questions - post graft glasses and lazy eye

[Paul Osborne]

Something has just occured to me, so excuse my ignorance and stupidity.

Once I have had my graft can I wear glasses straight away with say a plain lens for the grafted eye so I can at least see with the non grafted eye, or do I have to do without altogether for a while? If thats the case things become very interesting as a quick check reveals that I can see the laptop on my lap at the moment and not a lot else.

Also I bumped into my optom in town yesterday (literally as new lenses were being fitted to my glasses) and he was delighted to hear that I have my op in a few weeks and is looking forward to sorting out of glasses or lenses as appropriate later in the year, which was good.

Also from from the optoms I had to get a copy of my prescription and managed to blagged a copy of the referal and consultants letters, so heres some extracts:

Prescription:
right:
sphere: -4.75 Cyl -1.75 Axis 180
left:
counting fingers 3 metres at best!


optoms letter to my GP:
"one of the keratomer readings was also off the scale at 5.5 mm radius"

consultants letter to my GP and optom:
"contact lens fitting is going to be problematic..... possible amblyopia of left eye, but is quite sure that his vision in his left eye was better than at present.... slightly uncertain prognosis for visual recovery given history of amblyopia..."

Googling reveals that amblyopia is the lazy eye condition. Oh how I remember the endless months of an eye patch over my right eye to help force the lazy one to be used. The number of lamp posts I walked into...

Anyway the left eye definately was better than the right eye for a long time, to the extent that I used to read without glasses with my left eye qute happily till around 10 years ago.

So does anyone have adult experience of getting the lazy eye working again? As to be honest its going to have to work well in a couple of years when my consultant starts taking a closer look at the right eye which according to my optom "currently has low grade keratoconus".

Anyway got to go, have a bedroom to finish painting. Will return when I have a second coat of paint on the walls.

[jayuk]

Paul

Wearing lenses/glasses post graft can take anything from 6 months to 2 years

It all depends on how well the cornea settles down. Generally, the consultant would not recommend a contact lens until at least one year; however glasses can be used sooner if you can be refracted with a good VA

J

[Prue B]

My sister popped the lens out of her spectacles after her last astigmatic keratotomy, about 2 days later and has managed really well since.

[Andrew MacLean]

We all have a naturally dominant eye and a naturally recessive eye.

A friend recently suffered a haemorrhage in her good eye, and has been able to bring her 'lazy' eye into use. She is able to read her computer screen with the font set to 20 or above. Previously she did not use that eye for reading.

Andrew

[Paul Osborne]

jayuk: I appreciate the need to wait on the opped eye, its the non opped eye I need to be able to use - hence asking about the wait - without glasses its almost useless!

pru: plan! I like it.

andrew: thats true enough and at least I know that I have used the lazy one before in the past.

Anyway:

Having just checked with my opticians (tea break from decorating ), the lens for the bad eye has been made pretty much plain with a curvature to make my eyes appear the same size to people looking at me. Otherwise a plain lens would make one eye appear somewhat different to the other in size/shape and freak people out! They don't think that the almost plain lens will affect the grafted eye (when its done) but best to get the consultant to check and confirm once the op has been done.

Right back to painting for a bit and then some lunch.

--Paul
--who is due to be glossing a door at midnight - ah the joys of furniture delivery tomorrow.

[Andrew MacLean]

My optometrist offered two options:

1 My useless eye could have a plain lens made of the same material as the optical lens for my graft eye OR

2 My useless eye could be made up with the same optical value as my graft eye.

The latter would give the appearance of perfect symmetry, and as I don't have any sight in that eye would really make no difference to me.

But, I went for option 1 (like you), because it is certain that once I have had a graft into my currently useless eye, the prescription for my other eye would not suit the newly seeing eye!

So I have one optical lens and one plain lens, so that I can replace the plain one with an optical one whenever given the green light by the hospital!

all of that made sense to me when I was typing it.

Andrew

[ChrisK]

My bad eye is also a lazy eye (actually really lazy) which is probably why it wasn't until I started getting pain in it and got it tested that I found out I had KC.

Looking back I've probably had it over 10 years and did nothing about it.

I'll be interested to know how you get on Paul as now you are being treated a couple of months ahead of me, you can be the human guinea pig.

[Knight]

I'm unsure if this is entirely the same thing, but up until about 8yrs ago, when I would get tired my left eye would drift outward. I had been compensating a lot over the years because my eyesight in the left got bad so quickly and lens wearing was down to just 4-5hrs it was difficult to focus even with a lens in, following the point of a pen from about a meter away toward my nose, my left eye would stutter and 'slip' away totally of its own.
So I did regular orthoptic exercises, twice a day for about 3mths to redevelop the 'lazy muscles' back into shape, now I have better than normal control over my left eye. It doesn't drift anymore, and even with it grafted both eyes I can follow the point of a pen right up close to the end of my nose.

[Paul Osborne]

My lazy eye has been so since I was a child and had squint ops on both eyes. I have however always been able to choose which I see with, so I used to regularly rotate between the two but have never really had them both pointing in the same direction at the same time.

When my left eyes prescription started to drift around 10 years back I started going to various optoms every year or so get a lens that would work for a while (six - eighteen months) and carry on.

Its only recently that the local independant optom spotted what was wrong.

My consultant has said that once he is happy that the eye is working properly that he wants to reinvestigate the squint ops that I had 30 years ago, but that all depends on how well the left eye goes post graft and at what stage the KC is in my right eye. He is also concerned that mentally I may have some difficulties getting used to using my left eye again.

Its all fun and games round here.

PS: skirting boards, window frame and door to go now.

[Andrew MacLean]

Paul

The smell of Paint makes my eyes sting! I admore a man who can cheerfully expose himself to this hazard!

Andrew