Dear Docs,

My prescription is -2.5 -4.5 180 and -2.75 -4.75 180. 3 years ago a doctor told me I was a good candidate for surgery because I'd never have good correction with contacts (she's right about that second part). My current doctor tells me I'm a bad candidate because no laser has been FDA approved to treat my prescription and the risk of complication is high. I'd be curious to know some of your opinions - worth the risk? What have you seen in your practices? Would you recommend lasik, or PRK, or the special astigmatism one (AK I think)?

Can't thank you enough for the great site!
L

With this much astigmastim, you may be looking at a partial correction. Soft contacts wont correct this level of astigmastim but RGP contacts might.
Have you tried RGP contacts? If you go down the laser route, remember, your risks are increased due to your very high astigmastim.

I've been wearing RGP Torics for the last 6 months. They're not easy - I know if I want to wear them at all, I have to wear them every day to keep my tolerance up. But since I can't keep them in more than 6 hours before they get cloudy and irritating, I have to bring a case, cleanser, conditioner, and my glasses to work every day. Oh well, maybe in the future there'll be a permanent solution for me. I agree with you that a partial correction wouldn't be worth the risk and expense.

Both docs I saw agree I don't have keratoconus...too bad, in that case they'd have given me new corneas already!

I live in South Africa and had a similarly bad prescription:
+2.25 -5.75 180 (ie massive amount of astigmatism).

I wore soft toric lenses with extreme comfort (sometimes I would forget to remove them at night!!) I was not aware of them for over 8 years.

The first pair I wore for 3 years and the second pair for just over 5 years!! I cleaned them regularly and had low protein build up in my eyes hence I got good use out of them.

I had lasik surgery in NOvember (SA) and my astigmatism post lasik was R-1.0 and L-1.25

I have just under gone an astigmatic keratotomy to address the remaining astigmatism. My astigmatism prescrip is now R-0.75 and L-0.5

My short vision is good.

Good luck with your eyes

>Dear Docs,

>My prescription is -2.5 -4.5 180 and
>-2.75 -4.75 180. 3 years
>ago a doctor told me I
>was a good candidate for surgery
>because I'd never have good correction
>with contacts (she's right about that
>second part). My current doctor
>tells me I'm a bad candidate
>because no laser has been FDA
>approved to treat my prescription and
>the risk of complication is high.
> I'd be curious to know
>some of your opinions - worth
>the risk? What have you
>seen in your practices? Would
>you recommend lasik, or PRK, or
>the special astigmatism one (AK I
>think)?

>Can't thank you enough for the great
>site!L

You are in agreement when I said that you may still have a little residual astigmastim, Lisa. If you cant tolerate RGP contacts, maybe you can find torics soft contacts that can reduce or even eliminate your astigmastim. The highest ones ive seen at my doctor corrects -3 diopters of astigmastim but ive heard of even higher with a special custom made order. I dont know how well glasses address your astigmastim and how much disortion you experience as a result. I have a little astigmastim but my glasses dont correct my astigmastim because frankly I cant stand the disortions with asigmatic glasses. Not correcting the astigmastim is less stressful to me. My astigmastim isnt bad so I still see fine anyway and great from near. You have choices.

1. stick to glasses and deal with them best as you can
2. try soft toric contacts to correct as much astigmastim as they can
3. Try lasik for a partial correction and if you luck out, a possible full correction leaving no more than -.5 diopters astigmastim.