Contact fit problems

[beau1985]

I have worn contacts for many years,but recently they stopped making the style I have worn for most of those years. Since then I have had a lot of trouble. I will get a new pair/brand and they Wil be ok for a few weeks them they are blurry and uncomfortable. When I get checked the Dr always says they aren't fitting right and moving too much. Recently he noted giant capillary conjunctivitis, and gave me pataday drops. It hasn't seemed to help, and he says the bumps are still there,but smaller. I absolutely hate wearing my glasses. He said he only sees 2 other contact options, then I've tried most of them. What else can I do? Is there some sort of specialist? Ive heard going to hard contacts helps?

[JohnHaganMD]

I think the potential of scar formation with scraping or excising the GPC bumps are so daunting that I'm not aware of any articles on surgical excision but I have not done a literature search

[SoftwareDeveloper]

re: "GPC is not a surgical condition"

I know it isn't usually treated that way, I just didn't know if any residual bumps could be gotten rid of somehow that way and hadn't asked an MD or researched it (beyond the initial hits that talk about drops).  The GPC appeared  in one eye just before my cataract surgery (due to switching lens brands temporarily, the cataract had made that eye far more myopic and other brands didn't have the right power), and I stopped wearing contacts, and used allergy drops, and then was on a few weeks of anti-inflammatory steroid drops after surgery and they still didn't go away completely. By then I was back at my OD for followups and was just given allergy drops.  I rarely notice the bumps now, but when my eyes are dry and allergies impacting them I can feel them when I blink.

[JohnHaganMD]

Then your best luck might be with daily disposable soft CTL and use of cromoloyn and careful follow up regarding problems with contacts and worsening of the GPC if you can't handle glasses

[beau1985]

I am not looking for a "magic lens", only my options. I am not able to get lasik at this time, my prescription changes frequently.

[JohnHaganMD]

GPC is not a surgical condition. There is a medication specifically for GPC in eyedrop form: Sodium cromolyn. However it normallyis used NOT wearing contacts.

[SoftwareDeveloper]

I wore contacts for many years and would occasionally have problems during allergy season with GPC, with the bumps actually big enough to drag on the contact lens and cause it to move so I had to stop wearing them temporarily.  Unfortunately I'd often need to stop wearing contacts for a week or few, but fortunately the bumps would always heal and I could  go back to wearing them.   I don't know if you have allergies and if its during a pollen season that might be causing you trouble with those contacts that you might not have at other times of the year.  

I don't know if you waited for the GPC to heal before trying other contact lens options. If   you didn't wait, then perhaps that  interfered with your trial of other  lens models. Hopefully some disposable lens option might work for you.

GPC is something to be careful with since its possible to get bumps that last even after you discontinue contact lens use. I had bad luck with that happening, unfortunately just before I stopped needing contact lenses. Just  before I had cataract surgery my prescription changed to where i needed to use a different lens model in one eye, and  I developed GPC bumps that remained  even after I stopped wearing contact lenses (after surgery I don't need them anymore),  and the bumps were irritating much of them time  when I blinked for weeks. They never fully went away, I can still occasionally feel them when my eye is dry 1.5 years later when I blink, I'm curious if there is anything a surgeon might do to get rid of them, but I hadn't checked on that.

[JohnHaganMD]

Some people especially women can, without any specific reason, lose the ability to wear contacts. If you develop GPC it is even more likely you will not be able to continue with contacts.  In our Discover Vision Centers Refractive Surgery unit we find that as many as 10-15% of patients having PRK or LASIK are because they lost the ability to wear contacts.

You can certainly persist with trying to find "the magic contact lens" but you realistically need to plan on wearing glasses or having refractive surgery . If you were born in 1985 you are 31 years old. If you have lasik and its perfect you will start to need reading glasses in your middle 40's. Many myopic people are pretty happy being myopic after age 45 because they can read without glasses.