Contact Lenses

It's 2010 and why is this still such a problem???? I've been wearing contact lenses since 1973, when soft lenses had to be boiled and they turned yellow after a couple of months due to enzyme build up. I've worn soft lenses, hard lenses, and gas-permeable lenses. I've worn glasses since first grade and while technology has made glasses thinner and less disfiguring, they're a pain to wear.

I'm nearsighted- my prescription in glasses is -11.75 and in contacts, -10.50. Until very recently, soft lenses above -10.00 didn't exist, and in those higher numbers, the lens increments were in halves instead of quarters. While I agree that there are fewer of us in those lofty numbers, why are we not afforded the ability to correct in quarterly increments like our less visually-challenged friends?

The best thing that happened for me was the contact lens that you can sleep in. Waking up and being able to see without fumbling for glasses is phenomenal. Unfortunately, they only came in a -10.00 and I walked around feeling as if I was missing something, because I was under-corrected. Dilemma- do I get glasses to go over top of the contacts, to give me sharper vision for driving and other long-distance activities? Or do I just live with it?

At my last eye doc visit, to my great joy, I discovered a contact lens in my prescription of -10.50. I can sleep in these, too, but they have to come out once a week. A small price, I thought, until.....I put them on and tried to read. NOW I need reading glasses and computer glasses. But I can see! Mostly. With this season's high pollen count, I can see just fine, through the haze of eye gunk produced by the allergies. I have never had to clean off my lenses this much in my life.

Last week I tried wearing -10.00s again, just to see if I was happier with the new system and its drawbacks. Neither system is perfect, but I guess I prefer being able to see long-distance, even if it means I need to wear reading glasses.

It's too bad that LASIK surgery cannot be done at my prescription level. My eye doc told me that the best option for people like me is the intra-ocular lens implant that is used after cataract surgery, but that's not FDA approved for those of us with soda-bottle bottom glasses.