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Vertical Ghosting
Bear with me, a long varied history on this one...
So back in November when I was working on finishing my Thesis I began noticing some slight vertical ghosting / trouble focusing with both eyes. At the time I was abusing my contacts quite a bit, wearing them far longer than the normal 8 hours, so I assumed that was the problem and took them out and switched over to glasses for about a month, using contacts only intermittently (ex: putting them in shortly before giving my Thesis Defense).
Around mid-late December my left eye became red, with some discharge and the vertical ghosting became much more noticeable, to the point I would get a headache watching the TV or my computer. I saw an Optometrist who said I had a severe eye infection in the left eye, and a minor one in the right eye and prescribed a regiment of eye drop antibiotics and warm compresses. Within a week the eye was feeling much better, the redness had almost completely gone away, and the discharge stopped.
The vertical ghosting however continues to be an issue.
Basically what happens is when I wake up in the morning my eyes are fine, with no vertical ghosting. Then over the course of the day, it slowly develops, and by night time I am seeing large vertical ghosts in my left eye when looking at bright / light colored objects on a dark background (ex: numbers on a VCR, stars, street lights, etc..), and very small ones in the right eye.
Also around January, after the infection was cleared up I began experiencing extremely severe dry eye in my left eye, and minor dry eye in the right. I have never had this before even though I have been using contacts since I was in middle school. The dry eye is severe enough it occasionally wakes me up at night, and does not seem to be directly related to any environmental factors (ex: AC, heat, humidity etc..). While initially I only got the dry eye when I was in bed, I am now experiencing it throughout the day and it appears to be getting worse.
I've seen 2 optometrists and 2 ophthalmologists about this.
The optometrists had no clue what it could be. The first ophthalmologist decided it had to be a sinus infection, even though I had no history or symptoms of sinus infections other than the problem in my eyesight.
The second ophthalmologist said the first one was crazy for diagnosing a sinus infection with no symptoms, but he couldn't identify what was causing the vertical ghosting either. All of the above say that I have no signs of a infection and as far as they can tell my eyes are healthy.
After spending hundreds of dollars on doctors who couldn't tell me anything, I tried Google searching and my symptoms seemed to match corneal deformation / eye muscle weakness due to excessive contact use.
I decided to try going a long period of time without contacts to see if my symptoms would improve.
I have now been 2 months without contacts. At first my symptoms got better (ghosting completely stopped in right eye, and got better in the left, not starting until later in the day, etc..) but all of a sudden this week the left eye began to get worse, with the vertical ghosting now starting in the left eye early in the day and staying with me throughout the day, getting worse as the day went on and I used the eye. To the point I am now getting headaches from the eye strain in the left eye. No symptoms in the right eye.
No family history of diabetes or problems with contact use, and my Mother has worn contacts much of her life with no ill effects despite abusing the time limits dramatically on a daily basis.
Any ideas? I'm unemployed and running low on funds, so I can't continue to shell out hundreds of dollars to just hear, "Sorry, no idea".
So back in November when I was working on finishing my Thesis I began noticing some slight vertical ghosting / trouble focusing with both eyes. At the time I was abusing my contacts quite a bit, wearing them far longer than the normal 8 hours, so I assumed that was the problem and took them out and switched over to glasses for about a month, using contacts only intermittently (ex: putting them in shortly before giving my Thesis Defense).
Around mid-late December my left eye became red, with some discharge and the vertical ghosting became much more noticeable, to the point I would get a headache watching the TV or my computer. I saw an Optometrist who said I had a severe eye infection in the left eye, and a minor one in the right eye and prescribed a regiment of eye drop antibiotics and warm compresses. Within a week the eye was feeling much better, the redness had almost completely gone away, and the discharge stopped.
The vertical ghosting however continues to be an issue.
Basically what happens is when I wake up in the morning my eyes are fine, with no vertical ghosting. Then over the course of the day, it slowly develops, and by night time I am seeing large vertical ghosts in my left eye when looking at bright / light colored objects on a dark background (ex: numbers on a VCR, stars, street lights, etc..), and very small ones in the right eye.
Also around January, after the infection was cleared up I began experiencing extremely severe dry eye in my left eye, and minor dry eye in the right. I have never had this before even though I have been using contacts since I was in middle school. The dry eye is severe enough it occasionally wakes me up at night, and does not seem to be directly related to any environmental factors (ex: AC, heat, humidity etc..). While initially I only got the dry eye when I was in bed, I am now experiencing it throughout the day and it appears to be getting worse.
I've seen 2 optometrists and 2 ophthalmologists about this.
The optometrists had no clue what it could be. The first ophthalmologist decided it had to be a sinus infection, even though I had no history or symptoms of sinus infections other than the problem in my eyesight.
The second ophthalmologist said the first one was crazy for diagnosing a sinus infection with no symptoms, but he couldn't identify what was causing the vertical ghosting either. All of the above say that I have no signs of a infection and as far as they can tell my eyes are healthy.
After spending hundreds of dollars on doctors who couldn't tell me anything, I tried Google searching and my symptoms seemed to match corneal deformation / eye muscle weakness due to excessive contact use.
I decided to try going a long period of time without contacts to see if my symptoms would improve.
I have now been 2 months without contacts. At first my symptoms got better (ghosting completely stopped in right eye, and got better in the left, not starting until later in the day, etc..) but all of a sudden this week the left eye began to get worse, with the vertical ghosting now starting in the left eye early in the day and staying with me throughout the day, getting worse as the day went on and I used the eye. To the point I am now getting headaches from the eye strain in the left eye. No symptoms in the right eye.
No family history of diabetes or problems with contact use, and my Mother has worn contacts much of her life with no ill effects despite abusing the time limits dramatically on a daily basis.
Any ideas? I'm unemployed and running low on funds, so I can't continue to shell out hundreds of dollars to just hear, "Sorry, no idea".
Would an astigmatism vary with time / eye strain? One of the ophthalmologists said it couldn't be an astigmatism due to the time variability.
I've always had a slight astigmatism in the right eye, but it caused only slight vertical peaking, never ghosting.
I've always had a slight astigmatism in the right eye, but it caused only slight vertical peaking, never ghosting.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
You have developed astigmatism in the cornea. It is probably related to the contact abuse and infection. You may need a toric contact lens to correct this.
Dr. O.
Dr. O.
Oh, my medical history is relatively clean. Only major issue was ITP as a child. Had a spleenectomy in High School which cured the ITP and my platelet counts have been normal ever since.
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