The First Few Contacts

The first contact we got for M was a disposable one.  Her optometrist gave us 2 for free at our first appointment.  I was prepared to start paying for them right away, but was told to take the 'freebies' while we had the opportunity.

The first 2 disposables we got were easy to get in her eye, however, fell out of her eye regularly.  The first time it fell out I had her at the pool and it fell onto the pool deck.  Thinking that this was a rarity I just threw it in the garbage!  Little did I know I would kill to have that contact back no matter where it fell - throwing it in the garbage wasn't such a smart idea...

The second disposable we got at that first appointment also kept falling out of her eye.  It was almost as if they flew out.  She wasn't rubbing her eyes, and her eyes didn't seem too dry.  I would leave her somewhere in the house for a few minutes, and would realize she had lost the thing.  I spent so much time looking in and examining her eye, trying to figure out if the contact was still in there.  Also spent a lot of time tearing through the house to try and find any shriveled up contact remains.

As it became apparent that the disposables weren't going to stay in her eye, the optometrist decided to order a custom lens.  These lens were not to be thrown out!  They cost $175 each.  The first one we got was too small for her eye.  It was harder to get in her eye because the actual contact diameter was smaller, and the contact was stiffer when bending it to get in her eye.  It went in fine but kept floating to the outside corner of her eye and getting stuck there.  I had to manually move it back over her pupil and iris repeatedly and constantly use moisturizing drops.  This contact wasn't working.  We were told to stop using it and go back to the disposables until the next custom contact arrived.

Custom contact bottles

The second custom that arrived didn't cost us anything.  We just had to return the first custom we had, and exchange it for the new custom.  There seems to be a return and exchange program.  So as long as we don't lose the 1 custom contact we paid for, we won't have to pay for the next as we are fitting them.  The  second one worked pretty well.  It generally stayed where it should, and never fell out!  It was a huge feeling of relief not to have to be constantly worried about it!  However, the outer part of the contact appeared to have a wrinkle in it when M would wear it, and the centration (magnified circle in the middle) was sitting lower on her pupil.  The optometrist looked at it in her eye, and ordered another custom lens that was slightly different than this one.

This 3rd custom contact that we received still has the same wrinkle around the outer edge of the contact, and the centration is still lower on her pupil than it should be.  We've been wearing this one the majority of the time now.  It has fallen out twice so far, but generally you can see when it is going to happen and prepare!  The wrinkle seems smaller, and the centration seems to be a bit higher on her pupil, but still has it's problems.

We are still working to find something that doesn't wrinkle, sits higher over her pupil, and doesn't fall out.  Meeting those 3 criteria seems to be more difficult than one would think.