...the eyes have it

when I was in my early 30's, I was diagnosed with keratoconus...
a condition of the eye where the cornea becomes misshapen...
and irregular, causing loss of, or distorted, vision...

as a disease, it is generally bilateral[occurs in both eyes...]
and asymmetrical,[worse in one eye than the other... ]



mine is in my left eye and is not nearly as pronounced as this picture...

since it has been in remission for years...
& has never appeared in my right eye at all...
mine probably was the result of the prolonged wearing of hard contacts...
and the subsequent, hard, eye rubbing, resulting in scarring...
[it felt SO good at the time...]

this is what most people with keratoconus see with the affected eye[s]...



due to the thickness of the scarring, my left eye...
even with correction, can barely make out the E...
at the top of the eye chart...
so for me, it's much more like trying to see...
through, dirty, scarred, thick, but slightly opaque, plastic...

and driving at night?



let's just say that everything flares & sparkles...

pretty... but it can be scary too...
if it's raining or if I'm having,"sinus issues"...

I was fitted with a special rigid, gas-permeable, bi-toric contact lens...
which flattens the cornea & corrects my vision enough...
so that I can pass the DMV eye test...



as you can see, it fits over the entire eye...



the toric lens[the rigid, gas-permeable center] flattens the irregular cornea...
the soft edge holds the center toric lens in place...
this is necessary when scarring has caused a steeper corneal irregularity...
otherwise, the lens would pop out when ever I blinked...

once I needed bifocals, my correction issues resulted...
in me having to use "reading glasses", as well as the contacts...
and when I lost my thumb, it was almost impossible...
to deal with contact insertion, handling & removal...
so I went to glasses, full time at that point...

since my eye doctor was an OD, not an opthomologist...
[my opthomologist sent to him 30 years ago...
because he was a specialist in treating keratoconus...]
my vision insurance providers would not pay for my exams...
so I declined the vision care insurance...
and now, have none...

so due to my financial constraints, I'd waited 18 months...
and finally on Thursday, "bit the bullet", and went...

of course I need a new prescription...
but with my issues, I can't just take my prescription to the mall store...

my OD, due I'm sure, to my long tenure with him...
gives me a discount of $30 off the eye exam...
but I needed to buy some new frames...
[danger, Catsinger... $$$]
my current ones were $240...
and everything on display in front of me, was more than that...
so I asked for "simple & cheap"...

after looking at several pair that had the wrong shaped lens...
I found one with deeper lenses that fit like a glove...
set perfectly on the lumpy bridge of my nose...
and were listed at $129...[I think they're goldish brown...]

[have I mentioned that my left eye sees things very close to it...?
so if the bottom of the lens is too high...
it's a dark line in my field of vision...
worse than the floaters I now have in both eyes...]

and when I checked out my receipt...
they had been reduced also, to $98.40...
that's less than any pair I'd looked at...

my blended bifocal lenses are not cheap...
and having them made of polycarbonate with a 1.0 center thickness...
AND applying the anti-glare coating I must have...
make them very expensive, but quite lightweight...

then I realized that the cheaper frames...
would have NOT have worked with cheap lenses...
which would be much heavier & thicker...
and pull the lightweight frames out of the optimum position...
for my best vision correction [I have a LOT of prisms in my lenses...]

[yep, "coke bottle lenses" if glass...]

I paid $541.40 for these glasses...
it could have been much worse...

I'm hoping that the new prescription helps me...
[the choir will like that I am, once again,
singing the same text that they do...
instead of some alien text, only my blurry vision has seen...]

I've often found that my eyes will change...
if I have an exam when I have sinus issues...
the pressure from the headaches causes a false correction...
then they revert when the sinus pressure goes away...

but some of the headaches may be from the blurry vision...

so we'll see...

I'm thankful that I had the money to go & for the discounts...
that the exam was good, no glaucoma or other problems...
my left eye even passed the field of vision test !
[not always the case...]
so hopefully, these glasses will work for a while...

after I get them ...
in a couple of weeks...

postscript:
I hesitate to write this, but since the exam...
where he shined a very bright light into my eyes...
my left eye has seemed, different...

better, actually...

almost as if there were new apertures in the scarring...
or maybe it was the dilation drops wearing off...
because it was pronounced when I got home...
and is not so noticeable now...

or maybe I'm getting used to it...

hmmmmmmm.....