Thank you. I’ve been considering that.
Eye exams are not stressful. They’re easy. You want stressful, you have a wisdom tooth that the dentist has determined needs pulling, and dreading the five days until the pulling. Been there, done that.
But I was bothered by my last eye exam. The eye doctor determined that I needed a new prescription, which is fine. I needed one. What I did not like was the optometrist who decided what kind of frames I would get. She wouldn’t brook an argument. I wound up with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that made me look like a dork, and made me walk into walls and doors. No thanks. Thankfully, that place has gone out of business.
Yes, I wear glasses. Typically, they’re half-specs that I wear on the tip of my nose. I can see you easily, six feet away. I can see the lecturer, fifty feet away. But I cannot read the Straight Dope online, or the daily newspaper or a book, without them.
Give me half-specs, and I’m fine. Give me full specs, and I walk away with my scrip to find an optometrist who can set me up with half-specs.
This thread popped up again today – and today I have to go have an eye exam.
Which I will indeed find mildly stressful, between having to let people put drops in my eyes, having to let people then put instruments on my eyes, and worrying that they’ll find something that something needs to be done about.
But mostly I’m annoyed because we’re having a very wet spring, with occasional one or two day dry breaks during which I keep trying and failing to catch up on spring planting while the weeds go crazy in what’s already planted – and this is the second day of one of those breaks, after which it’s supposed to rain the rest of the week again; and in addition to the time the appointment and travel time will take, I won’t be able to see properly for about four hours after they put the drops in my eyes. (Yes, I was able to get a friend to drive me; so at least I don’t have to spend those four hours in the waiting room.)
Eye exams are very stressful for me. My eyes are sensitive and reactive. They insist on starting with drops to dilate my pupils and then start poking around my eyes which get very irritated making me blink excessively and everything gets blurry. Everything goes downhill from there. Then I have cataracts in my right eye, but they aren’t bad, and at the same time my right eye has a worsening astigmatism. Eye doctors can’t agree on whether I need cataract surgery or glasses. I got a pair of glasses that let me read the tiny print that come with OTC medications, approximately 20 pages of text shrunk to fit on about 2 square inches of paper, but nothing else more than a few inches from my eyes. I made an attempt at cataract surgery at an outpatient clinic. After signing a thousand or so wavers and giving them a pile of money they put a ton of drops in my eyes over at least 30 minutes and then the last set made my eyes shut so that I couldn’t even force them open. They said I wasn’t cooperating and needed to do it in a hospital. Then they suffered the wrath of my wife who insisted on getting every penny paid returned immediately.
If I wasn’t already insane this would have pushed me over the edge. I’ve had incredibly good vision for the first 60 years of my life so the current blurriness is incredibly annoying and because of the astigmatism I can see my eyebrows which interfere with everything I can see in that eye. Luckily my medium to long distance vision is pretty clear and I can shut my right eye to see more clearly.
So no, not mildly stressful to get an exam. It’s extremely stressful instead.
My eye exam 2 weeks ago.
Me: "It’s either “G” or “8”
Her: “There are no numbers”
Me: “G”
I think I got a demerit
Did you know that cataract replacement lenses can eventually develop a clouding of the membrane encapsulating the new lens that makes the vision get blurry? Neither did I, but I’d noticed the gradual change and decided to have it dealt with, so I got it lasered away today.
Yup, had eye drops to numb the eye and dilate the pupil, had the short procedure, and now X hours later I think the pupil is finally getting back to normal. My vision is already better than before. Oh, and the other eye didn’t get dilated and I was able to drive myself there and back home.
No, it wasn’t fun, but not unduly stressful. I’m rather phlegmatic anyway and they’d reassured me beforehand how it would be.
How long has it been for you? I just had cataract surgery.
Oh, it was over a year, maybe two, before I started to notice it happening enough to affect my vision somewhat. You’re unlikely to develop it right away.
Here’s a site that does a good job of explaining it all.
They didn’t. No glaucoma, no diabetic retinopathy, cataracts not significantly worse than last year and nowhere near needing anything done, not enough change in prescription to need new lenses.
And my vision’s finally back to normal after the drops; though I think it took about five hours to fully recover.
Whew.
And it was nice to see the friend who drove me; we hadn’t visited in a while.
Here’s what bothers me about eye exams. I have pre-glaucoma and have been seeing an ophthalmologist for decades. I’ve been seeing my current one twice a year for about 10 years. Every time I go in there, the nurse does a preliminary check of my vision, and every time it is with the exact same eye chart. I try to tell them what I’m seeing, but it’s difficult because I’ve got the damn thing memorized at this point. I can read off the chart sitting here at home and not looking at it. It’s projected on the wall from a computer; can’t you randomize it?
“You’re reading the wine list, sir.”
I wouldn’t say stressful, but it is important to be relaxed when someone’s doing something to one’s eyes. So I usually think about one of two movie scenes while I’m waiting to be called in. One is from Only Angels Have Wings. A pilot’s vision is deteriorating, so he memorized the eye chart. Cary Grant knows better, and switched to a new eye chart. But the good news is, the pilot is too old to fly, but not too old to teach! That’s what I remember; correct me if I’m wrong. The second is from The Color of Money. Fast Eddie gives in and goes to an optometrist. “Better? Worse? Same?” And can you imagine being Paul Newman’s optometrist, and getting to look right into those eyes?
So my point is, I’m thinking of Cary Grant or Paul Newman, and that gets me in a pleasant mood! (For a female equivalent, I dunno. I can think of some stunning actresses who wore glasses for a role, but not any scenes with them in an eye doctor’s office.)
In case you need a third:
Thank you!
I don’t like the machine that measure the eyes for prescription glasses.
I like the eye chart and the guy flipping through the lenses. I’ve noticed he can tell when my eye is focusing. Asking better or worse? Is just an confirmation step.
Otherwise, my visits are stress free. I got tested at the Optometrist most of my life. Now I’m seeing an ophthalmologist for medical stuff and he does my eye test as a courtesy.
Over here, the optometrist will usually be employed by, and based in, an optician’s shop, and trained (and paid by the NHS) to check for signs of disease as well as eyesight correction. If they spot signs of medical issue they’ll give you a referral note with all the details for the doctors, otherwise, a prescription for glasses that their shop can sell (and usually upsell) you, or you can take it elsewhere. Most of us use one or other of the big chain opticians.
Can’t say I care for the machine that puffs air at you, or the whack-a-mole one that tests peripheral vision, but I don’t find them stressful. A bit like dental check-ups: it’s worth doing in the end, and it’s soon over.
The US has those same sorts of national chain optical shops with an “independent” optometrist’s office tucked right inside or next door. You can take the resulting scrip elsewhere, but most folks don’t. I don’t know what fraction of total exams and glasses those places do, but it’s a respectable chunk of the whole.
The air puff machines are largely obsolete around here; been years since I’ve experienced one. Nowadays they put some numbing drops in your eyes then poke your cornea with a sharp blunt stick while you watch calmly. The machine measures how much the stick dents your cornea and derives an internal pressure reading from that depth of the dent. Sooo much better. Hah!
It’s been a while since I went to the eye doctor but they offered the drops that dilate your pupils (and then annoy the hell out of you the rest of the day cuz you cannot focus properly) OR either the eye-puff or something else (I forget). But, since they know everyone hates those drops they charge a premium for whatever it was that was not those drops but achieved the same thing.
Another thing on the long list of things that annoys me about medicine in the US.
Huh? Dilating drops are used to dilate. Numbing drops are used for numbing. Two utterly unrelated drugs for unrelated purposes. Since a thorough eye exam include dilation so they can look around inside your eyeball better, and includes reading your eye pressures, it’s common that you get both.
If you’re just there to obtain a fresh corrective prescription, you get neither.
I see exactly zero to be cynical about here. Or perhaps we just have very different experiences with medical care.
Found it (and I was correct…bolding mine):
Cycloplegic and mydriatic eye drops are special eye drops used to dilate the pupils and/or relax the eye muscles during an eye exam or other ophthalmic procedure. Cycloplegic drops have a greater impact on relaxing the focusing system. - SOURCE
They did offer an alternative…whatever that was but wanted to charge extra for it (and more than a little bit…like $50).