So I finally, after three and a half years, have seen an eye doctor. We have a new one who actually specializes in stuff like cataracts, and I happen to have a cataract that hadn't been looked at in... three and a half years.
It was so funny. Getting the prescription for my right eye was easy. Then he went to my left, and it was seeing double! Took lots of "Which is better, 1 or 2?" before it wasn't seeing double, then several more lenses to get it as good as it WOULD get, which wasn't great. That one's no longer fully correctable. And now I know why - cataracts are supposed to grow from the edge inward, but mine didn't get that memo. It's growing from the center of the lens, outward, so it's already right there in my pupil and already messing up my vision.
Hmmm... not driving at night anymore.
Surgery? Sooner rather than later. We're to think about it and prepare for it as an eventual necessity, because I could have thirty years to think about it or I could have three. Cataracts in young people are unpredictable that way. So just, sometime in probably the next five years.
We thought, when we picked this place, that it'd just be good to have an optometrist specializing in vision problems IN CASE I need surgery one day. We didn't know that seeing a specialist really does get different results than walking into the Optical Center at Sam's Club. Not that they don't do good work there - but if you HAVE a vision problem beyond just needing glasses, you should be getting examined by someone who can tell you what you need to do about it. Didn't know that! For example, I'd been told before at Sam's, that the problems I had were caused by the cataracts, and so changing my prescription at that time wouldn't fix anything. There was nothing else glasses could do. Well, that's not entirely accurate. There are lenses and frames, and then there are lenses and frames. Anti-glare lenses, and frames that are not my boxy square ones. The cute, narrow, rectangular frames that were all the rage about four years ago? Fine if you don't have that bad of a prescription, but the more you need glasses, the rounder your lenses should ideally be. And smaller is better. Why, I forgot to ask.
So this morning I ordered new glasses, which should be here in a week. I have small, oval lenses, a cinnamon-colored frame, and the man fitting them pointed out that the doctor had actually underlined "anti-glare" THREE TIMES on the prescription, which was funny. They're going to be a polycarbonate stuff for "aesthetic reasons, to not be so thick" which kind of makes me want to see just what sort of coke-bottle lenses I'd be getting otherwise. :)
And I'm to give my eyes a couple weeks to get used to them. Apparently, my eyes and my old prescription are so unbalanced, the new glasses are going to feel like THEY'RE unbalanced!
2 comments:
Interesting. So my glasses should be small, and round. I don't know why any eye doctor would've let me get those big ol' nerd-o-rama glasses when I was 8 thru 25. I don't have cataracts, though, I'm just really really nearsighted.
I got in an argument with my mom about it once. She couldn't tolerate the thought that it might be all the reading I did as a kid that promoted nearsightedness.
Yeah, I don't know why size would matter, but I guess it stands to reason that a lens should be rounded for accuracy. It must not make a HUGE difference, or I would think doctors would advise against all the huge or rectangular frames. Maybe it's one of those "when you need all the help you can get..." things.
I've been paying attention since then to what glare actually is, since I didn't THINK I had a problem with it, and today I was having difficulty finding the white lines on 9th in broad daylight. The yellow, I could see, but not the white. The friend riding with me said, "Oh, that's just the glare from the blacktop." So evidently it's not just headlights at night. I am sooo psyched about my new glasses!
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