rainbow edges

[rosemary johnson]

You know when you get puddles at the edge of the road? And there's oil in the watr from oil or petrol spills from cars, etc, using the road? And the light reflected on the top of the puddles has a sort of circular rainbow effect pattern?
Well, yesterday the world was starting to look like that.
I put the lens into the grafted eye and went out to a meeting (or a voluntary group, at the house of some friends).
I was walking back up their road to the bus stop afterwards. I t was bright sunshine and I had the polarising sun specs on.
Wherever there was a bit of sunlihgt reflecting off, for example, parked cars along the road, I could see a hige big "halo" effect round the bit of car where the light was reflecting off (if you see what I mean).
and this halo had the rainbow coloured edges, just like I was looking at an oily puddle in the road.
Very weird.
I've noticed when I've had the new lens in the grafted eye in the evenings that I can see big haloes round, for example, street lights, car headlamps.
I haven't seen the rainbow edge effect before, thugh - maybe it only appens with the brightness of sunlight, or the full-spectrum white light of sunlight (as distinct from sodium street lights).
Has anyone else who's had a graft ever seen anything of the sort?
- it was a hot hay-fevery day and the friends whose house we'd been meeting in have cats, which I'm allergic to, so the eye was feeling a bit tired and sticky by then, but all the same...!
Rosemary

[Andrew MacLean]

Are you seeing through the edge of your lens?

White light is split into its component colours by a prism. I used to get the rainbow effect when looking at things without my lenses in, I guess because my wonky corneas were acting as prisms and not only giving me multi-images but also splitting the light into little rainbows. Actually I found this rather beautiful but not particularly practical.

When I first had my implant to replace a lens that had developed a cataract I had the same thing again, but that was because my eye was swollen.

Can't think of what else that could be; but it might be worth while getting back in touch with your contact lens clinic.

Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

Edge of my lens? - don't thin so; it's a scleral! (That how come I have it so early.) Unless it's the "edge" between the skirt part and the powered part.
I certainly will ask about it at the hospital.
Difraction patterns, I think they're called (or is it diffraction? both look wrong) - the rainbow patterns in oily puddles, I mean.
I have vague memories of trying to make them in A level physics - with the aid of ray lamp boxes, microscope slides coated in soot and fine needles, all the blinds down inthe physics lab and seaters over our heads to cut out any stray light beams. Butnot enough of the details to work out why I might see them now.
Rosemary

[matty_matt]

Hi rosemary (+ everyone else here - this is my first post).

Yes, I frequently get exactly the kind of 'rainbow edges' as you do. I have cornea grafts done in both eyes due to the on-set of keratoconus and both grafts subsequently became 'keratoconic' themselves (!). I have been trying to wear schleral lenses in both eyes.

I can't pinpoint why I get these rainbow rings - eye doctors usually brush it off with inadequate guesses like "probably just moisture on the lenses" and I'm rarely lucky enough to time a visit to Moorfields when the rainbow rings are there for the doctors to see for themselves & explain.

For me they usually signify that the eye has had enough of the lens for that day, which is particularly depressing if it's only given me a few hours of use. The rainbow rings are at their most vivid when looking at light fixtures in a room. It will also accompany mist and/or discharge in from the eye & in the lenses as if the eye is physically protesting the lens' presence. My eye will tend to be sore & itchy after taking the lens out, although my chronic eczema & dry eyes can account for this too.

Rainbow rings in the lens-vision seems to be just one more depressing obstacle when one has keratoconic grafts, difficult-to-fit scheral lenses, dry eyes, chronic eczema and (at present) a severe case of acute hydrops in my right eye. What is a man to do!

[Andrew MacLean]

matty_matt

Welcome to the forum!

Andrew

[John Smith]

I don't know about true rainbows, but if some of the colour fringes is purple, and others are yellow, then this is "chromatic abberation" - which occurs with imperfect lenses, and the white light just starts to split into its components.

It's quite common in thick or strong lenses - very high powered camera lenses do it, as do thick spectacles.

[rosemary johnson]

matty_matt, hallo and welcome.
Hydrops - in an eye that's ahd a graft???? I didn't know that was possible.
Many sympathies with the aggro - I've ha 4 so far, but all pre-graft.
I seem to need some pretty bright light to get the rainbow "diffraction patterns" - haven't seen it with artificial lights after dark.

But it could be a sign the eye is getting tired, as I was on the way home by then - and wheezing witht he hay fever and the friends' cats.
I'm hoping it isn't a symptom of getting hypoxia in the grafted bit - which Ken did warn me was a possiility.
How long is it since you had your grafts? - and got hte sclerals?
Rosemary

[asylumxl]

You mention you are wearing polarising lenses. Could it be stress patterns in your lenses, showing up only at certain brightnesses/angles?

[rosemary johnson]

I had wondered if the coloured effects might be something to do with polarising shades - you now, like the cloured pattern in those old zebra zone windscreens.
Then last night, I had the same effect from car headlights shining straight towards me - like milky haloes round the lamps themselves, with the coloured bits like the oily puddle.
Will definitely be asking at the hospital next week.
Rosemary

[rosemary johnson]

Just re-read matty-matt's post and it's sounding increasingly like just what I see.
It's like, the lens doesn't start hurting in the way I'm used to, but when it gets fed up of having a lens in, it starts showing me misty haloes, and then rainbow rings inthe misty haloes.
On Sunday I was at some friends, and was starting to see rainbows in a misty patch where I was sitting indoors looking towards the window.
Then we all went and sat out in the garden eating a buffet supper and admiring the garden.
And the way home I could see lots of rainbow rings round street lamps and headlamps, even after I took the elns out, and could still see rainbow rings in misty haloes round indoors light fittings when I got home, a couple of houors later.
SOunds like another trip to the hospital in the not-too-distant future!
I think it might be the hypoxia (oxygen shortage) that's causing the mistiness, and then I'm getting the diffraction patterns in whatever makes the mist, though quite how I've forgotten too much of my school physics to be sure.
It's odd though - eye wasn't too sore when I took the lens out, and went on seeing the rainbows, but was sorer the following morning.
Odd.
ANyone else get all this?
Rosemary