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From: doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Contacts And Allergies
Message-ID: <335@terak.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Feb-85 11:48:27 EST
Article-I.D.: terak.335
Posted: Tue Feb  5 11:48:27 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Feb-85 02:12:04 EST
References: <528@unc.UUCP>
Organization: Terak Corporation, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Lines: 30

> I had a pair of soft contact lenses for about a year and a half and
>    ...   My right eye began to burn/itch, so I took out my
> contacts and went to bed. The next morning, my right eye was *bright*
> red and hurt when I moved my eyes or looked into the light. Turns out
> I had an ulcerated cornea and a nasty infection.
>    ...   How about the new
> extended wear lenses? Does anyone know if they're better for people
> with allergies? 

I would definitely ask your ophthalmologist.  My wife switched to
contacts last year, and went for the extended wear.  The result:
two ulcerated corneas after only 20 hours of wear.  She required
three days of having both eyes patched (in other words, temporarily
blind), and another week of having the worst one patched (no driving).
As you're probably too aware, it's not just inconvenient, it's
excruciatingly painful and pain in those nerves automatically
triggers a "panic" reaction which is, well, panicking.

The ophthalmologist who treated her for this condition expressed
grave reservations about the suitability of extended wear contacts
for many people.  (He specializes in corneal work, and his workload
has gone way up since extended wears came out).  In my wife's case,
he advised her to forget about extended wear, since she had shown
intolerance to them. 

She later tried conventional soft lenses, but was unable to tolerate
them for more than a few hours at a time.  She's now wearing gas-
permeable hard lenses with some success.
-- 
Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug