Re: Contacts - and

[Guest guest]

Hi , your little sure has grown up fast - 5 already! Every once

in a while I read a post and yours caught my attention. has just

about the same vision as Andy - blind in one eye and really near sighted in

the other (Andy's is worse).

I'm just sharing this experience and would like to hear from and

others........Andy wore his glasses just fine for many years until 7th grade

and then he said he didn't want to be called " 4-eyes " . He begged his

ophthalmologist for contacts and she kindly told him that his vision was so

precious, she didn't want to take any chances with him getting an eye

infection brought in by the contacts. I appreciated her candor.

How common is an infection from contacts and how badly could it damage an

already unstable eye?

Hi everyone - I hope to go to LA this summer and see you!

Sally (mom to Andy, 25)

[Guest guest]

I don't have any really great statistics for how common eye infections from

contacts are. The " easy " answer for me is to say " it depends " --because there

are a lot of factors involved.

The bottom line is that wearing contact lenses does increase your risk of

getting an eye infection. This risk increases substantially with extended wear

(sleeping in the lenses, even with silicone hydrogel lenses that are FDA

approved for up to a month of continuous wear), and it also increases with many

of the little " bad habits " that people pick up over time when wearing their

lenses collectively referred to as " patient non-compliance " ...reusing solution,

not replacing the lenses as often as they should be, sleeping in lenses that

aren't supposed to be slept in, swimming in contacts (especially rivers/lakes),

never cleaning the case, using saliva instead of solution, even something as

seemingly innocuous as leaving the cap off the solution bottle...the list goes

on (and I'm sure there is AT LEAST one person reading this who is guilty of one

or more of these!).

Whenever a patient is fit with contacts, the prescribing doctor is always (or

at least they should be) weighing the risks of contact lens wear versus the

benefits for that particular patient. The health of the eye, the level of

vision the person has, their maturity and/or ability to comply with instruction

all have to be taken into account. For most patients with healthy eyes, the

risk of contracting an infection is pretty low. I always advise all of my new

wearers of the signs of an eye infection (redness, discharge, pain, decreased

vision) and to remove the lens and call our office right away--if contacts are

immediately discontinued and the infection is treated emergently the chances of

losing vision due to the infection are also pretty low.

If the cornea is not completely healthy, then again you have to carefully

weigh the benefits and risks. For certain cases, a contact lens still might be

OK. An example I can think of that would be relevant to CHARGE would be

exposure keratitis from a facial palsy. Normally, you want the cornea to be

free of any surface irritation--otherwise, it's like having cuts in your skin,

there is a break and the risk for infection goes up. However, the contact lense

will also drape over the keratitis and will help keep the area moist if the lids

can't close completely during the blink...and might help the exposure keratitis.

So in certain cases, the benefit might outweigh the risk.

I don't know Andy or the specifics about his eyes. So I can't ethically

comment on what his ophthalmologist decided to do for him. But I hope that I

have illustrated the decision to fit a contact lens or not is highly

individualized--what may be " right " and worth the risk for one person's eyes

would be totally inappropriate for another (even if we are dealing with the same

prescription!).

(mom to Evan, 18 months, and an OD)

Sally Prouty wrote:

Hi , your little sure has grown up fast - 5 already! Every

once

in a while I read a post and yours caught my attention. has just

about the same vision as Andy - blind in one eye and really near sighted in

the other (Andy's is worse).

I'm just sharing this experience and would like to hear from and

others........Andy wore his glasses just fine for many years until 7th grade

and then he said he didn't want to be called " 4-eyes " . He begged his

ophthalmologist for contacts and she kindly told him that his vision was so

precious, she didn't want to take any chances with him getting an eye

infection brought in by the contacts. I appreciated her candor.

How common is an infection from contacts and how badly could it damage an

already unstable eye?

Hi everyone - I hope to go to LA this summer and see you!

Sally (mom to Andy, 25)

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[Guest guest]

Sally, both doctors we saw (the ophthalmologist and the doctor who fit

with the contact--can't remember her title) did mention the possibility of

infection. They told me to be sure and go beyond just letting it soak in

solution overnight and actually clean it between my fingers with some solution

before soaking it. But now I'm getting conflicting messages from them. We've

been playing phone tag this week, and one of them left me a message yesterday

and said that we should try having wear the contact a week at a time

without removing, so that we can lessen the amount of times we have to get it in

and out of her eye. I'm not in favor of this at all. I wore contacts for 20

years, and I know what it feels like to sleep in them. Even with extended wear

lenses, if I slept in mine, my eyes would sometimes be so dry that I couldn't

even get my eyes open when I woke up without putting some lubricating drops in

them. would absolutely freak out if she woke up

and couldn't open her eye. Not to mention the increased risk of infection in

her only good eye. I think that suggestion is definitely vetoed.

, good suggestion on trying a lesser prescription in her glasses. She

has a pretty strong prescription, and when you think about her using her current

vision pretty well for five years, I'm sure she's probably wondering why she

needs this sudden big change to something different. Maybe she'd be more open

to a gradual change.

Michele, I had to laugh when you mentioned combining the glasses with

play-dough or fingerpaints. That would be a double whammy for --she is SO

averse to things like that! :-) But seriously, I do know what you're saying

about combining them with something motivating. 's not motivated by a

whole lot, but she currently is really hooked on these flash cards of the ABCs

that her teacher made for her, and she likes me to go through them and sign them

as I show them one by one. So for the past two nights, we've made her wear her

glasses while I do this. She hasn't been happy about it--Arlin's had to hold

her arms down through the whole thing. But we made it through the whole

alphabet once on Monday night and twice last night, and Arlin said he could feel

her body relaxing some on the second time through last night. So if we keep at

it, maybe we'll have a breakthrough here. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

, mom to (5)

http://kauffmanlak.blogspot.com/

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[Guest guest]

-

Good job with the flashcards! I have to smile because Aubrie loves

flashcard of any kind. Cards and books/magazines/catalogues are sort of an

obsession. As a teacher, flashcards weren't a favorite teaching method.

But for Aubrie they are awesome. How funny that loves them too -

enough to wear her glasses!

Michele