Author Archives: Jen

I woke up as normal, dealt with the kids as normal, showered as normal, then went to put my contacts in as normal…and noticed they were strangely misshapen (almost like they were dried out).

The strange thing was this exact thing had happened yesterday, but since it was about time to switch out lenses, I just tossed them and opened a new pair. So when the same thing happened the second day in a row, it felt like something had to be wrong. I wasn’t sure what it was, though, and could think of no reason to NOT try putting them in, so I tried. When I finally got the first lens in after a few attempts, it felt very wrong in my eye so I took it out immediately—almost like it had been soaking in something BAD (but it was just the same contact solution I’ve been using for years). I tried the other lens in my other eye and that one went in much better and felt fine. So then I went back to the first lens and the first eye and nope, not happening. And now that eye was really red. I rarely use Visine but thought I would today to get the red out before trying to put the contact in again. So I dripped a drop in and HOLY SHIT DID THAT BURN. Wowza. Well, that definitely wasn’t a normal reaction, so I knew at this point I wasn’t going to be wearing my contacts. It was at this point I realized that my vision was hazy in both eyes—I likened it to being in a steamy room where all you could see was a blurry white haze. There was no pain, but something was definitely wrong. So I took out the other lens I had already successfully put in.

And then started having a minor panic attack.

I tried to find my bottle of plain saline solution (not contact solution) and it had disappeared. I put in a few drops of contact solution (better than nothing to try rinsing if something was in there) and that felt awful. I rinsed with cool water. No change.

I googled and, of course, every source said GET IT LOOKED AT IMMEDIATELY and the worst case scenario was detached retinas and cataracts. I was pretty sure it wasn’t either of those, but it was still concerning. I couldn’t even call my eye doctor because he had closed his local office like a month after I saw him and his new office is 30 minutes away (and I knew I didn’t want to drive that far with my eyesight in an unknown state—I could see well enough, but didn’t want to be caught off guard in a 30-minute highway drive with diminishing vision). I didn’t think it was quite worthy of an ER visit so I found two local optometrists and of course neither opened until 10. And it was only like 8:20. So I left a detailed message for one and crossed my fingers.

At this point everything was still hazy, though it was at least a bit more clear with my glasses on. And I was trying to stay calm while getting the kids ready for school and without worrying them. I texted both close SAHM friends to see if they could take Katie if necessary—or drive me to an appointment if my sight worsened—but of course both were busy so I crossed my fingers everything would be okay. And oh yeah, Tom left last night for a week away for work. I talked to him and he said he could come home in an emergency (he was only three hours away) so he was put on notice.

I swear the next 90 minutes was one of the longest waits of my life. At 10, the optometrist called back, we went through the details, and she told me it didn’t sound life-threatening, the doctor wasn’t in, but she could make an appointment for tomorrow at 11. My heart sunk. Then we realized they didn’t take our insurance, so she recommended an ophthalmologist a few doors down. I called and got an appointment at 11. THANK HEAVENS.

So I get to the appointment and they take pictures of my eyes and give me a quick vision test where she asked what letters I saw and I said “What letters?” Yeah, I couldn’t even tell there were letters there—though with the glasses and both eyes I could make an educated guess. It didn’t take her long to come back and tell me I had whatever the technical scary-sounding term is for, basically, dry eye. My first thought was Phew, I’m not going blind! She showed me the picture and told me that my eye basically looked like sandpaper.

We discussed how this could have happened—and her best guess was a batch of bad contacts (since the same thing happened to two pairs two days in a row) OR it could have been a combination of bad contacts and bad contact solution (I had just switched to a different bottle of the same stuff that was technically expired but she said it shouldn’t have caused this amount of pain and she had never seen contact solution cause contacts to shrivel like that). So she was honestly clueless. She did say I should contact the office where I got them and see if they would replace them (which is fine and logical, but UGH, that’s at least an hour round-trip now).

By this time my eyes were starting to hurt. I was sent to get both prescription and OTC drops. The doc didn’t give me a brand—she just said “tear drops preservative free” which of course no bottles actually said that so I had to Google while standing there in the aisle. I started using them as soon as I got home but 1) it hurt when I put them in (I definitely wasn’t expecting that—I had envisioned a calming cool feeling of relief) and 2) they didn’t seem to be doing anything. It was awful. I just wanted to cry—and I actually did try crying in case that would help but it didn’t at all. And it actually felt like it got worse as time wore on. Every blink was torture. And my vision wasn’t even coming back! I actually called the doctor back to ask the questions I forgot: 1) when I should start feeling some relief and 2) when my vision should start coming back. She assured me that I should be feeling better pretty quickly and if I wasn’t better by Friday to call her. FRIDAY? IN FOUR MORE DAYS? Lordy I hoped it felt better before then. She also said my blurry vision was normal and would go away.

I have just never experienced anything like this in my entire life so it completely freaked me out. What was even more odd/disconcerting is that at one point, one eye felt completely fine and the other felt like someone was scratching it with sandpaper. Both were fine last night AND upon waking up so that just blew my mind. And once I started thinking about it, I’m sure I’ve had dry eye issues for quite some time now but I never realized that’s what it was (the doctor hinted at this as well). But it only seemed to manifest in the later evening and I just assumed it was my contacts bothering me after being in all day…and my eyes always felt fine in the morning. The doctor said it would be like putting a Band-Aid on every morning—it helped it feel better but it wasn’t taking care of the underlying issue.

I told Tom “You know, it’s funny. Every time something wonky happens you think ‘Oh this is the worst thing ever!’ A bad back, a constant cough, a hurt knee, etc. But I think eye stuff is officially the worst.”

In posting on Facebook and getting advice from LOTS of friends who have similar issues (huh! who knew?), they were surprised I wasn’t prescribed something more permanent. I am assuming when I go back for my follow up there will be more talk of a future plan—today was more of a let’s just fix the immediate issue plan. And I may go back to my old brand of contacts that I was using before switching to the new ones last fall.

I ended my day going to bed when I put the kids to bed. I figured having my eyes closed would feel the best—except by that point, it actually hurt worse to keep them closed! WHAT?! I just couldn’t win! So I took two Tylenol PMs, put a cool compress over my eyes (it actually felt better than a warm compress) and it also helped me keep my eyes closed.

FOLLOW UP: I was out by 9…and then slept 10.5 hours!!! And upon waking, my eyes felt better! It felt like a completely new lease on life after yesterday’s hell.

Also, I’m interested to see what, if anything, our insurance covers. I have only used insurance for exams prior to this. I don’t even know if it covers anything else—it doesn’t even cover frames or contacts or anything typical like that so I don’t have much hope of it covering any of what I was seen for. I could research to see but it doesn’t really matter at this point because I had to go and get looked at.