NOAH AOC

Hey all,

 I'm a typical 21 year old guy and am just really beginning to learn about my OA.  Growing up I was always told I had "albanism" but nobody ever really explained what it was.  I just knew that I had bad vision and glasses couldn't correct it, and that my eyes "shaked".  I like to pride myself on being able to adapt to any situation but lately I feel more limited by my OA.  I recently quit my "while in college" job at a 7-11 because I had to talk to thousands of strangers on a daily basis and almost every one of them would give me a weird look or ask me if I was on drugs.  I meet with a local "for-the-blind" agency and they told me that one of their students had gotten a contact lense that goes around the white of your eye to keep your eyes from shaking and to help trap some of the light in the eye so it also gave better vision.  I've been trying to find any kind of information on these contacts (they didn't know any more than what they told me) and I'm coming up empty handed.  I also keep hearing about these different surgeries for strabismus and nastigmus, but I also have astigmatism so I'm confused by all the medical terms and the different surgeries I keep reading about.  I am diagnosed Occular Albanism and my eyes definately shake, but I'm wondering what options are really out there for me and I feel lost under all this information and don't want to be mislead.  I also don't know how and where to start either of these treatments if they are an option for me.  I'm in Dallas, TX... can anyone help?

Sorry for the late post... all this is keeping me up :( 

Andrew,

Glasses and contacts are used to correct refractive errors and not the Nystagmus. The Nystagmus is uncontrolable movemnet of the eyes which can't be corrected by wearing glasses or contacts. The only way that the Nystagmus can be corrected is by having an eye surgery done called Tenotomy. As I've said  glasses or contacts would only correct the astigmatism. If you've had a previous surgery to correct your Strabismus you may or may not be able to get the Tenotomy Surgery done because you've also had a different eye muscle surgery done to correct the Strabismus.  

Actually Jessice, it is a fact that for some people, the rigid gas permeable contacts do slow the nystagmus.  This is only true for the hard contacts, not soft ones.  It is also not a guaranteed result of wearing the RGP contacts, but it has been documented enough to be mentioned in some of the professional articles.  I believe it has to do with the weight of the contacts on the eye, however that I cannot state for a fact.  If you are one of the lucky ones that the RGP contacts slows the nystagmus as well as corrrects your refractive errors, it is like a free bonus!!  For the most part, if you are going to try contacts anyways, who knows--you might just get lucky.

Joni

Yep = I think I posted this somewhere else as well, my oldest son wears the gas permiable rigid lenses and they do slow his nystagmus. I believe it IS the weight.