Dear bet90:

I am really sorry to hear what you have gone through and how it is affecting your wrestling.

Please, please, do not even consider LASIK even when you are older. It is marketed very aggressively - even to people with high risk. People with any pre-existing dry eye conditions should avoid it and definitely people like you with anaesthetic cornea (loss of corneal sensation) as it could be disastrous. In the support group I run, many of the people with extremely severe, difficult to treat dry eye are people who had LASIK after having risk factors, so I know what I'm talking about. It would be terrible to have that happen at your age.

One possibility that you may want to look into is scleral lenses. Contact the Boston Foundation for Sight (bostonsight.org). These are not at all like normal contact lenses. They are used for people with diseased or injured corneas. They're basically a large gas permeable lens that holds fluid over the corneal surface all day. They do not touch the cornea, so they do not pose safety issues for situations like yours. I wear them full time myself because of damaged vision and dry eye.

But if you want info, contact the foundation itself. Many doctors do not know about or understand these lenses.

Hope this helps!

Rebecca