Will Synergeyes RGP contact lens be good for the post RK patient?

http://www.allaboutvision.com/whatsnew/contacts1.htm#synergeyes

No one lens is "good" or "better" for any particular patient. RK patients tend to have much flatter corneas, which makes "brand" lenses that come in a limited range of sizes and curves less likely to fit. A lens custom designed for your individual corneas, such as a Z-wave, is more likely to work for you.

Z-wave lenses, when properly fitted by an expert, seem to have the best track record for post-RK patients. Kenneth Maller, OD, in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, is the premier fitter for Z-waves in the US.

Frank,

You should do a BB search on Synergeyes lenses. This topic has been discussed quite a bit. Most post-RS patients who could benefit from RGP lenses tend to search for branded products. Ads are not particularly informative.

If a specific brand of lens was consistently helpful, we would just put up a link to the company's website. And, when a patient does have success with a "brand", they assume it's the answer for every other RS casualty. However, the amount of variation from patient to patient more or less guarantees that no one product will suffice. This is why Barbara mentioned ZWave - it's a system for customization. Of course, how well the lenses work depends totally on the practitioner's expertise with the system.

Dr. Hartzok,

My vision is unstable due to RK in 1992. Have your RK patients with unstable vision had success wearing rigid gas permeable contact lens? I would certainly consider that as a non-surgical alternative to improve my vision.

Frank

Sorry for the delay in responding.

The only surgery I know of that may stabilize unstable RK corneas is collagen crosslinking. I have no personal experience with it. It has been advocated for keratoconus and corneal ectasia. How well it works for RK may depend on the optical regularity of the cornea. The concern, I would think, is whether there would be any irregular tightening of the collagen fibrils.

RGP lenses can not only stabilize the vision but improve the overall quality of vision by covering aberrations. My particular methodology was developed for LASIK and PRK. I have limited experience with RK patients. I also consider RK fitting more difficult than LASIK or PRK since the entire cornea has been altered. The key to fitting is, however, dependent on getting the peripheral curvature of the lens to align with the cornea - an area outside the capture area of most topographers.