Special Contact Lenses Help Blind Man to See

The patient calls OD Carol Rosenstiel “my hero.”

Alabama resident Jeff Henson started losing his sight from arthritis-related inflammation in 2000. Twelve years later, he was legally blind. A year after that, however, his doctors sent him to see Carol Rosenstiel, an optometrist and chief of the contact lens service in the University of Alabama/Birmingham Department of Ophthalmology. Rosenstiel specializes in using contact lenses to correct severe vision issues, particularly in cases like Henson’s, where surgery or eyeglasses are not an option. “We went through multiple trials of different contact lenses before I was able to determine that he actually had very, very good visual potential,” says Rosenstiel. “I remember asking him if he was ready for his life to change. And he said, ‘Absolutely.’” With his contacts, Henson’s vision in his left eye is now nearly normal. “I call her my hero,” says Henson of Rosenstiel.

Read more and see images at University of Alabama News