How is your eyesight?

[yoda313]

THANKS GO TO LORDSMURF FOR THIS POLL IDEA!

How is your eyesight?

Contacts,
glasses,
Lasik / laser eye surgery,
blind,
miraculously born with perfect vision,
tgpo does all my seeing for me
I use the force and I see the future!

My right eye isn't great but my left eye is in good shape. I should be using contacts but I just cant' put them in easily so I don't use them.

[aedipuss]

this getting older stuff is the pits. i have contacts to see far/add gasses to read/am blind without either. makes running a videocam interesting as live requires the just contacts and cam monitor requires glasses and after removing the glasses it takes a few minutes for my eyes to re-adjust.

[IMoL]

Well the poll's a bit flawed...., it at least needs a "some combination of the above" option.

I *was* born with perfect eyesight, and didn't need glasses until I was in my twenties.
I then wore glasses for several years.
And then switched to contacts for several more.
Had Lasik in 1997, and needed no other correction for 9 years.
Now wear glasses again, almost exactly the same as 15+ year old pre-contacts prescription.

[yoda313]

least needs a "some combination of the above" option

Ok I put in "other". That usually takes care of it

[Nelson37]

Glasses for reading here.

Interesting that 50% of us need glasses. Wonder if there is a correlation, other than age, between PC usage and needing glasses?

[Baldrick]

miraculously born with perfect vision

[DarrellS]

Wear 200 power reading glasses to read and use computer and 140 power to watch TV. Have a prescription for bifocals but can't afford them. The lens alone are $300 at Walmart. I can get two pair of reading glasses for $9.99 at the drug store.

[Midzuki]

My vision started to become less and less good when I was 8 y.o.
I did not wear glasses until age == 16. I do not need glasses for
reading books or magazines though.

Nelson37 wrote:

Interesting that 50% of us need glasses. Wonder if there is a correlation,
other than age, between PC usage and needing glasses?

No need for materialist, "scientific" explanations, when you realize that
"evil spirits" are the principal source of all diseases.

[FulciLives]

I wear glasses. I tried contacts back in 1990 when I first entered college (I was born 1972) but I have an astigmatism in my one eye so one eye was ultra clear and the other was blurry. Of course I got the cheapest contact lenses that I could. I'm told that these days I can get contact lenses that that will work with my astigmatism but I never liked wearing them all those years ago ... I was at that time involved in an activity that required me to NOT wear glasses and yet still see. One eye clear and one eye blurry (but not as blurry as no glasses) was good enough LOL but I no longer an involved in that activity and prefer wearing glasses. I found contacts to be a real pain-in-the-eye.

I'd love to try to get laser eye surgery but that scares me. The idea of a laser on my eye ... one wrong move and I'm blind? No thank you. Plus I've been told that although it should *cough* be OK my astigmatism is really borderline to what can be "fixed" with laser eye surgery. Yes another reason to be leery of the process. On top of that I've had chronic dry eye syndrome since I was young and I've heard that a possible side effect of laser eye surgery is ... you got it ... chronic dry eye syndrome. Maybe I should worry as I already seem to naturally have it but if my eyes became even dryer than they are ... well that just seems impossible next to my eyeballs actually just drying out and shrinking to nothingness. That can't be good.

Oh wait it gets better. I have what is commonly called "red-green colorblindness" although in my case it seems to be very mild. Red is still red and green is still green although I suspect that I may see the "shades" a bit differently than a non-color blind person ... especially when the colors are "mixed". You know those tests with the multi-colored dots? Here is an example:


Apparently if you are NOT colorblind you should "clearly" see the number "7" ... I see a bunch of colors and nothing more.

Here is another:


Apparently if you are NOT colorblind you should "clearly" see the number "10" ... again I see a bunch of colors and nothing more.

One more:


Apparently if you are NOT colorblind you should "clearly" see the number "2" ... again I see a bunch of colors and nothing more.

I guess I am lucky though that red still mostly looks red and green still mostly looks green. Some people with this type of colorblindess can't see the colors even remotely normal with red looking green and green looking so pale that it doesn't even look like green anymore but almost like a yellow.

One thing I do notice ... although it is somewhat subtle ... but if I close one eye and look out the other ... everything looks slightly tinted towards red and if I swap eyes then everything looks slightly tinted towards green. You wouldn't want me to adjust the tint on your TV

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
The post contains 3 images. If you don't see them then hit "reload" or "refresh" on your web browser.

[Constant Gardener]

Started wearing glasses at 18 and thirty-odd years later "advanced" to progressives. I take them off for close work, and use dollar-store reading glasses for really fine work, like soldering smaller integrated circuits. (Where have all the tenth-inch DIPs gone?)

[Webster]

Currently wearing both glasses and contact lenses. In my line of work, I need to constantly going in and out of the cold room (+4C) If I wear glasses, they'll fogged up and I couldn't see a darn thing every time I walked out the cold room.

Funny thing is, I didn't know that I needed glasses until after I was 13 years old. Back then, I could read books without trouble, but I couldn't understanding why everyone in class was doing great, and I couldn't see a darn thing when the teacher wrote on the black board. I thought perhap that I way in the back of the classes! (Boy, was I a dumbass back then. But of course in my defense, I didn't know what a normal person see since I was probably born with a problem to start with. So I had no idea what normal is.)

These days, my glasses are so thick that it resemble coke bottle (slightly exaggerated, but true) So at work I wear contact lenses and wear glasses at home. Another funny thing is that if I wear contact lenses, I couldn't read books without stretching out my arm fully. So to compensate this, I wear those cheap drug stores magnifiing eyes glass. And they working fine for me.... I talked to my ophthalmologist, and he told me that I my age, that is normal. And the eyes have already reached the point where it no longer degenerate any more, so I should keep it as it is. I've tried bifocal, but they aren't worth a darn in my case. And as for Lasik, it may corrects my problem, but I have been told that at my age, the procedure may leave me with a star burst vision.
One consolation, when I'm pissed at my wife, all I have to do is took of my glass and tuned out her sound (It took a long time, but I have perfected the technique ). No seeing , no hearing, and total bliss. What more can a guy wants..............

[fritzi93]

Hmm, I went with "born with perfect vision", which is true. Actually, 20/20 right, 20/15 left.

But then you get old. As in "presbyopia" Translation: old eyes. Now I still see fine for distance, but have difficulty focusing on something close, like a printed page. I use cheap reading glasses for that, although I also have (seldom-used) bifocals as well.

[träskmannen]

I wear glasses, -6,5 diopters on both eyes. I used to wear contacts but my eyes are a tiny bit too dry to make it a comfortable experience. I gave up on the contacts about 10 years ago.

Wonder if there is a correlation, other than age, between PC usage and needing glasses?

Not in my case, I've had glasses since -76 and I hadn't even started school back then. There were of course no PCs around anywhere in those days.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

wear glasses, but only for driving -- and I still pass the state vision test to get my driver's license WITHOUT the glasses...
it's kinda scary because wearing my glasses makes a HUGE difference for me when I drive which tells me they'll give a drivers license to any blind fool.

[Richard_G]

About the same as fritzi here, currently aged 52 and noticed about 5 years ago that the vision in my left eye seemed to be getting worse so had them checked. Optician (optometrist in the US) said nothing wrong, doctor said nothing wrong, but as I work with radio transmitters they decided to send me to hospital for a check just in case I was the first person in the world to be suffering from a tumor bought upon by exposure to radio waves as the doom mongers would have us believe. Result? 10/10 (perfectly normal) vision in left eye. So why did it not seem as good as my right eye, because my right eye was at 12/10, considerable better than normal.

However, I too am suffering from the age related hardening of the lens and muscles. To the point that my arms are no longer long enough to read a newspaper so use supermarket reading glasses for close work.

[aedipuss]

fulcilives - do your doctor and opthomologist look at you like you're nuts when you tell them your eyes see in different colors? mine have. i've never run into anyone else who'd admit it. really noticeable for me looking at a cloudless sky and alternating eyes.

[usually_quiet]

My vision was better than 20-20 until I reached my mid 20's. At that point, I began to develop astigmatism in both eyes, and started wearing glasses at age 30 for distance. My mother and sister followed the same pattern, so I guess it's hereditary. I've been wearing bifocals for several years now, so both near and far are now blurry without glasses.

[FulciLives]

fulcilives - do your doctor and opthomologist look at you like you're nuts when you tell them your eyes see in different colors? mine have. i've never run into anyone else who'd admit it. really noticeable for me looking at a cloudless sky and alternating eyes.

I tried to mention it ... how the "tint" is different per eye ... I only mentioned it once because the doctor didn't make much of it. Just like a "humph" but it was the doctor you buy glasses from and not the "real" eye doctor. I think you call one the ophthalmologist and the other is called optometrist or something like that. I can never get those two straight.

Another thing I notice that I didn't mention before. In very low light circumstances ... like at night when you walk down a dark hallway to use the bathroom ... when there is little to no light ... I notice that one eye sees everything VERY dark like while the other eye is like "night vision" and can see everything MUCH brighter. When I have both eyes open in the dark like that it's almost as if an invisible hand is in front of the "dark seeing" eye. It's that big of a difference. I live in the city so it's dark at night but there is always just enough light to see from the street etc. and it is only in this very low light situation that I notice this ... in the daytime I don't notice any difference in the brightness from one eye to the other.

Go figure *shrug*

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Midzuki]

FulciLives wrote:

I have what is commonly called "red-green colorblindness"
although in my case it seems to be very mild.

"Dyschromatopsia" is the technical name for the partial colorblindness.
When I was less old , there were times in which I was fooled by the
pseudoisochromatic tables and there were times in which I was not.
Now it seems my red-green colorblindness "works" 24x7

P.S.: Should we consider ourselves "lucky" for *not* having the "yellow-blue colorblindness"

[SingSing]

miraculously born with perfect vision

The picture does not fit the description.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

20/20

I'm 30 and I spend most of my day looking at a computer screen, and it has been this way at least for 18 years.

I hope it lasts forever

[Marvingj]

When I view the computer it gets blurred so I need my glasses but when I look at naked women 20/20..... hehe!!!

[DarrellS]

Count me in on the red/green color blindness. I didn't know till I was 17. Made a comment about the nice red interior on the stationwagon my foster parent bought and he told me we were going to the eye doctor because the interior was green.

When I first started making Christmas cards with the computer, I painted Santa Claus with a green suit and mailed him out. Pretty embarassing when I was told what I'd done. I now use a program called "What Color" to pick the right color from the pallette when working with reds and greens.

[offline]

Apparently there is a new standard eye test for men.

[Ethlred]

I have been wearing glasses since shortly after Ben Hur came out. I complained about a headache and my mother took me to get my eyes checked.

Now I wear bifocals. Took two weeks to get sort of used to the things. I even got a second test and another pair of glasses. 4.5 diopters in my left eye and 7.0 in my right. Two diopters less for the bottom of the bifocals.

For those that are using bifocals (or varifocal) I strongly recommend getting a special pair set for the computer. If nothing else the break from bifocals is wonderful. Yes after 6 years of bifocals they are still less comfortable to use than single vision lenses. Maybe its the strength of my right eye lenses. 7 diopters is so bad I can't get one hour lenses. It takes nearly two weeks.

[gadgetguy]

I was born with perfect vision and had no need of glasses until I turned 43, when I noticed I couldn't read the labels on the back of the computer unless I took it out from under the desk. I then started using dollar store reading glasses. I kept a pair in the living room, bedroom, bathroom, my car, my wife's car, office, workshop, and I carried a pair around in my pocket. A few years ago I developed a form of detached retina that causes a distortion in my left eye. I don't remember the clinical name for it, but it's kind of like a blister on the back of my eye. I went to the eye doctor, who sent me to a specialist who told me there's nothing he can do and that it will eventually correct itself. Then he called me back and said that he might be able to fix it with a steroid shot in the eye. That had to be one of the worst experiences in my life. They strapped me in the chair, tied my head still, put on some medieval torture device to hold my eyelid open, and then I watched as they stuck the needle in my eye. Then I walked around for 2 weeks feeling like my left eye was going to explode and at the end of the treatment I was no better off than I was before. This year I got my first pair of real glasses (bifocals) and it's a little odd to wear glasses all the time. I was prepared to have to get used to the bifocal and that came pretty quickly, what I wasn't prepared for, and still not used to, was seeing a reflection of my eye in the lens. I'm told there's a coating they can put on the lens to correct that, but I've already used my "eye budget" for the year so I have to live with it for now.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

I was born with perfect vision and had no need of glasses until I turned 43, when I noticed I couldn't read the labels on the back of the computer unless I took it out from under the desk. I then started using dollar store reading glasses. I kept a pair in the living room, bedroom, bathroom, my car, my wife's car, office, workshop, and I carried a pair around in my pocket. A few years ago I developed a form of detached retina that causes a distortion in my left eye. I don't remember the clinical name for it, but it's kind of like a blister on the back of my eye. I went to the eye doctor, who sent me to a specialist who told me there's nothing he can do and that it will eventually correct itself. Then he called me back and said that he might be able to fix it with a steroid shot in the eye. That had to be one of the worst experiences in my life. They strapped me in the chair, tied my head still, put on some medieval torture device to hold my eyelid open, and then I watched as they stuck the needle in my eye. Then I walked around for 2 weeks feeling like my left eye was going to explode and at the end of the treatment I was no better off than I was before. This year I got my first pair of real glasses (bifocals) and it's a little odd to wear glasses all the time. I was prepared to have to get used to the bifocal and that came pretty quickly, what I wasn't prepared for, and still not used to, was seeing a reflection of my eye in the lens. I'm told there's a coating they can put on the lens to correct that, but I've already used my "eye budget" for the year so I have to live with it for now.

My eye hurts like crazy just by reading your post!!!!. I think I saw it in a movie (or was it House?)... and I thought "NO WAY I'm doing that EVER".
And I think you have to be awake for that right?... why can't they put you to sleep to do it?
MY EYE HURTS!!!!

[gadgetguy]

Yeah, you have to be awake so you can follow their instructions, however they do numb the eye so you don't feel the needle. It really is more the fear factor than actual pain, but I never want to go through it again. I'd rather be blind.

[hech54]

I've had perfect vision all of my life (and I'm pretty old)....but I will need glasses to read pretty soon. My entire family wears glasses....except for me....but not for long I'm afraid.

[thecoalman]

I had perfect vision until getting popped in an open eye with snowball, had big clot of blood blurring my vision for about a week. 20/30 since then.