Understanding Contact lens Fitting

[jayuk]

Alte

Id do the following if I was you

a) get a referral to a consultant or to a Eye unit in a hospital

b) get them to confirm that you hav KC....as at this stage it could even be astigmatism

c) then evaluate your options.....

try and avoid doing things yourself, or basing things on what you read here....reason why I say this..is because only a qualified professional can give you the proper advice.....and you are at a stage where you need to have it confirmed what you have wrong with the eyes.....

HTH

Jay

[GarethB]

A cautionary note is that Specsavers have a poor reputation regarding KC patients. Many of these types of optician rely on the easy to fix patients they can get a prescription sorted quite quickly and get the glasses dispensed with equal speed. Money is made on volume like a supermarket.

With KC to get the correct prescription takes time which is why the optoms that generally treat us have a real passion for helping us.

The soft lenses Jayuk are not of the daily disposable type. The normal soft lens would just mould to the shape of your cornea nad would be no better than glasses.

The Kerasoft or Soflex lenses are thicker so hold their shape more rather than mould to the shape of your eye so offer better corrected vision. The downside to these lenses which are comfortable is that they severly reduce the oxygen transfer to the cornea.

The Rigid Gas Permeable lens whioch some find uncomfortable, personally they are very comfortable for me when using eye drops for the dry eyes I have. As in their name they are rigid so the outer face provides the correct shape curve the eye needs, the back face then approximates the shape of the corneal bulge (KC cone). Any further sight correction is built into the lens for example if you are naturaly myopic.

[Kirsten]

Sorry - this is slightly off topic. But I was just looking at the corneal topography posted in this thread. Do different computer programs etc produce these graphs in different colours?
I don't have a copy of mine, but have seen it on the optometrists computer.. and I thought there was a bright red in it which he said was the steep part of the cone?
Any explanation would be great.. i'm just curious.

[John Smith]

Yes, I think there is some standardisation. The "brighter" colours usually denote the steepest bits.

I think in alteclancing's posts, some of the yellow/orange bits are (particularly in the lower pic) because the machine has overlayed it's projected rings onto the lower eyelid.

In particular, the incursion of "no-plot" at 6-o'clock in the lower pic seems to correspond with a wayward eyelash in the photo!

Of course, I may be totally wrong!

[GarethB]

Kirsten,

There is a standard, the more the colours go towards the red the worse the condition.

So in the case of the topography posted the colours are low down are orange/yellow showing the KC is probably mild/moderate form a laymans interpretation..

My topography is predominently red with orange, a yellow ring denoting the graft scar and then outside is blue except for where KC is in the old cornea for my right eye.

[Andrew MacLean]

I saw my topography but I am red/green blind. The optometrist explained that even colour blind readers could tell what was going on. In my right eye my new cornea is too flat. This appears as a dark blue splodge just below the meridian.

As for reds and greens I have to read these on a grey scale (although both oclours appear to me as similar to brown), and since most people (even with KC) are capable of distinguishing between 256 shades of grey this gives me plenty to look at with my undeducated eye so tht I can nod sagely and pretend "I see".

[Lynn White]

Alte...

As an optometrist, let me start from the beginning here.

First of all you cannot simply walk into ANY opticians and ask for a contact lens to be made up from your spectacle prescription. It really does not work like that.

A contact lens improves the vision in KC by smoothing out the irregularities that you see on your topographs. Those show that your cornea becomes much steeper in the lower section (ie as the others say. the redder the steeper, the bluer the flatter) Spectacles lenses are designed on the assunmption that the cornea is regular in all directions. KC ones are not, therefore spectacle lenses do not work.

So therefore, before any contact lenses can be ordered you have to have a fitting. This means lenses are placed in your eyes until one is found that will give you the best vision as well the best comfort as far as is possible.

Now this does NOT mean normal daily disposables as they are so think that they simply mould to the shpae of your eye so do not give you any better vision that specs. As John said, the lenses either have to be rigid or a thicker type of soft lens. Not all optometrists or optician shops fit these special types of lenses.

Now what I am a little confused about is this. You have an optometrist who has done corneal topography and appears to have referred to you to the GP? This implies you are already in some sort of referral situation? In which case you do not want to be charging off to Specsavers or anywhere else quite yet. Generally speaking, somewhere that is sophisticated enough to have a topography machine ( not all opticians have them) wil be able to give you advice on what to do next.

If you give me a clearer picture if what has happened and been said to you I can try and help you further

Lynn

[Matthew_]

Alte,
I can sympathise a lot with your situation but I am hoping that it is becoming clear that the High Street is probably not the answer at least at this stage.
I personally found the stage you are at incredibly frustrating. The referral process takes ages and knowing that lenses will make you see properly again means it is difficult to accept poor vision while you wait. However, your patience will be rewarded. Once you can get to see an opthomologist and even better an optometrist, it gets so much better. I took me over a year to go from my high street optometrist noticing a problem to being fitted with lenses. But what a difference the lenses make! I know this is not the case for everyone but it is for most. Hang on in there, it will be worth it in the end.
Also on the topography, although you are mild, that doesn't make the problem insignificant. Seeing in double or having photo-phobia is not that much fun and everyone here appreciates that.
Good Luck