Ortho K
September 27, 2002 - 12:14 am
Anyone ever heard of Ortho K? No, it’s not a breakfast cereal. It’s a process by which you wear hard contact lenses that you wear, usually at night, and you take them out in the morning and you’re able to see all day. Fascinating. I’m way too chicken for Lasik; this Ortho K thing sounds really interesting.
September 27th, 2002 at 1:30 am
If you look into it, please do share =) I have terrible eyesight but I’m really not into the idea of someone messing about with lasers in my eyes, so any other options would be good to know about.
September 27th, 2002 at 3:44 pm
what the hell? where do i sign up for that? my contacts bug the hell out of me.
November 7th, 2002 at 1:47 pm
I have ortho-k contacts. I have had them for almost two years now and I LOVE them. They are the greatest thing and worth the money. I see better than 20-20 all day now. All I have to do is sleep in them at night. My husband only sleeps in his every other night. I can not express how much I LOVE them. If you don’t want surgery (who knows what the long term effects will be) and you don’t mind sleeping in them at night – then I say GO FOR IT! I went to Dr. Bard in the DFW Metroplex. Good luck to you all!
November 17th, 2002 at 12:46 pm
Joy
Could you please email me dr bard’s contact info. I’m considering ortho k rather than lasik and am curious to find out more.
thank you
tim
February 24th, 2003 at 6:08 pm
I got my ortho-k contacts in January and haven’t worn glasses since. I have mono-vision, one eye sees near, one sees far and it is great! No reading glasses either. I was too chicken for the surgery, plus I would have had to use reading glasses. This way I get it all and no surgery.
March 12th, 2003 at 12:05 pm
I was wondering if anyone who has had Ortho-K could tell me 1)how much you paid 2)did you have any complications 3)how bad were your eyes before ortho-k 4) would you recommend it 5)have you had any bad experiences with it? thanks!
February 9th, 2004 at 11:07 am
I’m just starting with Ortho-K lenses. Only doing it on my right eye since my left one is not very nearsighted. This is our third try at finding a lens that doesn’t produce distortion in my vision. Anybody else have a problem with this, or is it just that I am so sensitive to everything? If I put on a pair of sunglasses that aren’t optically correct, I know it instantly, for example.
March 3rd, 2004 at 7:16 am
I just got Ortho K from UMSL Optometry School. I paid $925 because it is a teaching institution. The only discomfort is the feeling of a hair on my eye, but they say that will go away. I used to wear soft contacts so I was able to wear them without any problems. In fact I go back to UMSL in about an hour to have them see how my progress is going after my first night with them on. My vision isn’t to bad and I have slight stigmitism. Roughly 2.5 on my right and 3.5 on my left. I can’t tell you how my vision is after since I was told not to take them off until I see them in the morning. I will get back and tell you what happens after my appointment.
March 6th, 2004 at 8:46 am
I have been wearing ortho-K lenses for exactly a week. My previous vision was -6.00 / no astigmatism and -6.25 / -0.25×180. Although myopia has decreased but my near vision deteriorates. And astigmastism increased in both the eyes to -1.75 each. I can’t enjoy reading and activities that require sharp near visual acquity. As if prebyopia has set in but then I am only in my early thirties! I am seeing “ghost shadows”. Night vision is bad. Not very happy with the result. I have second thoughts of whether to continue my ortho-K treatment.
Anybody out there had myopia as high as mine & willing to share your experience? TQ.
March 26th, 2004 at 6:27 pm
My eye-doc said there is a new lens design that cuts down on the astigmatism. I’m not nearly as near-sighted as you – only about -1.00 – but I couldn’t stand the distortion of the first lens. They made me one of the new design lenses, and it is GREAT! No noticeable distortion except when I apparently sleep with my face smashed into the pillow (then I get a very disturbing double-vision).
March 30th, 2004 at 11:21 pm
Joy,
Who made the lenses that you are speaking of?
I sometimes get double vision.
E
April 5th, 2004 at 3:42 pm
I started at -5.00 in my right eye and -5.50 in my left eye. I’m wearing soft lenses during the day now while waiting for my next set of lenses. I’m supposed to wear these for a month. Currently I am -2.00 in my right eye and 2.25 in my left eye.
I’m having trouble with vision in low light areas. Everything gets very fuzzy. At first I thought it was just my vision fading out as the day went on, but now I’m thinking it has something to do with the light.
My Dr. wouldn’t guarantee success since my vision was so bad to start. Anyone have any fuzziness that went away?
April 21st, 2004 at 6:48 pm
hi, i am currently just about to get ortho-k. However, when my docter had me try on the lenses, my eyes were killing me and the lense felt as if it were scratching my eye. Sad to say, one of those “bad” lenses is the one my docter thinks fits best. My vision is only -1.00 in both eyes, and i was wandering if anyone could give me at least some advice about the problems with ortho-k. For my ortho-k we pay $600, is that considered cheap? but anyhow, im just a little scared of what the problems are. I have heard that when u sleep with your face in your pillow there are vision defects all day…sad to say, i sleep with my face in my pillow and thats the only way i can sleep at night!!!
June 6th, 2004 at 10:49 pm
I’m figuring out that maybe this Ortho-K thing will work if I only wear the lens about 5 hours a night; much more, and I get that awful distortion. Funny though – if I don’t wear it for a night or two and then wear it for even 7 or 8 hours, my vision is very, very good. Sure is a pain to wake up in the middle of the night to put the lens in, but I guess it’s worth being able to see without those foreign objects in my eyes all day.
As far as the pillow thing goes, I just push the [down] pillow away from my eye area, when I sleep on my stomach, and that seems to work alright.
I really don’t know who made this lens, E. Seems like the doc said it was a local lab in Tyler TX.
June 7th, 2004 at 10:09 am
They really ought to tell people that there is quite a bit of distortion unavoidable with Ortho-K. “My” doc offers “money-back” if it doesn’t work out, but of course he only gives about half of it back – this without telling you that if you’re sensitive to distortion, you might not be able to do Ortho-K. I’m ridiculously over-sensitive to everything, including non-optically-correct sunglasses. Really makes me mad that there are so many people out to rip everybody off! In my admittedly-limited research on Ortho-K, I never saw any mention at all of the distortion. When I started having problems with it, and asked several different doctors, they all hedged about it. That’s B.S.
November 23rd, 2012 at 1:28 pm
I wore the ortho-K contacts for 18 years. At the time I had become unable to wear my hard contacts that I had worn for 19 years and I was wearing glasses. I wanted to get out of the glasses, but could not sleep in the ortho-K’s due to dryness, so I wore them as contacts. My myopia was in the 300 range with a fair amount of astigmatism. I loved the fact that when I took them off, I could see, but it never held very well for very long for me. When I wore them, my vision was great. However, if I had been able to continue in any kind of contacts, I would not have gotten them. For the last couple years I have been dealing with a fair amount of discomfort that is unpredictable — sometimes one eye, sometimes the other: burning, feeling like a foreign object is in my eye, starbursts at night, halo’s, some double vision. All of this goes away if I just don’t wear them. My eyes are on the dry side, trouble began with regular contacts when I was pregnant. I’m considering stopping them because my perfect vision is only about 1 or 2 hours a day with any comfort. Think I’ll try a contact made for astigmatism and hope the technology has improved in 18 years. My sparkling eyes are one of my best features and I really don’t want to hide them behind glasses, not to mention when my contacts were working I had 20/15 vision. Never getting lasik — it damages the cornea to correct the vision — not risking my eyesight over glasses — the jury is out on the long-term effects. I’m glad I did the ortho-K. I got a lot of years out of it, but I think I’m going to look into other alternatives now.