codenameeternity replied to your post:So my eyesight is pretty much crap. I’ve been...
As someone who has astigmatism, worsening eyesight and -12 prescription, please could you tell me a little more about this? I’ve never heard of this, or been told about it from my optician as an option!
Yes of course! You're actually a perfect candidate for these lenses!
It's a practice called orthokeratology, and the actual process is called vision shaping treatment. You use custom made hard contact lenses that press the cornea back to perfect vision. You wear them at night when you sleep (your lenses will also be custom made for the number of hours of sleep you get), and when you wake up in the morning, you take out the lenses and you'll have pretty much perfect 20/20 vision for the rest of the day. It also fixes astigmatism (something I was super stoked about because even anti-astigmatism contact lenses suck for me).
After just one night of wearing them, your prescription will be halved. Meaning your eyes will go to -6! You'll of course still need soft contact lenses or glasses for the first week or two, but just for those few weeks. After those first few weeks or so, you'll finally wake up with perfect vision.
The vision correction is only temporary. You'll have to continuously wear the hard contact lenses at night. If you skip more than 3 nights, your eyesight will go back to its original prescription. However, this technique can oftentimes halt any worsening progression of your prescription, which is something lasik or implantable contact lenses can't do. They're also great if you don't want or can't go through surgery.
My sister started using them when she was 11, so they're quite easy to use. You don't feel the lenses at all when you close your eyes.
I think you should talk to your optometrist about them! A few years ago they didn't have the technology to work with strong prescriptions past -5, but now they do. My optometrist has a patient with a prescription of -14 and it worked just fine for them.
I'm pretty excited to finally have perfect vision sans the hassle of contact lenses and glasses :)