Vision and Eye Disorders Forum - Ortho K Adverse Effects

Dear renaudt,
I started orthoK back in 2000, an optometrist marketed as "a way of arresting progression of myopia by age 18". It was good to start with, until 2 yrs ago, when I would wake up in the morning and the lenses would be stuck off-center to my eyes, especially the right eye (more often). I tried to be as careful as I could taking them off with suction cup (which is how I've always taken them off). Sometimes my eyes would be mildly dry, and I could take them off easily after rewetting my eyes. But these "seal off" incidences made it difficult to remove. I would get double vision for that day. Next night, might get better and be on-center. I thought it was going to be fine. This happened with random frequency, but the off-centering in the morning increased in frequency in the past 2 yrs. (I didn't even wear them for more than 6 hrs a night.) I told this optometrist twice about my off-center / dry eye problems, who was not worried at all and dismissed them as "normal." I complained of increased astigmatism, and he continues to call them "normal". I had already forgotten that I did not have astigmatism before treatment. The optometrist simply told me to use some eye drops, but he never advised me stop. Not even a hint.

This summer I was finally formally diagnosed with dry eyes by an ophthamologist, and was formally treated with Restasis and Lotemax. Apparently, for all this time, my condition was such that I should have never been wearing orthoKs. I stopped wearing my orthoKs in June. I thought that was it. I switched to glasses. It was all fine until 2 months ago, I noticed I had persistent double vision, more noticeable in my right eye than left, even with glasses on. Very noticeable in dim light to no light conditions. In the past month, I noticed that I now even see a hint of ghost images (with glasses on) in well-lit rooms. The ghost image is even clearer, opaque, and more divergent than it was a month ago, I'm pretty sure of it...

I am also becoming very worried that this is progressive. I also would like solutions to this problem. Multiple visits to eye docs show that my problem is purely corneal -- topography shows a terrible bowtie pattern, spread over the cornea, which accounts for my severe double vision (both eyes, more severe in right). Without my glasses, it's a visual nightmare, esp. in darker rooms. It is bothersome reading light text on dark backgrounds (or anything like that for that matter). The original optometrist "lost" my original topography from 2000, and continues to say "well, FDA said it was reversible."

I am also very worried this will affect my night vision and driving in the future.

I am extremely upset at his irresponsibility with his orthoK practice. I am also going online and stuff to look for people that might have similar problems. You are one of the rare few that I've found, so I thought I might make myself known, too. I started when I was in middle school--talk about patient autonomy exploitation--and if it were something I was introduced to now, I would go online and do tons of research before agreeing. And from what I read, I would never have started such a treatment. I used to have a little myopia. Now I have high myopia + regular astigmatism + irregular astigmatism. It has been 4 months, and my monocular diplopia has only gotten worse. (Lesson: Cornea re-shaping...if it ain't broke, don't fix it!!!!)

Please let me know if eye docs up there have any solutions. I'll try to keep posted here, too.

Thank you. I hope there will be some kind of resolution for both of us.