Hello,

I am having problems with my recent contact lens prescription for near sightedness. I have worn contacts before and have not experienced problems with them in the past. I had my yearly exam done and decided to go with the 30 day lenses. I had problems with the fit of the first set and my doctor worked patiently with me until we found a good fit. After wearing them for about a week I noticed that my vision was not as sharp as it was with eye glasses of an older prescription. I went back to my doctor and we did the eye chart test. She said I am 20/20 with the lenses. Ok, well that is good if all I will be doing is reading an eye chart the rest of my life. But in reality my vision is less sharp as compared with my older prescription eye glasses for distances further than that of the eye chart (ie- every day life). I am a pilot and this is very noticeable. My doctor checked my glasses and she said it has an astigmatism correction and that is reason why things are sharper with the eye glasses. I asked if there is an equivalent correction for contact lenses. She said that my level of astigmatism is so low that the first level of contact lens correction would be an over-correction and would not help.

Does this make sense to the eye care professionals out there?
I am a bit frustrated at feeling that I am not enjoying the quality of vision that I did before. I cant help but feel that there is something wrong with this prescription. Is it true that there are no contact lens correction for astigmatism that is below a certain level?

If it helps the numbers on the individual lens packages are;

-3.75 8.4 13.8
-4.25 8.4 13.8


Thanks!
-Giles

What she said is 100% true. It would, however, help to know what your glasses Rx is. The lowest amount of astigmatism correction available in toric CL is -0.75D. So if you have a glasses rx of something like -3.50-0.50x180 or -3.50-0.25x180 in your right eye, a toric lens probably wouldn't help. If crystal clear vision is that important to you, you might ask about RGPs, or gas permeable lenses. They'll correct for your astigmatism and they typically offer better vision than soft contact lenses. The drawback, obviously, is that they're hard lenses and they take a little getting used to. But it might be worth it if you really need to see better than your are with your current lenses.