Synergeyes Contacts for Dry Eye

[rubyslippers]

I found out today that is the brand I am getting. RGP in the center with a soft skirt. Not specifically used only for dry eye, but very helpful so that DES people can continue to wear contacts correctly if they require RGP correction. I asked about the neovascularization (sp?) and he said it takes years to develop, can happen with any person who wears contacts long term, and since I have worn RGP's morning until bed for 35 years, if I were going to have this I would most certainly have probably had signs by now. He said he will keep a close watch and that it was a good question, but should not be a big worry at this point. He said any good doctor watches this in all contact patients and in the very, very remote chance it happened we would go with another option. He said the chances are that I will love them and along with my 3 silicone plugs, my dry eye discomfort should be out of sight and out of mind for many years. Hurrah!! I went from moderate to severe dry eye and in 6 months time I am now quite comfortable, back to wearing contacts most of the day, and just so much happier in general. Please get a good doctor and do not give up. This doctor promised me significant relief by summer and it is looking good and I am basically there.

[Rebecca Petris]

Best of luck with this, RS - and please keep us updated on your progress!!

[rubyslippers]

I got them today and can wear them 100% pain free and yes, they significantly reduced ALL my dry eye symptoms the minute I put them in. There are 2 kinds. Kind A are designed for basic eye issues and the KC version is designed specificaly for keratonconus.

I was having more than usual dry eye symptoms today due to a 30 minute walk on a windy day with bright sunshine. By the time I got back to work from my walk, my eyes were pretty much shot. They were red, felt like something was in them, and my eyelids felt thick and tear duct area was raw. I had the really cold feeling on my eyes that I have not had for a couple of weeks. Within 3 minutes of putting the Synergeyes on my eyes, all symptoms disappeared. They initially did hurt but we discovered that was the solution and I will have to put them on with plain saline after we figured that out.

I have now been wearing them several hours and it is heaven. I will need more correction for the right one because the bifocal part is not strong enough, but I literally cannot, for the first time since I got dry eye, feel either contact on my eye at all.

They are very tricky for me to get off though. After 30 years plus, of rigid contacts, these are a challenge for me to remove. But--as wonderful as they feel and as good as I will be able to see (the left one has perfect vision now and they will up the right) I will get the removal figured out. I may be here panicked later though trying to remove them.

You do have to get new ones every 6 months but I believe that is included in the original price.

So far, I could not be happier and to have my dry eye symptoms disappear is amazing. If I remove them, the symptoms return in about 30 seconds.

[odydnas]

Wow that is absolutely amazing. Not only can you now wear contacts, there's a therapeutic reason for wearing them as well! Thank you very much for the update. I was wondering, how many hours can you wear them a day? And also, what caused your dry eye (blepharitis, mgd, don't make tears, etc)?

I am so happy to hear that you found something that works for you!

[rubyslippers]

I can potential wear them every waking moment. It is up to me to figure out my comfort zone.

My dry eyes were caused by a severe pink eye infection and the resulting antibiotics that damaged the mechanisms that make quality tears. Then I got another pink eye infection just as I was learning to manage and had to use those same antibiotics again as there was no safer choice. It also does not help that I am 52 year old female in peri-menopause and I likely had a bit of underlying dry eye before the infection.

[rubyslippers]

Another great day and yippee! because I figured out how to get them out easier. The key is to have extremely dry fingers to do this. I washed my hands and dried well and then held tissue to my fingertips to absorb any moisture! Also I find removing with 2 index fingers, one on each side, work so much better than index and thumb. These things are paradise. It is hard for me to take them out when my time is up because my dry eye symptoms recur within 2 minutes after having been totally gone the whole time they are on my eye.

[Stanza]

These sound great! I always had so many problems with RGPs as my eyes were just too big, vision was poor and I felt like they were suctioned on to get any kind of fit. Maybe these might work for me, who knows.

[rubyslippers]

9 hours with them on today and no discomfort at all. I did put in Refresh one time, just partially out of habit and partially because I know that my eyes still must be dry even though I cannot feel it. I honestly never thought that I would once again have eyes so comfortable that for 9 hours I don't even think about them AND be able to see well on top of it. I have learned to get them in and out much easier. Takes me about 2 tries per eye now, but that is nothing and should even get easier. The key is VERY dry fingers when I go after them.

[painintheeye]

Dear RS,

ARe these lenses expensive? ARe they going to be available to the general public or is it still in a trial period.

You mentioned you have severe dry eye, so are you aqueous deficient? Do these lenses rest on the sclera similar to the BFS scleral lenses or are they somewhat different? Because wonder if you are so severely dry, how will that cover your dry sclera and how will that apply to the general dry eye folks who are aqueous deficient as supposed to someone who is not?

Sorry for being so inquisitive but your success is giving us a lot of hope.

Chris

[rubyslippers]

Your questions are a bit technical for my level of understanding. I got my severe dry eye 6 months ago when I had a bad reaction to topical antibiotics for bacterial pink eye. They did some permanent damage and are the mildest ones out there that can treat the bacterial form that I had. Then 2 months ago I got the bacterial pink eye again and had to use the very same antibiotics for a short time. We prevented damage that time but there was no alternative due to the very virulent form I had. I am also peri-menopausal and the first half of my cycle is very drying for my eyes making every minute uncomfortable. After ovulation I get about 30% improvement for those 2 short weeks and then "here we go again". Right now I am in my worst days, but would never know it thanks to these new contacts.

I don't make enough tears and I don't make quality tears. My doctor says that under his magnification, when I blink, my eye is dry before the blink is even complete. I did get permanent plugs in 3 ducts several weeks ago and that helped but I still could not wear my RGP's without a lot of discomfort. I have serious visual problems and cannot get correction with glasses or other kinds of contacts.

The skirt of the Synergeyes slightly holds the RGP center off the eye. It allows fluid to be under the contact itself. If my eyes begin to dry, I just put in drops and I can feel it go right under the skirt and actually hold the moisture to my eye. My dry eyes have always felt better where the cold and stinging symptoms are concerned if I have contacts on them. My bare eyes feel the air intensely and contacts prevent that to an extent. But I have so very little fluid that with the RGP's I could feel the edges rubbing because they did not float on the eye the way they are supposed to with normal tearing. I wore hard contacts for 35 years with absolutley no discomfort. I wore them from the moment I woke until last thing at night. I am also hearing impaired and lip read some so crisp vision is a must for me to function. With the Synergeyes, so far, I have good vision and comfort. They do need to adjust the bifocal part for me, but the doctor said that will be easy to do.

These contacts (this form) have been available to the public for about a year. They had another version before that, but had some issues of durability which have been corrected with these newer ones. I understand you have to replace them every 6 months but that cost is included in your initial price. They are somewhat more expensive, maybe $100 more than my regular bifocal RGP's, but that is more than worth it to me.

The only complaint was how hard they were to learn to remove. But each day got better and last night I got one out on the first try and the second out on the second try. The key is position of the fingers and the fingers being very, very dry when you attempt.

Right, now I could not be happier, but I worry that this is some sort of honeymoon and the magic will go away. Hopefully, this continues and that others will find the same results. I am the first patient my doctor has fitted with these, but he said optometrists are being trained all over the place so they can use these with many patients. There are several versions and some are designed for specific eye conditions, for people with corneal damage, for people who have had surgeries, etc. My doctor told me we might have to fit several times but at this point I think we are already close. I need a bit more bifocal correction and I wonder if the left one might be very slightly too snug (I feel that right at the end of the day).

[Stanza]

It's interesting what you say about being more comfortable with them on. I always got the 'menthol' affect with RGPs, that's why I quit wearing them. My eyes would feel horrid the next day. I didn't realize at the time, this is some years back, that this was probably me starting with DES.

[rubyslippers]

I think I had very mild symptoms for years too. About 5 years ago when I was having some other health problems my eye doctor asked if I had ever been checked for Sjogrens because my eyes looked so dry to him. I had no discomfort and did not believe that I had dry eyes, but it is there in my charts that were forwarded to my new doctor when this one retired. I was checked for Sjogrens about 2 months ago and all tests came back clear and the other fishy symptoms went completely away when I got treated for another illness.

I wore my Synergeyes for 10 hours yesterday. I woke up this morning with no dry eye symptoms at all for the first time in 6 months. Probably just having a good day, but it sure is strange. As soon as I took my contacts off last night I had symptoms for an hour that were miserable.

[Rebecca Petris]

As soon as I took my contacts off last night I had symptoms for an hour that were miserable.

Rubyslippers I'm really happy for you with the relief you're getting and don't want to detract from it but I do feel the need still to suggest some caution here.

I have spent the last 7 years either wearing or trying to wear various types of gas perms (including piggybacks) and I know that it may be anything but obvious what the misery is coming from after removing lenses - that is, whether it's just that you have lost the protective factor and the pain is kicking in from sudden exposure to the real world - OR if the lenses themselves are causing problems (even while they are temporarily relieving symptoms - which sounds contradictory but isn't).

In my experience, I failed to make the distinction until I started wearing lenses that did not rest on any part of the cornea - whereupon I suddenly found that it was possible for my eyes to feel really good immediately after lens removal. This left me with the unwelcome conclusion that the pain I had been experiencing after lens removal previously was caused at least in part by the lenses - despite how good my eyes felt while wearing them. This is a key part of why I have opted to stick with scleral lenses for the long term.

[rubyslippers]

The doctor says the reason I have the pain is from exposing my eyes to the air. When I wear only glasses (which I did all last week and no contacts at all) the symptoms actually get worse. He says this is how you tell if the contacts are part of the problem. With 9 days with no contacts at all and worsening symptoms, I seem to be getting better each day that I wear the contacts. I do need to add that when I wore my gas perms at all, the only time I was comfortable was wearing glasses only. It took a period of days before we could tell what the deal was.

I removed my contacts after work today and they seem to be getting better. Very little burning today. He says I can probably expect to only improve and that pain should eventually go completely away. I have had several bouts of using no contacts at all due to waiting for different contacts (have had 7 pair since January) and everytime my eyes got worse over those periods and better when I had the contacts, except that I could feel the edges of the plain RGP's due to not enough fluid on the eyes to make them float. Now that these float and no part of the RGP center touches my eye, I am completely comfortable. When I put in drops I can feel them seep under the soft skirt and under the RGP and remain there for a long time. My vision blurs for a second or two and then clears. He says I am feeling better because I am trapping moisture on my eyes for the day and nothing is rubbing. I don't know all the technicalities except I do know that my other contacts did provide some relief from the cool feeling, but exacerbated the inflammation because they rubbed. We seem to have covered all the bases.

I have very "pointed corneas" and am 20/1400 with very severe astigmatism. Do scleral lenses give good, crisp vision?

[rubyslippers]

Adding a note: If I wear RGP's (not the Synergeyes) for any part of a day then my eyes are much more comfortable with glasses alone, and can be quite tolerable. It took us about 6 days with NO contacts to see that my bare eyes were not a good thing. I know it sounds strange and makes little sense but I think the difference is in RGP's protecting me from the air but at the same time causing inflammation from rubbing, versus these protecting from the air with NO rubbing.

[calli66]

I just wanted to comment here. After I quit wearing contacts, it took a full month for my corneas to get stable and more comfortable. I no longer had that shock when I took out the lenses and exposed them to air.

But I totally understand your predicament, having high myopia and astigmatism. It sounds like the Synergeyes contacts are helping you in many ways. Your description of the fluid layer between the lens and the cornea sounds almost the same as the Boston scleral lens design.

I had heard, several years ago, that there had been problems with that type of lens design, and it sounds as though the company has improved the lens since then.

You sound like a really motivated lens wearer, and I hope everything continues going well. From what you've said in your post, I gather that your doctor thinks your corneas are healing now.

I would be interested in any comments from scleral wearers, or any info on the web that anyone has found----as to the long-term effect of bathing the cornea in fluid for so many hours per day.

Calli

[Stanza]

It's not easy finding opticians that will do the RGPs with skirts though is it? Sclerals interest me too, half of me is scared though, that might be my only solution to problems with really heavy glasses when I'm old and crinkly. So what will I do if I can't wear them?

Unless they invent some fabulous thin lens double the 1.90s, lol.

[gz9gjg]

I had LASIK eight years ago, and now wear custom RGPs. When I remove the lenses at the end of the day, after 12 - 14 hours of wear, I find I need some sort of drops or my eyes feel sticky and dry. I have had the best luck with "Dakrina", "NutraTear", and a lubricant gel such as Genteal. The "Dakrina" and "NutraTear" will sting if my eyes are particularly dry or tired, but when I use them consistently, they definitely help improve my tear quality. I wish I could use them when wearing my RGPs.

Lynne

[HOSADOS]

RS-could u pls explain what are Synergeyes Contacts & terms like RGP and etc...thks
In general, I'm interested to learn more about the use of contact lenses -bandage lens, scleral lens and the lens you're referring to.

[Randal]

Although Dakrina and NutraTear are not labeled as contact lens rewetting drops, a search of the archives will show that many -- including Rebecca, I believe -- successfully use these for this purpose.

I do this, both with Dakrina and with NutraTear, when I wear my RGPs, and I've never had any problem with it.

Randal

I had LASIK eight years ago, and now wear custom RGPs. When I remove the lenses at the end of the day, after 12 - 14 hours of wear, I find I need some sort of drops or my eyes feel sticky and dry. I have had the best luck with "Dakrina", "NutraTear", and a lubricant gel such as Genteal. The "Dakrina" and "NutraTear" will sting if my eyes are particularly dry or tired, but when I use them consistently, they definitely help improve my tear quality. I wish I could use them when wearing my RGPs.

Lynne

[Rebecca Petris]

Although Dakrina and NutraTear are not labeled as contact lens rewetting drops, a search of the archives will show that many -- including Rebecca, I believe -- successfully use these for this purpose.

I do this, both with Dakrina and with NutraTear, when I wear my RGPs, and I've never had any problem with it.

Randal

My recommendation is that people ask their doctor for a thumbs up to use them on an off-label basis before doing this. I use NutraTear as a wetting drop and periodically Dwelle as a filler for my sclerals (usually topped off with Unisol) on this basis. Coincidentally, I "met" a patient on the phone today with Stevens Johnson Syndrome who wears a scleral lens and he has used Dakrina as the filler for it for quite a long time - first one that I know of to the best of my recollection. We had a nice chat about our various choices of scleral cocktails.

[calli66]

I read this on the Focus Laboratories website here, regarding FreshKote. (Scroll down to read the last question).

Q: Can FreshKote® be used with contact lenses?

A: Yes, FreshKote® is compatible with contact lenses. FreshKote® can actually improve your contact lens tolerance due to its superior wetting properties. (Hundreds of patients who wear contact lenses have reported excellent results, but FreshKote has not yet been submitted to the FDA as a contact lens rewetting agent under a 510(k) medical device submission).

Calli

[rubyslippers]

The more I wear them the more that burning feeling upon removal is leaving. I wore them 15 hours yesterday straight and they only burned for a minute or two after I removed them. My eyes are requiring less drops throughout the day too. Yesterday I only used drops about once every 5-6 hours and only becuase I had a very light dry sensation. My dry eye is very related to my menstrual cycle and I am in what should be my very worst week right now. I see the eye doctor today for my follow up.

[Stanza]

This is great news. What I really liked about your thread is also that you have an optician that has wanted to really make this work with you. There's still hope for some good ones out there

[rubyslippers]

Just came from my appt. My inflammation in my eyes is 90% better than it has ever been since I got my dry eye. He said he can see the health of my corneas greatly improving. My fit is perfect. Need to change the correction for reading just a bit. He says I am free to wear them 16 hours a day if I wish now.

For those who asked, you get 2 pair when you pay for them. They are slightly more expensive than my bifocal RGPs were. Supposedly you can use them only 6 months, but he said at the 6 month point, come back and he will examine them for wear and some people get another few months wear out of them.

I could not be more positive about what they do for my dry eye. Today I only used drops once and really, I could have gone without. I am back to jogging every morning!! Yes!! That helps my health so much. Now that my eyes don't suffer the whole way I can do this again. He said I should be absolutely fine at the beach with them or for any outdoor activities. My dry is not gone, but he said that my eyes don't know that. He said these are being used with superior results by doctors specifically for dry eye people.

Also, due to my proclivity to pink eye, I asked if I would throw them away if I got pink eye. Nope, he said he can treat them so they will be very safe again.

[calli66]

RS--you are SO fortunate to have such an intelligent and supportive eye doctor. I am amazed that he is doing such a careful followup and can even treat the lenses in case of infection. This guy sounds like a gem.

Thanks for the update.

Calli

[rubyslippers]

My friend, who sees a different eye doctor than I do, just called all excited. She has dry eye badly enough that she has been unable to wear contacts at all for 2 years and does not see well with her glasses. She saw her eye doctor and he told her that he is also having very good results with Synergeyes. She called to tell me about them, LOL! and I told her my story. She has them on order and is excited about the possiblity of wearing contacts again. She also feels that her bare eyes suffer more than if she could get a comfortable contact to protect them from the air. She is 58 years old. I will let you know how it goes for her.

[hasan]

Dear RS,

Thanks for your nice post. My doc talked about hydrid contact lenses too. What's about the Synergeyes contacts? Are they one type of hydrid contact lenses?

Thanks,

Hasan

[rubyslippers]

Update: The burning is completely gone when I remove the contacts now. The doctor thought maybe, because I was having trouble getting them out, that I had touched my eyes so much and that caused the irritation and the burning. My dry eye symptoms are completely gone 75% of the time now and mild 25% of the time.

[rubyslippers]

Update: My dry eye symptoms are gone almost all the time that I have the contacts in my eyes. It is hard not to overwear them because my eyes feel so much better with them in. Today and yesterday have been hard days and when the contacts are out I have significant dryness. This always happens the first 2 days of my period so I expect tomorrow or Monday will be much better. My new Synergeyes should be here late this week with the bifocal more accurate for me. I can take them in and out with great ease now.