Elp pls!

[D33]

Hi all...

hope you are all well...

i have two issues...

i had a corneal trnasplant in 2001 and one in 2000.... both eyss are fine but my vision can be poor at times, and night time driving is not an option... are there any typoe of lenses that i could get for my eyes... ive been told that normal lenses wont work... are intacs put in eyes that have had a corneal graft?... how are scleral lenses different to normal... any idea on the prices? i would love to be able to have a normal social life during the winter months...

also i am diabetic and my normal optiicians are scaared to put the drops in to allow them to see at the back of my eye because ihave had the grafts how do i get my diabetics retinopathy done in view of this ?


thanks

Dee

[Andrew MacLean]

Dee

Welcome to the forum

I am sorry to respond to your good questions with more questions of my own.

How often do you see an ophthalmologist (eye surgeon)?
Do they do a retinopathy check when you see them?
Is there a contact lens clinic in your eye hospital?

As to the cost of lenses: in the UK, people who need to wear contact lenses for medical reasons are entitled to have the purchase of their lenses supported by the NHS. This means that the total cost to the patient of wearing lenses should be no more than £52.50 (or so) per eye per year. That is to say, if your prescription changes during the 12 month period after you have paid the NHS fee, you should have your next lens dispensed without charge to you.

All the best.

Andrew

[D33]

Hi thanks for getting back to me...and thanks for the welcome


i was discharged from my local hospitals eye department years ago...


i have not been back since being diagnosed diabetic...


i guess i would prefer them to be dispensed by this hospital... so i know they are fitted by someone properly trained... also wheni used to wearcontacts the suction pressure upon removing the contacts could be quite high...would this affect my graft or are scleral lenses worns for long periods?

[private104]

hello. I thought that after surgery you spent the rest of your life going to hospital clinics. I'd have thought this was especially important if you get something like diabetes. Can you get a referral back to the clinic or is there a casualty where you can just turn up?

[Andrew MacLean]

I agree with Private.

Who discharged you, and why?

Go back to the eye hospital, tell them about your new condition and ask how your graft is getting on.

Take care

Andrew

[GarethB]

Depending how well you cope post op and the area you live in you can be discharged out of the system as I was years ago.

However by going back to optician and explaining the issues you can get reffered back into the hospital via your GP as I did.

There are lenses out there that can help you but few opticians are aware or have the expertese to fit them. This is manily down to the rarity of the condition that they are unable to keep up with advances along with their core business.

In the past 10 years there have been great advances in lens technology for KC pre and post graft.

Ask your optician or GP for a referal.

with the correct vision correction you will be able to go back to night driving, I did.

[rosemary johnson]

Hallo Dee, and welcome.
Scleral lenses are bigger than the "ordinary" corneal lenses - about 24 mm diameter, or the size of a 2p piece, though curved, obviously, not flat!
Most of us have a pink fit or several when we first see them.
They fit clear over the centre of the eye where the grafted piece is, with a reservoir of tears between the elns surface and the eye surface, so they can fit over irregular shapes like the "seam" where a graft was stitched in place.
And touch on the white outer parts of the eye.
I've been wearing them for something like 32 years (never worn any other type of lens - except soft ones inside a scleral, piggybacking) and have just recently got one to go in on top of a graft (it's not doing too well at the moment, but that's another story).
If you get fitted with them via the NHS routes, they cost the same standard lens charge - 51.90 pounds for my recent one.
They're made out of the same Rigid Gas Permeable (RGP) plastics as corneal lenses too these days.
They are certainly worth a try if you are having problems with corneal lenses.
HOwever, it is rarer to find a scleral specialist, and in some quarters the medics like to think of them as "old-fashioned" and old hat. Which doesn't mean for some of us they work very well.
Where in the country (or world) are you?
I'd agree with the others - get referred back to the hospital. Or a hospital....
As regards dilating drops - do you have opticians peering at your eyes through something that looks abit like a huge glass fish eye, and makes painfully-bright light vertical bars in your eyes? - it may be that if they can get a good enough picture of your retina like that, they don't really need to dilate your pupils to look more.
Rosemary