I only wear my contact lenses when I'm sleeping

It's true. I've never found contact lenses to be comfortable with my eyes open, because they feel dry and irritated in short order. However, since I don't like glasses hanging on my face, I wear contact lenses to correct my nearsightedness during the only time they are comfortable, when my eyes are closed for a good night's sleep. Are you shaking your head? Are you saying to yourself that this guy is seriously lacking in even the basic concepts of light refraction and vision correction? I wouldn't blame you, because the lenses that I wear at night are not very well known and only a relatively small fraction of optometrists will dispense them, even though they've been available for many years. They're called orthokeratology lenses, and they subtly change the shape of the very front of your soft eyeball in a similar manner to the way that braces change the location of your teeth. The change is temporary, so the lenses must be worn every night as retainers to ensure my perfect vision all day long. If I forget to wear them a night, by the second day I do notice a slight decrease in my vision clarity. I'm very happy with ortho-K because they relieve me from the discomfort and hastle of wearing contacts or glasses all day long. I don't need to worry about losing contacts while swimming or having a speck of wind-blown dust getting under my contact lens and driving me crazy. No glasses to hunt for or sit on, either. And I don't need to worry about the risks of the surgical options for correcting my vision. Over the eight or so years I've been using ortho-K, I have used a couple different doctors for it and like them both. Dr. Schacter in Pismo Beach, and Dr. Silverman in Lancaster are both experienced with these lenses and have the specialized corneal topography equipment required to dispense them. I have to admit, though, that one of my favorite things about ortho-K lenses is the fun that I have telling my incredulous friends that I only wear my contact lenses when I'm sleeping. Here are a few links to some more information: Wikipedia page about ortho-K An ABC News segment on ortho-K One optometrist's YouTube video about corneal molding  Industry page Industry page (this one is same link as in the body of the blog post above) Interesting technical article intended for practitioners