
As many will know I have been visiting on a monthly bases due to uncomfortable lenses, poor vision and reduced lens wear. Well after my visit on 20th December the lens would be in place, all comfortable and we would adjust the vision so that I was getting 6/6. Then I would blink and couold not even see the eye chart.

We went through the whole procedure again and again, but the vision would suddenly go. After each attempt he would look at the lens position and check where the little dot was. Little do sat rigidly at 30 degrees despite my KC being at 20 degrees. We would put the rest of the sight correction on which showed an axis of 40 degrees each time, but vision would disappear again.

After second, third, fourth and fifth opinions and seeing the opthalmologist all concluded the cornea was healthy, the topography had not changed, the rest of the eye was healthy, but they all could see for some reason vision would just go. Concluded the lens needed to be tighter on the eye so we went with the best we could.
Here is where I started my KC diary again, recording every little thing and I searched the net for Exzema. We all know many with KC have exzema and asthma, exzema is dry skin and asthma can be in the form the airways feel constricted because of mucus build up.
In exzema the body can not maintain the skins natural oils so it drys quickly. Some types of asthema is due to the lack of a surfactant to make the mucus mobile, so the ciliia (hair type protrusions) in the upper airway can not move the mucus to the back of the throat where we swallow it or cough it up if we have a chesty cold.
This made me look more at the tears as I rememberd some of what one of the confrence guest speakers said about the tears having three components, water, oil and I forget the third. Well my tearproduction is fine and I do not feel like I have dry eyes and the visit to the hospital thought all was well. So I posed myself the question, if my skin lacks oil hence the exzema and my lungs lack a surfactant hence asthema, perhaps an oil/surfactant is deficient in my tears. I also remembered some people reported goo across there lenses after a few hours wear, I never had this but would sometimes get a very small amount at the tear duct. This got me thinking further and that the problem had been there infront of my eye all the time

The searched for eye drops that rather than wet the eye surface actually encourage the water to stay in. Well Systane was one that came up and I happened to have some. Decided to use it four times a day, morning before lenses in, afternoon when lenses come out for half hour break, before lenses go in after half hour break and finaly in the evening when my lenses came out.
Soon used my eye drops, but I did notice that after lunch the lens was more comfortable than first thing in the morning.
Regime changed in that when drops were used when the lenses were removed in the evening drops used, but I would put them in again last thing at night.
Initially no change, but after three days, the lens comfort first thing was really good, but before luch things were uncomfortable and again early evenig when lenses were removed. So I calculated that I was wearing lenses comfortably for 2 out of 6 hours in the morning and 4 out of 6 hours in the evening.
As I had already started to find an accumulative effect with the drops I though I would continue this regime for longer when I was working over Christmas. Here everything fell apart as after a couple hours lens wear was really uncomfortable. Why?
The labs I was in was differnet so I measure the humidity and it was well low and the temperature I recorded change throughout the day. Borrowed the meter and found at home humidity was variable but a lot higher than work, but the temperature was steady. Concluded humidity was perhaps the major factor and temperature secondary. Before changing anything, went to my old lab for the day and temperature is completely steady, but humidity is low and had exactly the same eye problems at work so concluded hunidity is the issue. Experimented further with humidity using the aircon in the car and varying amounts of watre in airfreshners you get that plug in the cigarette lighter and clip over the heater events. A very crude way of controlling humidity in the car. Higher humidity, higher comfort.
So now to experiment with how to lock the moisture in my eye even more and cope with these conditions. Every four hours removed lenses, put drops in and back go the lenses. After 4 days, no joy, cut back to three hours and after a couple of days lens comfort, vision and eveything is good. Did this for 4 days and everything is brillient again.
Now go for 4 hours and I am at home for the new year and an extra 2 days off work. Brillient I am getting good comfort, lets go back to work and see how well that works.
Day 1, after 1 hour right lens is really uncomfortable so take lens out sue drops and all is well againg. 2 hours later same problem. It would appear that the humidity is really low and my yes are loosing a lot of moisture and lab work is hard. This happens day after day and is agrevated by pc work.
Start over, I know what it feels like when the lens starts to move, so as soon as I get this feeling, lens out use drops and lens in again. How to aleviate the pc problem, set timer to 30 minutes and take a break.
So far so good, at work in the office I am going 2 - 4 hours comfort and excellent vision. Laboratory work is still variable which can be difficult for collegues when I have to duck out at inconvenient times. I am also going through my lunch without lenses but things are managable.
I regulary achieve a total wear time in the day of 14 hours with about 1.5 hours spent removing lenses, using drops etc. At work I loose an hour to lens stuff!
This is inconvenient but worth it as I can now wear my lenses at the weekend if I want without paying the price the next day by following the same regime and I have been doing this for about a week now.
The result of my eye test when I first walked in was 6/5 in each eye, something I have never achieved before and I had been wearing the enses for 2.5 hours before the consultation. The optomotrist was gob smaked

I never thought that my KC, exzema and asthema would be so intrinsicly linked, but they are.
For the hell of it we tried the tighter fitting lens which was just as comfortable as my old, but my vision with that lens was worse than my eye unaided

Could get good stable vision, even if the lens was sitting at 60 degrees now and the extra correction would add 15 degrees to it he decided there was more dignity to loose this battle but to survive and fight another.
KC is unchanged over the last 18 months, but my sight is better than it was when I got the lenses 16 months ago. I go back in three months to see how things are then.
Will tell my boss that I really need ot give up routine lab work and stick to tinkering here and there where I can take a break when I need to without causing problems.
I will have to become far more stringent in planning my day if I want to maintain long accumulative lens wear, comfort and excellent vision.
This is a long post, but a six month slog, I though I would post it as it may proove to be of help to others.
Regards
Gareth