We saw a very interesting referral today from Wellish Vision Institute!
A 35 year old male was referred to us to see if a specialty contact lens could improve his vision. He suffers from complications from retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). ROP can happen in patients who are born prematurely, hence the name. ROP causes the blood vessels within the retina (the back part of the eye) to grow abnormally and in a random pattern. Many patients with ROP have vision problems.
This patient was seen by Dr. Wellish for a comprehensive eye exam and to find out why his vision had seemed to decline within the past few months. His eyes fixate inferior (both eye fixate inferior) and the right eye also has an intermittent exotropia.
With his glasses, he can achieve 20/100 vision in the right eye and 20/50 vision in the left eye. Dr. Wellish also discovered that he has cortical cataracts and PSC cataracts in both eyes. Both retinas showed a classic ROP appearance.
This patient did not want to undergo cataract surgery and wanted to pursue other options to correct his vision at this time, which is why he was kindly referred to me. His topographies did show a bit of irregularity, we we decided to put a diagnostic lens on each eye, just to see if it would improve his vision.
I had a very large suspicion that a specialty contact lens WOULD NOT improve his vision, simply due to all of his other longstanding and new eye issues. To our surprise, he was able to achieve 20/40 in the right eye and 20/30 in the left eye with significantly less ghosting. I explained that the cataracts will continue to worsen over time and he will need to get cataract surgery eventually with Dr. Wellish. He understood and still wanted to proceed with the scleral lens fitting.
We ordered him some scleral lenses today, requesting that the optic zone be increased to account for his inferior eccentric fixation. We know this will not be a long term solution, but the patient felt it was the right solution for this time in his life.
Looking forward to seeing how the lenses work.
