Saturday, March 7, 2009

Blinder Than Yesterday

I went to the optometrist last week, resulting in two facts:
  • I am blinder than at my last checkup; and
  • It will cost me more money to be blinder.

For the past few years I had been seeing an optometrist in the city, however, after some poor service, I decided to see a local optometrist. It took over an hour to go through the various assessments, but I finally felt as though I'd finally had a thorough check-up. None of this 15 minute rush-job business that I experienced at the city optometrist.

She was extremely knowledgeable and carefully checked my eyes. For one thing, my eyesight has deteriorated and I am another -0.5 blinder in each eye. This makes my right eye -6.0 blind and my left eye -6.5 blind.

But the scary thing was when she said:

"your fortnightly contact lenses are causing irritation where they cling to your eyes"

then showed me some pictures of at what stage of irritation my eyes were. GAH! Ewwww. She had a chart of eye irritation photos ranging from clusters of little red bumps to science fiction red planet surface-style bumps. Erk!

Apparently my fortnightly contact lenses are too tight on my eyes, causing irritation, and over time protein build-up on the lenses causes further irritation.

So I'm trying out two types of daily disposable lenses and will report back to her next week.

The only thing is, they are four times the price of my fortnightly lenses at approximately $120 each eye for a 3 month supply. But what price can you put on eyeball health, right?

9 comments:

  1. Yikes! Those are some expensive peepers you have there, Kim!

    Still, there is no price too high to pay for keeping those baby blues -- browns? -- healthy.

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  2. Scrib: Greens even! I know. Lazer surgery would probably be cheaper in the long run, but I'm too scared.

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  3. FWIW, my brother (he was in the navy - can't get a more cowardly bunch of chaps than that) had the laser surgery and reckons it was the best thing he's ever done outside of flying to the States for a Garth Brooks concert.

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  4. Hey, my grandad was in the Navy!! Hope you mean the MODERN Navy Lerm!!! :P

    I'm too chicken for Lasik as well. Would love to do it though.

    Kim, mine are fortnightlies but I take them out every night and clean them, no problems so far!

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  5. Everybody must have eyes that are getting worse! I had mine checked last year and at the age of 39 I now have to wear beer goggles on my face, only for reading though as at night time I just couldn't read anything in print and now after I have the glasses on it's like WOW!

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  6. I have contacts but rarely, almost NEVER, wear them. I just have the cutest pair of glasses. The contacts irritate my eyes and I wear them on the odd occasion since I can really see pretty okay without them/glasses.

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  7. My eyes are -6.5 and you're the first I know who is as blind as me! I use monthly lenses (in the bigger size) and they're about $120.
    I really want Lasik and even though I'm chicken, I'll do it when I can afford to.

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  8. Lerm: I know, that's what everyone says about Laser eye surgery. I'm still too scared! They CUT OPEN your EYEBALL!!!

    Tray: I wash them every night too, but no matter how diligently you clean, apparently you'll still get a bit of calcium deposited on the lense towards the end of the fortnight. The irritation level depends on how your contact fits.

    Stu: We're all blind! But not in a nice, drunken sense...

    Tam: Lucky you not to be as blind as the rest of us seem to be!

    Kate: Snap!

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  9. Kim. it's worth it.

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