MY EYES MY EYES

October 16, 2005 11:20 PM

ARGH. Help me with my contact lenses please.

I've had contacts for years. I have month ones, so each month I get some new ones out of a pack and stick them in my eyes and that's fine but this morning I got out some new ones and the right one felt more like a cover than an actual lens: I see even worse with it than without it. After rubbing and cleaning and trying I decided it was faulty and got out the one for the next month. But it's THE SAME THING. Help help. I have to get to work but obv. I can't as I can't see and of course I have to go to the lens farm but it's monday and it will be a while before they open. I still have one right lens left (haha) (ahem). Do I presume both of the ones I tried are faulty and try the third one or has my right eye mutated overnight?

posted by Skyanth to grab bag (11 comments total)

A few ideas for what it could be:
1.) Inside out. Is this possible? I've put one in insideout before, and it felt wrong and I couldn't see.
2.) Wrong size. It could be the right prescription but the store gave you the wrong size.
3.) Your eyes have changed. If you're a woman, any hormonal changes (pregnancy, going on the pill, menopause) can and does cause your eyes to change. You may need to get refitted if you've gone through one of those things.

Do you have glasses you can wear as a back-up when your contacts aren't working? I have sensitive eyes and I wear glasses anytime my contacts don't feel comfortable. I used to ignore the discomfort, but I ended up with severe corneal abrasions and infiltrations so now I'm hyper vigilant about contact hygiene and wearing glasses anytime my eyes start to feel itchy.
posted by bonheur at 11:31 PM on October 16, 2005

I don't quite understand your problem. Is it that you are simply not seeing correctly, or are you experiencing pain?

If the former, I would suggest that you thoroughly rinse your eye with saline solution, and try again. I wore contact lenses for many (17) years, and would occasionally discover a sort of film of "eye gunk" had managed to cover one or the other of my corneas. Rinsing the eye thoroughly would help this.

If that doesn't work, do you have glasses as a backup? If so, I would suggest you wear them to work, and then to your opthamologist to find out what's wrong with your eye...
posted by dersins at 11:31 PM on October 16, 2005

They are not inside out and I should perhaps point out that they came out of the same box as the ones that I wore up till yesterday (and the ones of the two months before those) with no problem whatsoever.

And yes I am a woman but my god what must have happened to me hormonally that yesterday everything was fine and today it is not?

No glasses. Yes I am an idiot.
posted by Skyanth at 11:34 PM on October 16, 2005

Oh no, no pain. Just that sight problem you have when you are wearing someone else's glasses, only in one eye. See my problem is that I have this box full of contacts for my right eye and that I used contacts out of this box during the previous months and they worked great, and yesterday I threw away my old ones as I'd worn them for a month and this morning I took new ones out of the boxes and the left is fine but the right isn't. So I figured it was faulty and took another right one and I experience the same thing. So I started wondering if I have a bigger chance of an eye turned strange overnight or two faulty lenses in the same sixpack.
posted by Skyanth at 11:38 PM on October 16, 2005

I once had a whole pack that was wonky. I called the company and they sent a new box out - this doesn't help you immediately, but you shouldn't pay for faulty contacts.

In the short-term, wear your glasses for a day, or at least for a few hours to let your eye calm down. At this point, it's probably irritaded more than anything from all the odd-shaped contacts, if indeed that's the problem. If they're not red and teary, go ahead and open the next month.

In the long term, call the supplier, explain, and they'll send you a new pack and a form to send the old ones back.

On preview: no glasses? Hmm. Lay down with a cold washcloth and some lubricating eye drops. Squeeze some eye drops in, and close your eyes with the cool cloth for a few minutes. This usually helps mine calm down faster. Then wash and dry your hands, put in one more eye drop, and try the next month's contact.
posted by fionab at 11:38 PM on October 16, 2005

I wear contacts and glasses about 50/50; the last time I went for an eye checkup my doctor told me that one of my eyes had been getting a slight astigmatism, by becoming a little more football-shaped (as opposed to round)... which causes normal contact lenses to not work correctly.

It doesn't sound like the kind of thing that happens overnight, and it may or may not apply to your situation, but that's my mileage report.
posted by reese at 11:53 PM on October 16, 2005

Update: I tried my third and last right lens and it's the same problem again.
posted by Skyanth at 11:56 PM on October 16, 2005

You are SOL until you visit your optometrist. I'd keep the (potentially) faulty contacts to find out what went wrong.

Hope you don't have to drive to work.
posted by wilful at 12:27 AM on October 17, 2005

I wear monthlies also. One time there were two lenses in the blister pack. I managed to put them both in without realizing it and was surprised when I couldn't see properly out of my right eye. After much squinting and eye drops, I took out "the" lens and was even more surprised that now I could see. I seriously thought the vision in my right eye had spontaneously corrected itself over night (for a few minutes, anyway).

Any chance you're wearing double lenses in your right eye?
posted by zanni at 3:50 AM on October 17, 2005

If it's a brand new lens, I think the "eye gunk" diagnosis might be the most on-target. Do you take them out overnight, or do you wear them straight through? Because I used to be able to wear them straight through (for two weeks, b/c I use the two week kind) and then stopped being able to do so, rather abruptly. I also developed an allergy to Acuvue. Changing brands and going to a strict 8-hour-per-day thing with the contacts made me able to wear them again, and eventually I ramped back up to wearing them for as long as I liked, other than sleeping in them.

The cold washcloth and eyedrops advice is good, but I'd also sort of peel your eyelids back and make sure that there's not some sort of debris UNDER your eyelid. That happened to me last week, and almost drove me over the edge until I realized there was some "sleep" that had migrated from the corner of my eye to underneath my eyelid.
posted by Medieval Maven at 4:35 AM on October 17, 2005

There were two contacts in there, Skyanth? Crazy!
posted by fionab at 9:22 AM on October 17, 2005