ortho-k contacts
So after three terrible weeks, Katie Beth is finally putting in the contacts on her own in less than 10 minutes. A huge improvement! We can finally go back to eating dinner at a normal time and doing things in the evening!
But boy oh boy what a hellish three weeks.
At first she struggled just to hold her eyes open. Then for a long time she couldn't put them in herself, but she could hold the contact near her eye and I'd tap her finger unexpectedly to make it go in.
And then finally she started holding it right next to her eye and letting it get sucked in.
It was like AT LAST. Like the light dawned!
And new ones are in the mail which will be shaped better, which may cut down on the pain of insertion. Here's hoping, anyway.
We have learned so much. If the contact ends up on the white of the eye, or slides off onto the white, stay very calm and hold the contact in place while moving the eye over it, to get it on. Or push it gently into place.
To get the contact out in the morning, lubricate and then close the eye and wiggle it a little with two fingers over the eyelid, to break the suction. But only a little! Do not wiggle a lot or over-lubricate, because it will slide off!
I don't know how many YouTube videos I watched to get answers. Our doctor was totally unreachable and unhelpful. (I'd go somewhere else, but there's no one else closer than three hours away.)
A lot of people apparently like the "thick" ortho-k lubricant to put in the contact, but KB said that made the contacts sting. She much prefers Retaine, which has the benefit of being available in normal stores (though it is the same high price).
At one point her doc was like, maybe we should just stop because she hasn't gotten it yet. (It had been about 10 days.) She suggested maybe we drive the 30-min-each-way to her office every week or so to practice putting them in there. But I stuck to my guns: there was a steep learning curve, but doing this every night was going to lead to success faster than doing it once a week.
There were times, when it took KB three hours to get them in, that I reallllly regretted that decision. And thought longingly of the eye drops that they give kids in Asia. But that doesn't slow the progression as much as ortho-k, and sometimes the eye suddenly loses all its progress as soon as they stop doing the eyedrops. But boy oh boy I bet there'd be less crying.
Anyway, we are now finally into normal mode, where she just calmly puts them in while I clean up from dinner. Thank goodness. Now I can imagine doing this for years. Until now I could barely face the next day. Every night was so hellish. We started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to create something to look forward to afterward, and I was thinking I'd need to read it twice. But we didn't even get to the troll before she stopped having trouble with the contacts! Now we're at the Mirror of Erised. KB loves the book. I am in so much trouble - she knows there's many more books! But they are too scary for an 8yo! I think maybe we can read books 1-3 without terrifying her??? We shall see...
But boy oh boy what a hellish three weeks.
At first she struggled just to hold her eyes open. Then for a long time she couldn't put them in herself, but she could hold the contact near her eye and I'd tap her finger unexpectedly to make it go in.
And then finally she started holding it right next to her eye and letting it get sucked in.
It was like AT LAST. Like the light dawned!
And new ones are in the mail which will be shaped better, which may cut down on the pain of insertion. Here's hoping, anyway.
We have learned so much. If the contact ends up on the white of the eye, or slides off onto the white, stay very calm and hold the contact in place while moving the eye over it, to get it on. Or push it gently into place.
To get the contact out in the morning, lubricate and then close the eye and wiggle it a little with two fingers over the eyelid, to break the suction. But only a little! Do not wiggle a lot or over-lubricate, because it will slide off!
I don't know how many YouTube videos I watched to get answers. Our doctor was totally unreachable and unhelpful. (I'd go somewhere else, but there's no one else closer than three hours away.)
A lot of people apparently like the "thick" ortho-k lubricant to put in the contact, but KB said that made the contacts sting. She much prefers Retaine, which has the benefit of being available in normal stores (though it is the same high price).
At one point her doc was like, maybe we should just stop because she hasn't gotten it yet. (It had been about 10 days.) She suggested maybe we drive the 30-min-each-way to her office every week or so to practice putting them in there. But I stuck to my guns: there was a steep learning curve, but doing this every night was going to lead to success faster than doing it once a week.
There were times, when it took KB three hours to get them in, that I reallllly regretted that decision. And thought longingly of the eye drops that they give kids in Asia. But that doesn't slow the progression as much as ortho-k, and sometimes the eye suddenly loses all its progress as soon as they stop doing the eyedrops. But boy oh boy I bet there'd be less crying.
Anyway, we are now finally into normal mode, where she just calmly puts them in while I clean up from dinner. Thank goodness. Now I can imagine doing this for years. Until now I could barely face the next day. Every night was so hellish. We started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to create something to look forward to afterward, and I was thinking I'd need to read it twice. But we didn't even get to the troll before she stopped having trouble with the contacts! Now we're at the Mirror of Erised. KB loves the book. I am in so much trouble - she knows there's many more books! But they are too scary for an 8yo! I think maybe we can read books 1-3 without terrifying her??? We shall see...