36 replies to this topic

[byancey]

I'm hoping the RGP forum continues to live on even in DrG's absence. This forum has been very important to me over the last 6 months not only for DrG's contributions, but also the contributions of other patients and their personal experiences with RGP lenses (fitted by DrG or otherwise). This forum gave me hope at a point in my post-LASIK life where everything else seemed to indicate there was none. I'm sitting in the Denver International Airport now with my wife as we await our slightly delayed flight to Texas. I'll meet with DrG in person for the first time tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to the experience and cautiously optimistic about the possibility that I may soon have a tool to restore much of the visual quality that LASIK took from me 8 months ago. I believe DrG will be applying some of the new techniques that he discussed in his November newsletter during my fitting process. I look forward to reporting back on my results and experiences. Thanks.

[kurt]

Good luck.

[Gil]

Good luck, byancey.

[amsco15]

Good luck. I will be going back for my thrid trip in two weeks. You are in good hands. There are none better. Dale

[Calgary]

good luck byancey!! Please keep us posted as to what the experience is like and what your results are.

[byancey]

My wife and I visited Coppell Family Eye Care at about 8:30 this morning and met DrG. He took various scans and went over them with me. He did a trial fitting and used the phoropter to determine the prescription for my initial custom lenses. We had a nice chat with DrG and left his office at around 10:00AM. My first set of custom lenses should be ready tomorrow morning. The process of fitting the trial lenses and dialing in my prescription was very encouraging. I've read over and over on this site about how comfortable the larger diameter RGP lenses are, but I was still suprised at just how comfortable the trial lenses were when they were placed in my eye. There was almost no lens awareness for the 5 minutes or so that I had one in each eye. As far as vision quality goes, with the trail lens in and my prescription dailed up on the phoropter, I actually saw the projected snellen chart as I remembered seeing it from eye appointments before I had LASIK...namely, the chart was actually square rather than having distorted edges from light bleeding in every direction. Not only could I read the letters down to the 20/20 line, but they were all nice and crisp! At one point I was having a little trouble making out some of the smaller lines because the chart was a bit washed out by the ambient room lighting. Dr.G lowered the lights in the room and as the ambient light decreased, the letters on the projected snellen chart actually increased in contrast (rather than going out of focus as my pupils increased in size). I'm looking forward to getting my first set of custom lenses tomorrow and putting them through some real-life testing. If the fit and prescription of my first trial lenses is good enough to take the lenses with me, my wife and I plan to go the a movie tomorrow. I was somewhat of a home theater enthusiast before my LASIK, so I'm looking forward to being able to sit down and watch a movie again. I'll check-in again tomorrow and report on day 2.

[Calgary]

Very exciting! Like watching a "to be continued" thriller.

[byancey]

A quick update. Unfotunately, I don't yet have a pair of lenses I can take with me from DrG's office. The fit of the fist set of lenses was very good (thanks to DrGs new fitting technique). Unfortunately, the lab made an error in the prescription of both lenses. DrG was able to dial back in my prescription with the phoroptor, but the prescription was too far off to be useful without the phoropter. He put a rush in for another set of lenses which we hope to have this afternoon or early evening if we're lucky. Otherwise it'll be first thing tomorrow morning, I suppose. Dr.G did take some measurements with the lenses in my eyes, both to document the fitting and to measure improvement in HORMS. The Wavefront scan results indicate an improvement on the order of 80% in the right eye, which puts the final measurements for that eye very close to my pre-op HORMS reading, and I believe well within statistical norms based on those I've seen published here by DrG in the past. Left eye wasn't quite as good, but we didn't calculate the specific improvements for that eye. I suspect we'll probably do so when we have a usable lens. I had the lenses on much longer today (probably at least 30 minutes), and while the fit was good, I did have a very mild burning sensation during that time. Not sure if it was the florecine or just getting used to the lenses. DrG did observe some dry spots forming on one of the lenses at the end of the exam right before we removed the lenses. As I've posted elsewhere in these forums, I don't really have sense of having dry eyes, but have been interested in seeing how wearing lenses again might change that. I know that people with dry eye much worse than anything I experience have had success with lenses designed and fit by DrG, and I'm still only just shy of 8 months post-op, so there is still time for natural tear function of my eyes to continue to improve if that is a problem. I think the real indicatior will be when I can wear a pair of lenses out of DrGs office and just see how things go when I attempt longer wear times. I'll post another update later this evening if we get our hands on the second set of lenses today.

[byancey]

The new lenses came in late this afternoon and DrG. was kind enough to meet us at his office with the lenses at 7PM this evening. This time the lab got the prescription right. The first and most profound thing I noticed with the lenses in was the immediate improvement in contrast sensitivity. We spent about an hour or so in DrG's dimly light evening office going over lense insertion and removal and just chatting. Everything looked perfectly normal in this lighting, with no blurry edges or flaring indoor lights. The drive home was amazing. As near as I can tell, all of my pupil-dependent aberations are completely gone. There were no huge starburst filling my vision or growing and shrinking street lamps, etc. I did still see some minor "static" starbursting around headlights or stoplights, etc. but in each case, I asked my wife, who has never had LASIK, what she was seeing, and she describind something very similar to what I was seeing. I think the vision I experience is probably very close to "normal" night vision and is probably slighly better than the results I get with Alphagan P, so I'm very pleased with the vision! I think I may have some challanges ahead of me in terms of wear time and possible dry eye. Although the lenses are very comfortable, I am experiencing some mild fogging now that I'm back at the hotel. I think I've had the lenses in for about 2 hours now. I should say that these lenses were not plasma treated due to the rush, so hopefully getting some plasma treated lenses will help in this respect. I've got another appointment with DrG at 9AM tomorrow.

[raph93]

Good luck Your story reminds me mine, almost 2 years from now (Jan. 2006), the best part is when Dr.G puts the lens on, then everything is crisp and sharp, you leave the room and look around with your new lenses, this feeling is hard to describe.

[Rebecca Petris]

Good luck Your story reminds me mine, almost 2 years from now (Jan. 2006), the best part is when Dr.G puts the lens on, then everything is crisp and sharp, you leave the room and look around with your new lenses, this feeling is hard to describe.

Reminds me of mine too. The first lenses DrG fit on me were... hm, early 2002 I think. It's a great feeling - regaining the hope that you may yet see as you used to see.

[byancey]

Good luck Your story reminds me mine, almost 2 years from now (Jan. 2006), the best part is when Dr.G puts the lens on, then everything is crisp and sharp, you leave the room and look around with your new lenses, this feeling is hard to describe.

Yep. Vision has been crisp and sharp even with the initial non-prescription trail lenses with the prescription dialed in on the phoropter. It really shows what simply adding a "smooth" surface over a LASIKed cornea can do for HOAs. My impression from working with DrG so far this week is that the real trick isn't getting rid of the HOAs, it's getting the fit perfected. This is where DrG's skill and knowledge in fitting these large lenses has been key.

[byancey]

As you may have gathered from my post last night, I went to bed a little concerned about possible dry-eye issues having an impact on wearing time. After an intial appointment with DrG this morning, and wearing the lenses throughout the day, there are still some issues to be ironed out, but I'm much less concerned about wear time. It turns out that the fogging was isolated to the right lens only. DrG indicated this is actually an issue with the fit on the right eye allowing "gunk" to accumulate in the tear film behind the lens, and not necessarily due to dry eye. He believes he should be able to address this issue with some adjustments to the lens design for the right eye. While we had a good fit on the left eye, DrG also wanted to try a slightly different lens design on that eye to see if we could minimize the corneal modling effect. We played around with a few other trial lenses on the left eye, including a full scleral and an intra-limbal lens, but neither of those lenses were as comfortable as the mini-scleral. We ended up sticking with a mini-scleral, but DrG increased the lens diameter by 1mm to accomodate some other design changes that will hopefully minimze the corneal modling effect. The order for the re-designed left lens was placed with the lab this morning before we left DrG's office. If the results with this left lens design are good, the plan is to do similar adjustments for the right lens at the same time adjustments are made to eliminate the fogging issue. My wife and I left DrG's office a little after 10AM this morning with the lenses I recieved yesterday evening in my eyes. The right lens had to come out every 30 minutes to hour or so to be cleaned and re-inserted due to the fogging issue. However, I was pretty much able to wear the left lens from the time we left DrG's office until we returned to later that afternoon to pick up the newly designed left lens (~7 hours). At that point, the left lens came out not because I felt the need to remove it...but because we had to make room in there for the newly designed left lens. I've now had the new left lens in for several hours, and so far it appears to be even more comfortable than the previous lens. As I type this, I notice that I have completely lost any sense of lens presence in that eye and the vision continues to be very crisp and clear. Oh, my wife and I also took in a matinee this afternoon (Disney's Enchanted). Aside from the fogging issue in my right eye becoming visible (but not completely disruptive) after about an hour, the movie looked great. Not a single sign of any of the visual abberations that typically make it impossible for me to enjoy a movie.

[kurt]

Glad to hear your trip to Coppell has been going well!

[byancey]

Today's update will be brief, as it's getting late. I've had the left lens in for about 13 hours today. It's getting close to 10:30 and I'm feeling ready to take the lens out now, but it's been very comfortable with good vision all day long. I didn't wear a lens in the right eye at all until this evening. We visited DrG's office at around 6:00PM this evening to try out the new lens for the right eye. The good news is that the lens does eliminate the fogging issue. Unfortunatly, we've also discovered that my right eye isn't completely symmetrical as it gets out towards the sclera. With the larger lens, this results in some flexture that induces about 1 diopter of regular astigmatism. So, while we've eliminated most of the Higher Order Aberrations, a Lower Order Aberration has been introduced in the process. We've got one more day before my wife and I return home, so DrG is going to talk to the lab tomorrow and see if they can come up with a design that will be able reduce the amount of astigmatism in the right eye. I wore both lenses out tonight, and I would say that 1-diopter of astigmatism is a lot less distracting than the loss of contrast, starbursts and halos I see without the lens, so this is already a huge improvement over where I was when I arrived in Coppell a week ago. My wife and I also watched another movie tonight, and I found that the astigmatism in the right eye wasn't as noticeable as one might think so long as I keep both eyes open.

[Allan(1of3prcnt)]

We've got one more day before my wife and I return home, so DrG is going to talk to the lab tomorrow and see if they can come up with a design that will be able reduce the amount of astigmatism in the right eye.

Keep the faith...several years ago...my wife and I were scheduled to leave Coppell on a Saturday morning after a Monday thru Friday of lens fittings..I was having a problem with one of the lenses in regards to vision/comfort and I was very concerned that all the time, money and effort was again a failure, but guess what DrG had Saturday morning hours (we remembered) for his "normal" patients and a frantic phone call got me a "we'll work you in" appointment. Fortunately, we drove this trip and could delay our departure and that frantic, last chance appointment resulted in a little "tweek" that has given me livable vision since then. Thanks to DrG working that Saturday and the fortunate decision that we drove (from Florida) and us being flexible on departure.... I have had several years of a near normal visual life.

I hope and pray for you the same.

Allan

[KevinO]

This is driving me crazy. I had planned a trip to see Leukoma last month. But three employees quit leaving me very shorthanded. I'm hoping on making the trip in January, even though we haven't replaced the employees yet. I may shut the clinic down for two weeks just so I can get out of here; I spent two hours shoveling snow this morning. I had planned to fly but instead I may drive. That way I'd have enough clothes for two weeks and I could bring my bicycle. Kevin

[byancey]

A few more details on the right eye. I've now had a smaller lens (14mm) which had very good vision. There was a very slight amount of induced astigmatism, but it was difficult to distinguish a difference between the left and right eye with that smaller lens. Visually I found that lens perfectly acceptable. Unfortunately, due to the asymetrical shape of my eye in the periphary, the lens tended to "rock" on my eye, which caused the churn that fogged the lens after about 15 to 30 minutes of wear. I've also had a larger lens (15mm) which eliminated the fogging issue, but in conforming to the shape of my eye, it also induced about 1-diopter of astigmatism in the lens. Today Dr.G is attacking the lens for the right eye from two angles. He's made some design adjustments to the smaller lens to hopefully eliminate the fogging in that lens. He's also adding some thinkness in key locations on the larger lens in an effort to reduce the flexture in that lens. So, by late in the day we'll have two more lenses to try in that eye. Hopefully one of these lenses (or both) will provide minimal astigmatism without any fogging. My right eye has turned out to be a bit of a tough nut to crack, but DrG is doing everything he can to come up with a workable solution for that eye. -- Bryce

[byancey]

This is driving me crazy. I had planned a trip to see Leukoma last month. But three employees quit leaving me very shorthanded. I'm hoping on making the trip in January, even though we haven't replaced the employees yet. I may shut the clinic down for two weeks just so I can get out of here; I spent two hours shoveling snow this morning. I had planned to fly but instead I may drive. That way I'd have enough clothes for two weeks and I could bring my bicycle.

Kevin

Kevin,

Wednesday evening and yesterday for most of the day I was wearing only my left lens. I made some interesting observations regarding the dryness of my eyes, and I actually thought of you. My impression was that the lenses definately do tend to keep the eye from drying out. After spending a little time on the computer Wednesday evening. my right eye (no lens) had some mild burning, but the left eye with the lens in seemed fine. During the day yesterday I also noticed the same thing several times throughout the day. In dry situations, the eye with the lens in it was generally the more comfortable of the two.

Not sure how relevant this is to your T-BUT issue, but I thought I'd share that experience with you.

Thanks.

--
Bryce

[KevinO]

Now I'm champing at the bit. :-)