still have multiple images when not wearing my (painful) contacts, though they are much more closely grouped than they were before the surgeries.

Have any of you all had success with spectacles post graft?

Have your images decreased? Headaches or other troubles?

Thanks in advance for all your help and suggestions!!

cheers, Piper

[Lynn White]

Piper

Chances of wearing spectacles are reasonable but since everyone is completely different in their experience post graft, it is hard for people to give you advice that will help. In fact, those who are completely happy post graft with spectacles are unlikely to even post here!

The only way you are going to get decent advice is to go and get an eye examination and see what the results are. If you are wearing RGP's, then you will have to leave these out for a while in order for your cornea to "unmould" and settle down in order to get a stable prescription. Only then will you be able to see if you have any residual distortion that would give you ghosting and multiple images. It is these which tend to give headaches as the lens in your eye keeps trying to refocus to get a clear image.

[piper]

Thank you Lynn. I don't think my eyes CAN re-focus as I have had both lenses replaced with acrylic inserts. I may not wish to wear the spectacles all the time, usually only at home after work. Currently, i wear my RGPs at work, and have them in and out several times due to pain, and when I get home I remove them. This leaves me partially sighted again, frustrated, short-tempered, un-able to do anything I want to do, etc. I really want the spec's for the 3-4 hours I am at home each day and awake. So, having them fitted with the RGP-modified cornea shape is perhaps more feasible.

Actually, what I really wantis normal, regular vision, like what most people have and take for granted.....that is what everyone here really wants.....damn, guess I'm just going through a helpless, frustrated phase...

thanks again. Piper

[Anne Klepacz]

Hi Piper,
The scenario you describe is exactly what I do (grafts in both eyes). I wear RGPs during the day, then switch to glasses in the evening to give my eyes a break. I always ask for a refraction at the end of the day, so that my eyes are being tested for glasses in their 'moulded' state so that the prescription will be right for when I take the lenses out in the evening. That works very well for me, though as Lynn says, we're all different and you can only find out whether it will work for you by going to an optician and seeing what they can do for you. So good luck and here's hoping your days of frustration may be over soon!
Anne

[Andrew MacLean]

Piper

I hope soon to have a contact lens fitted to my left eye (DALK in October 2006), but I wear glasses for my right eye (PK in 2003 and cataract op in 2006).

I find that the specs give me good sight in my right eye, and with a "balance" lens over a contact lens in my left eye, I should be able to start enjoying good binocular vision (for the first time ever).

Meantime, they are waiting for the astigmatism in my left eye to become stable before they fit a lens.

All the best

Andrew

[Lynn White]

Aha!

Well in that case, yes you need a refraction straight after lens removal. That should give you what you need... I was basing my reply on the premise that you wanted to come out of contacts!

Even though you have had intra-ocular implants, your muscles still try and focus!

Best of luck and let us know how you go on.

[piper]

Lynn, thank you for your professional info and opinion. I shall take it to heart. I do have a question of terminology/optics: I basically know what astigmatism is.....but don't know if that is what I still see. When I look at a streetlight or a headlamp I see many MANY of them, grouped closely, to be sure but many, spread off to the side and down. Before surgery and the grafts i had many, like seventy or more, but widely spaced. For instance, the moon in all it's repetative glory took up about 1/5 of the sky.......now, the group is much smaller.

Many of the images are rather lined up, say down and to the right. Is this astigmatism or is this some other weird condition that I will have to live with and which can never be corrected?

Thanks again. Piper

[Lynn White]

Piper

First of all - hope you had a good Christmas!

What you describe I think is down to optical higher order aberrations, mainly coma. OK - this to some extent is complicated but what aberrations basically mean is that the light travelling through an optical system is distorted in various ways. With coma, light passing through the periphery of your cornea is deflected more than light going through the centre. This can be worse because of the keratoconic distortion but can happen for other reasons, such as the lens of the eye is not exactly in line with the centre of your cornea.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberration ... al_systems

This isn't "weird" - its a well known problem that even effects the Hubble telescope. It is difficult to correct with normal glasses or contact lenses BUT what is developing nowadays is checking out what aberrations you have using a machine called an aberrometer and feeding those results into lens design both for spectacles and contact lenses. This will result in new generation lens design and is already available in spectacle design and will be shortly in contact lens design.

However, back to you. Some of what you describe may well be partly due to astigmatism, so until you get properly tested we can't tell what is due to that and what is due to other aberrations.

You know, the world is full of problems but also full of people who live to solve these problems. It's what makes the world go round!

[piper]

Dear Lynn, thank you for the kind explanation. I met today with my Optometrist who put my new right lens in my eye. It is pretty crispy feeling yet, that eye has been without an RGP for a while. It is his opinion that I cannot be fitted with spectacles successfully due to the surface variations of the replacement corneas. Damn.

The new right lens allows me to see a bit better, but nowhere as good as the corrected left eye......so at work i must be left eye dominant and evenings when I take them out, I must be right eye domimant. No wonder I have a confused look on my face most of the time.

I am about to fit out a closet at home that I can sit in between work and bedtime......it will be dark in there and no one in the family will have to listen to me complain.

thanks again!! Piper

[piper]

I met with my optometrist this week. He says that due to the irregularities of my post-graft corneas that spectacles are not an option. damn

Got the new right lens.......though I see fairly well with it in, the surface pain overtakes the visual necessity after a couple of hours. Translation: When it hurts enough, I take it out.

Happy New Year Piper