Saving your eyes in med school

[psychey]

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I have -10 diopters of myopia in both eyes. I am recently finished my grad school applications (clinical psych ph.d.) and both eyes were one diopter worse when I finished than when I started. This occurred in a period of three months. I was accepted into my first choice ph.d. program. What's going to happen to my eyes in a ph.d. program?

 

[t33sg1rl]

I've been wearing RGP lenses since I was 14. During the day I don't have any problems with them, but after 18 hours they need to come out. I'm thinking about switching to soft lenses (especially ones you can sleep in!). My ophtho told me that I could expect to lose some clarity but was vague on how much. Has anybody else made that switch? and when you switched did your prescription change?

 

[SpartyFan]

I've been wearing RGP lenses since I was 14. During the day I don't have any problems with them, but after 18 hours they need to come out. I'm thinking about switching to soft lenses (especially ones you can sleep in!). My ophtho told me that I could expect to lose some clarity but was vague on how much. Has anybody else made that switch? and when you switched did your prescription change?

I had to wear RGP due to a degenerative corneal diease. I only could wear them for a max 10-12 hours (you are lucky you can get 18 hours!!). Unfortunatly, one of my eyes progressed so far that these contacts were unable to stay in my eye (they would fall out after one second due to the inability to fit my messed up cornea).

If comfort is your issue ask your doctor about piggybacking (soft lens underneath the rgp). This reduces the oxygen to your cornea so this may not be able to lengthen past 18 hours but worth a shot.

Also, look into Intac surgery. My eye was too progressed to recieve this option but it looked promising.

I am not sure of your current situation nor am I a doctor yet but just someone who knows your troubles!

 

[albe]

I actually started with soft lenses and went to RGP. I can't remember how much of a difference there was between the two (probably not too much because I could still sit in lecture and get the notes with soft lenses). It might also depend if you have astigmatism. I prefer RGPs over soft lenses for a couple of reasons:

1. From what I understand, RGP is supposed to hold your cornea in its shape so your prescription doesn't change much (I have about -8 so I don't want them to get worse).

2. I was told that RGPs lift everytime you blink so that your eyes "breathe." My eyes were getting red/tired during the day with my soft lenses probably due to the fact that soft lenses stay on my cornea the entire time.

18 hours is a huge portion of the day. I would have switched out to my glasses by then. You don't want to play around with something as important as your vision.