Getting Rid of Myopia

Nearsightedness is something we deal with here at the Smith home. Shalisa has been wearing glasses since the 9th grade, and though Ryan owns glasses, trying to remember where they were placed last tends to be a bit of a hassle to wear them regularly.

Shalisa used to wear contacts quite religiously, but over the years finds them to get too foggy or irritating. She likes wearing glasses for the fashion of it too, so the simplicity of just throwing on a pair of glasses doesn't bother her too much, but it would be nice to be free of it. Especially on the beach or snow, as both activities are more of a glasses free zone, but contacts lend it's own set of problems. Once while in Rome one contact became so uncomfortable that Shalisa took it out and held it in her mouth for some time before popping it back in hoping to resolve the pain it was causing, all accomplished while standing in a line to climb the dome at St. Peter's...talk about inconvenient!

So, it's time for an eye exam, and Shalisa was doing a bit of research to find an alternative to her current contact lenses. She's thinking about daily lenses, and has tossed around the idea of LASIK. LASIK seems to be out - something about an eye forcibly pried open while an optician who went to a training seminar cuts a flap in the cornea and shoots it with a laser seems a bit too much like a horror film for her. There was an alternative out there though that had never been presented before, and seems a bit appealing to Shalisa - Orthokeratology, otherwise known as Ortho-K or OK. Basically it's a hard lens that is fitted to the eye for nighttime wear. This lens reshapes the cornea, and after a small amount of time should offer perfect or near perfect vision without the use of glasses or contacts. It has minimal side effects, and is reversible (should one decide it's not the option they want.) The lenses would need to be worn each night to reshape the cornea, or perhaps only every other night. But waking up in the morning and popping out a lens and not worrying about it for the rest of the day - or couple days - sounds inviting. Just something interesting, and a LASIK alternative for those of you out there with a bit of Myopia.