How Ortho-k Nighttime Lenses Changed My Life

I distinctly remember the bulk of my childhood—from frantic doctor visits to occasional 2 hour-long drives to the certified specialist, all for one organ: the eye. I would always wonder why it was such a big deal to get my eye fixed. After all, I could see perfectly fine out of the other one. I also wondered why I couldn't just keep getting newer glasses every time my vision got worse. Little did I know, my situation was capable of becoming harmful, even fatal, if not promptly treated with a trending, contemporary technology: the Ortho-K lens.

Orthokeratology, or Ortho-K, lenses are a specially designed contact lens worn overnight. Regular contact lenses reshape light coming into the cornea, similar to glasses. However, Ortho-K lenses's mechanism of action is through modification of the cornea, which temporarily changes how light enters the eye. When you remove the lenses in the morning, your cornea maintains the new shape for the day, allowing you to have perfect vision.

This was a revolutionary technology that had a great outcome on my treatment plan. As a child, I had a lazy eye(formally known as amblyopia). This illness was coupled with extreme nearsightedness(myopia) that would be too great to overcome at a certain age. After getting eye surgery to fix my lazy eye, we then had to solve my myopia problem. My family decided to visit a specialist, 2 hours away in Northern Jersey. He presented a new technology that no prior doctor ever mentioned, the Ortho-K lenses.

At the time, I didn't like the lenses. They were cumbersome and uncomfortable to sleep in, and I would frequently have red eyes whenever I woke up. Eventually, I got used to these changes, but I was not prepared for the drastic alteration they would cause in my life. For one, I no longer needed additional eye surgeries as an adult. I didn't even need to wear my glasses anymore, a great discomfort as a talented athlete.

In hindsight, what once felt like an inconvenience became one of the most important interventions in my life.Without early treatment for Amblyopia and controlling my progressing Myopia, my condition could have led to permanent vision impairment, limiting not only how I see the world, but how I interact with it. If anyone is considering getting these lenses, I would highly suggest doing so. While the adjustment period may be uncomfortable at first, the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term difficulties. Ultimately, it gave me the confidence and freedom to live my life without limitations.