[net.med] Have a question for *HARD* lens wear

mark (03/09/83)

#R:ihuxt:-16800:zinfandel:16900001:000:1313
zinfandel!mark    Mar  7 16:36:00 1983

Yes toric lenses are for astigmatism ("technical term?" is "spherical lense"
a technical term?); I tried toric lenses to correct astigmatism
but gave it up for 3 reasons:

	1. As a long-term hard lens wearer I found that I just wasn't
	   satisfied with the vision I got from soft lenses;
	   it wasn't that 'crystal-clear' sight you get with hard lenses.
	   Seems that the people happiest with soft lenses are those
	   that weren't previously contented hard lens wearers.

	2. The lenses are weighted so that they maintain the proper
	   orientation.  Unfortunately what happens is that when
	   they move from the proper location you get a moment of
	   very fuzzy vision, and then they move back and your sight
	   clears. So what causes them to move off in the first place?
	   Eye motion and blinking, largely.  What this means in practice
	   is that in some activity where rapid, accurate vision is important,
	   (eg, racquetball), then you're likely to be looking around
	   rapidly and your lenses shift a lot (read: my lenses shifted a lot).
	   As a result, you get foggy vision just when you want  sharp vision
	   the most.

	3. If you have bad astigmatism (I do) then you can feel the differing
	   thickness at different places in the lenses sometimes.

Mark Wittenberg
...!decvax!sytek!zehntel