Optician...

12th May, 2006 - 10.30am - ( Friday)

I went on to optician this morning as felt bad after a training session last night trying to make out the smartboard at a distance, and also the squinting I am doing at present with the computer.

I felt like I was a naughty girl when I finally saw the nice 'lady' optician, she was a little un-empathetic. She said you have to understand there is a limit as to what we can do for you, and I still said, yeah, but when I wore my glasses I felt like I could see better but not to my best and that's why I came in here in the first place, first test since 1998.

She seemed insistent and almost cross with me and said 'you have to understand, it is important you understand that you will not get as good a vision with contact lenses as you do with your glasses ... because the eyes work singularly with contact lens and together with glasses ...' ahhhhh no, I really didn't understand that, that's never really been explained to me, I'll never get as good a vision with lens as I could with glasses that definitely was not explained to me, I had retorted too, '...but I didn't ask for this treatment it was offered to me'.

She also explained that had I come to the opticians at age 30 and tried contact lens I wouldn't be having this problem now because my eyes would have adapted to the change. Apparently it's a big thing for the brain to change to lens, let alone two different prescriptions, so this is as good as it gets. I have to compromise on distance to get the reading and visa versa with lens. They do have Vari-focal lens but she said these are even harder to adapt to. Sigh. She told me I can't go around comparing my vision with my earlier glasses or with other people's vision. So naughty me, must learn I still have a long way to go before my eyes have either accepted or dismissed my new way of looking - mono vision! It's okay that I squint at the computer, that's my compromise ... and she also prescribed some drops to help stop protein build up and dryness in my eyes ... Perhaps the dryness is caused by me squinting? She said I need to train myself to blink everytime I click the mouse, that will help stop them drying out.

Before you start to worry ... don't, apparently this only starts to happen to you when you get in your forties... first sign of getting old I guess :-) first mid life crisis.

Oh, by the way, I've just discovered a deliberate mistake (she says) in my earlier blogs which has only just occurred to me to be so ... see if you can guess what it is? Or were you just being polite?