Dr. Richard E. Bensinger, M.D.

It is a common misconception that wearing eyeglasses for clarity, will cause some change in the eyes leading to worse corrective need in the future. There is a natural progression of corrective need generally through the 20s in age with stability in the 30s. This will happen whether or not the eyeglasses are worn. Wear them if they help with clarity but they will have no effect on future needs.

There is no relationship between this class of medications and the development of astigmatism. In fact, there is no known medication that will cause astigmatism.

Dryness of the eyes occurs frequently after LASIK surgery. Many have LASIK because they have become less tolerant of their contact lenses due to underlying eye dryness. The procedure itself, cuts across nerves which are involved in the detection of surface eye dryness. Most regenerate but a certain percentage do not, and if the recovery is below your dryness threshold, you will experience dryness afterwards. Some will find improvement in this over a period of 3 months but dryness beyond that point can be long lasting. To start things out, try using Refresh or Systane (over the counter) eye drops as needed for your symptoms. There are other options which you can discuss with your LASIK surgeon. Hopefully you will be one of those that regenerates the proper amount of dryness detection nerves and will have no problem in the future.  

It is hard to image astigmatism altering the eye appearance to a noticeable extent. Even those with astoundingly high astigmatism have a normal appearing eye. There must be some other thing you are noticing. Check with an ophthalmologist to see if there is something else going on to make this change.

Floaters - benign particles that appear in the visual space -are common over the years. Unless there is a change in the vision, or the floaters are too numerous to count, then they usually are annoying but benign. It would be worthwhile to have an ophthalmologist examine the back of your eye(s) to see if there is any cause.

As your eye grows (and your body grows) there will be changes in the eye power (need for eyeglasses) at a slower and slower rate through the mid twenties. After that it usually is stable. Correction by eyeglasses and contacts can be used as this changes and when you get to be over about 23 years of age, LASIK correction can be considered.

There are several possibilities. The most common would be eye dryness. There are a few conditions that alter the shape of the cornea (the window of the front of the eye that the contacts sit upon) and that might be a problem. You might make an appointment with a corneal specialist who can evaluate these possibilities.

Doubling of vision following head trauma can occur because of destabilization of previously unrecognized tendency for the eyes to get out of alignment; or due to damage to the muscles or nerves that are involved in eye motion. For either of these events, you should make an appointment with a specialist called a Neuro-ophthalmologist who deal with the interaction between the brain and eye function including eye motion.

Light sensitivity varies but all folks take a bit of time to adjust to the light after being in the dark.  This process is variable and some seem little bothered but others have a long adjustment period.  You seem to be on that end of the spectrum.  It is more pronounced in those with light colored eyes (are yours blue?).  If you have ever gone in a car through a tunnel, look near the exit and you will notice many more lights than in the middle of the tunnel.  This allows your eyes to light adapt before exiting into sunlight which otherwise could be dazzling and lead to accidents.