UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Hi to everyone,

I can't believe I have only just discovered this site, so many questions!!!!! I have had KC since I was about 15, so 22 years. I have been reading some of the posts and have sort of scared myself a bit about the grafts etc. I really feel for some of the posters. My KC is pretty stable and my vision is good with RGP lenses in both eyes. My right eye is far worse than my left. I have been going to the Kersley clinic in Harley St from day 1, which is really very good.

My main question today, I am sure I will have others is regarding new RGP lenses. I lost one recently very rare for me as I think I have only lost a couple since I started wearing them. Anyway, I have obviously had dozens of new prescriptions since the start so am always apprehensive when a new lens arrives. Has anyone found that a new lens with exactly the same prescription can often feel a bit different and the vision is not as good as the old lens? I have had this experience this week and returned the lens. I am wearing an old lens which is better.

Do you think it is like a pair of shoes and you have to break them in and your eye gets used to it and your brain is sort of trained in, or is the manufacturing not up to making two absolutely perfect indentical lenses?

I am very fussy with my vision, I can't help it. I have to be able to read car number plates etc at distance without blurring or I find it really annoying and then keep blinking to re-focus.

Has anyone experience of ordering lenses online, my current lenses are made by CIBA vision and cost 85 pounds each? They seem a bit cheaper and I could afford to treat myself regularly with new lenses.

just one last thing, as fitting lenses is not an exact science, I sometimes think it would be best to try a whole range of lenses in the eye to find the best fit/prescription. My prescription is altered by wearing those glasses and changing the lenses while using a sight chart. I sometimes think there must be a better way?

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Robin

Hallo and welcome.
Pleaes don't let yourself get too scared - most people's experiences are of the benign to very positive type.
As regards "identical" lenses - I've never had the experience myself of getting a new lens that is supposed to be a duplicate. But I have heard that you are not alone in finding that the new one, supposedly identical to the old, just isn't quite the same.
Allegedly, it is something to do with the lens changing shape very slowly and slightly over time and wear - as you say, maybe "breaking itself in" to your eye like new boots.
Rosemary

onlybone

Welcome to the forum.

One thing about a forum like this is that some of the people who post here are at the extreme end of the keratoconus experience, whereas the vast majority of people with KC will never need any intervention above contact lenses.

There is now such a number of lens types and lens materials that a new lens manufactured to the same prescription as a previous lens may not have exactly the same fit. I used to find that it took about a day to get used to the variations in my new lens before I would know what my sight was going to be like.

Anyway, all the best; and remember the advice in large friendly letters

Don't Panic!

Andrew