Dec 26 2011, Lens Fitting Appointment

Yesterday I went for my lens fitting appointment.  I took a day off work since it was mid-week, drove for 1.5 hours as usual to the eye hospital and sat there in the waiting room expecting so many good things to come.  It seems like all I got was a smack in the face with everything going exactly the opposite to my expectations.

At first they were going to fit me with soft contact lenses.  That threw me off, as the appointment was for hybrid lens fitting.  I had to clearly explain to them that we tried soft contact lens fitting a week ago and the results were not satisfactory.  After this clarification they took me to another doctor who specializes in these fittings as opposed to the regular optometrist.

The doctor informed me that she will fit me with RGP lenses.  What?  I thought I was getting a hybrid lens fitting as my main doctor directed, to which I was informed that they no longer provide hybrid lenses since 2 years ago since the manufacturer no longer distributes to the Middle East region due to quality issues in the shipments.  OK....then why give false hope and tell me I will be fitted with hybrids when you don't have them!  After this hiccup I tried to calm myself down and said to myself "nothing wrong with RGPs, might as well try them".

As the doctor inserted the RGP lens into my eye it felt like I had a loose hair stuck inside.  She informed me that this is typical as the eyes are reacting to a foreign object.  I kept my eyes closed for a while till I could open it.  Vision was good, but not yet perfect.  Also, things kept on shifting from clear to blurry constantly, changing with each blink.  She told me my eyes were too flat and they don't have trial lenses for my curvature and she was using both contacts and glasses on me to get the right fitting.  I don't know why but this felt like a mechanic doing dentistry work.  I felt very uncomfortable as this is not how a high quality hospital should do things.

She went through various lenses and did various eye tests where she places colored drops in the eye and looks at the lens using a blue light (to make sure the lens is sitting correctly on the cornea).  However, since they don't have the right lens for my eyes, and she said she can't even order trial ones for tests, I can order the actual ones and use the one-time replacement warranty that comes with it to get a better fit later.  Oh, and she also mentioned the fact that my curvature has changed over the past two months (from 9 to 10 or something like that) and that my curvature could change again. 

Ordering lenses takes 4-5 weeks....which means by the time they arrive my curvature could have changed, and the RGP lenses will be a poor fit which I believe can damage/scratch my eyes due to being too tightly fit.  Why all the hassle, driving multiple times to see the doctor, poorly fit contacts, probable damage to my cornea, wasted time and money.....for the time being contacts seem like a horrible choice.  Although I have to mention that the clarity of my vision with contacts was great since lots of the haze issue is solved (still not perfect though).

Conlusion: Wait for eyes to heal, haze to disappear and let my eyes heal naturally.  I will not rush it and hope for a better long term as a result of letting the miracle of the human body regenerate itself and heal.

Dec 17, 2011 appointment

Slightly good news, as I have observed the following changes from the medical report:

Left eye went from +2.25 to +1.75, although has Grade 2 haze

Right eye went from +6.00/-2.00 to +5.75/-1.50, with Grade 2 haze

Haze is expected to disappear with time, doctor is approximating 6 months from now....so will have to see how things are in June 2012 (which will be 1 year after the surgery).

I inquired on what caused this issue and why I was unfortunate.  

• Was it the surgery itself that went bad? 
• Was it because the bandage contact lens was removed at day 5 while the epithelium has not healed completely?
• Was it because the bandage contact lens was reinserted at day 9 and kept in my eyes for a period of 5 weeks without being replaced once?
• Was it just my body that did not have the capability of regrowing epithelium at the typical expected rate?
• Or was it something else I have not considered?

Doctor's response was that I was unfortunate, and the delay in epithelium healing (which took me 2 months to have heal completely, while the average is 5-9 days) had my eyes exposed which lead to tissue loss (even though not a single follow up appointment mentioned that I suffered from an infection, so what cause the tissue loss is strange, even though they tell me at my 4 month post op appointment that there was tissue loss due to an infection....which was the first time they mention infection and they talk about it in the past?!).  To be honest, I'm not convinced with this generic statement from the doctor...

Doctor is expecting in a 6 month time left eye can reach +0.75 and left eye +3.00

I have an appointment on the 26th of Dec for a fitting for hybrid contact lens (the center is RGP with a soft skirt for extra comfort).  Look up SynergEyes for more details on what hybrid contact lens are.  I can't wear regular contacts because the center of my eye suffered tissue loss, and a soft contact cannot hold its shape with a hole in the center of my eyes.  Regular RGP contacts are not known for best comfort, so hopefully hybrid contacts can be a good solution as the haze clears from my eyes.

All I have to do is wait and believe.

Although I don't have closure yet as I don't really understand what went wrong.