Iritis and Contact Lenses

[eman]

When I saw the ophthalmologist about 10 days ago, she said the inflammation had gone from a 3+ to a 2+ and started me on a verrrrry slow taper of the prednisone drops (and it is verrrrrry slow, I'd managed to do successfully taper from hourly to every two hours but at three hours I flared back up, so I'm now back to 2 hours for the next few days before trying to taper again). She also said that I could resume wearing my contacts again, the only caveat being that I'd have to remove them to administer the prednisone, but then could put them back in. The idea of removing my contacts hourly wasn't appealing so I didn't start thinking about it til I tapered off to two hours, but now I'm toying with the idea--for a few reasons and only one of them is vanity.

On the one hand, I see slightly better with my contacts than I do with my glasses (albeit my vision in the affected eye is still rather cloudy). It would also be a lot easier to find a variety of sunglasses if I didn't have to worry about fitting them over my regular glasses. And, then there's the whole vanity part of the equation

On the other hand, there's still something in my that recoils at the idea of wearing contacts when there's something "wrong" with my eye--even if empirically I know that the "wrongness" is not on the surface of my eye and the ophthalmologist wouldn't have raised it if it would've made things worse. In the longer run--if when I ever do resume contact lens wear (and I'm hoping it's really just a matter of deciding when I'm ready), I'm also a bit concerned about being unable to discern if the feeling of something bugging my eye is from the contact or the iritis--but I suppose that would be easily remedied by removing the contacts.

Does anyone have any experience with resuming contact lens wear after iritis. Did you wait until the inflammation had gone down entirely, or go back to them while you were still treating it? Was my doctor premature in suggesting I could go back to them?

Thanks!

Emily Ann

[Mike Bartolatz]

Emily Ann,
most people wait until they are over iritis to start using contacts again but if your doctor says it is ok then it is Ok, It isn't up to me to tell you what to do other than make suggestions for you.

you mentioned that you put your contacts back in and please wait about 15 minutes after putting in corticosteroid eyedrops and dilating drops. then put a lubricating eyedrop in before putting in the contact. make sure you clean them VERY well as the risk is with infection from bacteria or viruses on them. steroids turn off the immune system so you can easily get an infection on the surface of the eye. you should also change cleaning supplies at about a 3 month interval as well as change the contact case .

there is also risk of contamination to vials of corticosteroids and dilating drops that you have to be concerned about.

there is a plus to feeling good about how you look so precautions mentioned above should help with using contacts while on steroids. the stress from all of this shouldn't be added to by looking in the mirror and seeing someone you don't want to be with glasses on.

for me this isn't a consideration as I have extremely dry eyes and I can't stand how the contacts feel. I wear the ugly fit over sunglasses too but I am an old man and who really care anyway?
I have to wear sunglasses while outside as i am still photophobic and I also have Intra Ocular lenses implanted from cataract surgery. you have to wear sunglasses outside to protect your retina with IOL's. they screwed up the prescriptions prior to surgery and I am stuck wearing glasses.

wish you the very best,
Mike