irregular astigmatism

I am a 54 year old female.  I had RK surgery around 1992.  I have irregular astigmatism and spent considerable time being fitted for reverse geometry RGP's in 2004. The RGP's I wore for 5 years rolled nasal in my left eye and temporal in my right eye every time I blinked, were very painful the entire time I wore them and I still had vision problems with them on.  I endured them until 2009 and could bear it no longer.  I was fitted with PureVision multifocal about 3 years ago and the comfort level is remarkable compared to the RGP's.  I have been reading about the soft reverse geometry lenses and would like to try them.  Dr. William Benjamin at UAB is terrific and helped me so much, but I would like to find someone closer who could fit me.  It took 1 1/2 years to be fitted with the RGP's and the weekly drive to see if the next ones would fit was challenging.  I would like to find someone who could fit me with the soft lenses closer to my home, but with the patience and skill of Dr. Benjamin.  I've been to a few local ophthalmologists who are happy to keep me in my current lenses, but are hesitant to start fitting me in an entirely different lens.  I'm aware this will take some time, but am past the point in my current lenses of being able to function.   A few months ago, my left eye developed a sprinkling of little blind spots and was diagnosed by my ophthalmologist with a macular tear and sent to the retina doctor.  The test showed I did not have a macular tear, but I still wonder if these blind spots will go away.  I live in the Columbiana/Calera area of Alabama.  Your help will be much appreciated

[Houman Vosoghi, MD]

I'm not familiar with the ophthalmologists in your area and can't make a specific recommendation.  I would go to www.aao.org and use the patient information tab up top to go to the search engine to find a local ophthalmologist.  You then call them one by one and find out which one may have expertise in the lenses you are interested in.  Good luck.

HV