I have worn glasses since third grade for myopia, and more recently have gotten some mild astigmatism too. I tried contact lenses for a week. Since I have astigmatism, they gave me these torque lenses that would swing down every time I blinked. So every time I blinked, my vision would be blurry for a split second before clearing up. I also have pretty dry eyes, so sometimes they’d get stuck and my vision would be blurry for even longer while blinking. I wore the lenses for my wedding and was happy to have glasses-free photos, but I am even happier never to wear contacts ever again.
Also, I would love to have Lasik, but can’t because apparently my cornea are too thin, or at least they’re too thin for the strength of my myopia. Stupid cornea.
I tried contacts for a short period many years ago, but I think my eyes are too dry for them. They were really thin and everything, but they would still dry out very quickly - like every 10-15 minutes. One time after about 30 minutes or so, they just fell out of my eye because they were too dry.
Personally, if you were a patient at our clinic and had that kind of reaction, I would be concerned, not obstructive.
OK - IANAD/N, I am not giving you medical advice, etc., got it?
That being said, the drop in question is known as Flurox or Fluress, the chemical name is fluorescein sodium and benoxinate hydrochloride. It’s a numbing drop used for various ophthalmic procedures; it also contains that yellow dye to (IIRC) help show the surface of the cornea and allow the doctor to see any problems with it. The only reason I thought of it is not because I’ve seen that happen to a patient before - in fact I went and asked two techs in our clinic and they’ve never heard of such a thing either, but we don’t use the stuff that frequently - is because I have seen a similar reaction in patients who are getting the fluorescing dye via an IV for a fluorescein angiogram of the eye - the dye can cause nausea/vomiting in some patients, and contains fluorescein sodium. It’s not that uncommon of a reaction from the IV dye, but if you do tend to have it, the doctors will try to avoid the procedure unless necessary, and will probably have you take medication before it to prevent the reaction.
Now there’s no proof that applied in teeny-tiny amounts to the eyeball that the drop can cause this reaction. In fact, I can’t find anything in the package insert or in anything I can dig up online; all of the side effects seem to be to the eye proper.
However, I’ll ask another of our techs (who does work a lot more with this drop) after lunch and see if she’s heard of or seen this happening. And, now at least you know what drop it is.
There are certainly other numbing drops out there that don’t have fluorescein in them; proparacaine is one as I mentioned previously, but I don’t think they use them for the eye pressure method that you’ve dealt with.
Thanks for the info though, now I have at least an idea of what it may be if nothing else. And yes, both times I’d only received the one drop.
I know, weird huh? The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that since I was no longer I minor at the time they weren’t willing to give the information to someone else, even a parent. I’m given to understand that the conversation went something like:
“My daughter needs to know what kind of drops you were giving her so she can avoid them.”
“We only use one kind.”
“Well, what is it?”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
Don’t get my friend started on him. She has really bad eyes from childhood emotional trauma and couldn’t see the chart at all. She used to memorize the chart and play off that she could read it. Anyhoo, she is terribly offended that they would make a character that you laugh at because of his eyesight.
I get the Focus Night and Day, which I rinse once a day and put right back in, and throw out at the end of the month. SO much better than glasses–if I wear those, my eyes look tiny to anyone looking at me and I try not to be vain but that just looks really bad. Not to mention they slide down and get smudged and all that.
I’m another one who can’t really see the E on the chart. I’ve worn glasses since pre school. I tried contacts for a month or two right after college but didn’t like them. Had a tough time getting them in, they irritated my eyes and after 17 years of wearing glasses my face just looked wrong without them. So I stick with glasses.
If you’re seeing too much out the sides I would say you’re either not used to the glasses yet or those are the wrong frame style for you. I had several frames with that problem until I found the style I’m currently wearing.
I must feel more strongly about my glasses then I thought if this is the thread that gets me to sign up after God knows how many years of lurking.
I’ve needed glasses since grade school. I got my first pair of contact lenses as a teenager and wore them until I was about 40. After that they started bugging me–even the lightest pairs–especially after a day in front of the computer, which describes many of my days. Gradually I switched over to glasses and now I don’t even own a pair of contacts and don’t really plan to get any. For one thing, I’ve reached the reading glasses stage, so I’d have to wear them a lot of the time anyway.
I’ve never noticed a problem with peripheral vision. The only time it really bugs me to wear glasses is when I’m trying to look through binoculars or something like that.
very bad eyesight without corrective lenses. i loved my contact lenses, however as my allergies got worse, i became unable to wear them.
i am bummed as i loved being able to see when i woke up or went swimming. i do miss just plain being able to see really well. my contacts corrected better than glasses.
Not especially tiny ones-- rectangular ones sorta like Stephen Colbert wears, but a bit more elongated (maybe similar to these). It’s not like I’m blind to the side, just nearly so. I can make out (some) motion, if it’s close enough. I know the periphery isn’t clear anyway, but lacking the contacts just makes it worse. They cover all of my pupil, so it’s just like all of my pupil has the vision it would have had if I hadn’t been blind in the first place. With glasses, it’s like a large angle gets corrected, but then to the sides I’m still blind(ish).
What about anything active? I used to play football with a kid who had sports glasses, which were essentially tough plastic with lenses on a strap. But now I can’t imagine doing something like that. I need all the visual help I can get doing something like sports.
And to the people who are freaked about drops or poking in the eye, it’s just something you get used to. Now I touch my eyeball without blinking. Oh, and I can also rub my eyes with contacts in, without them sliding around. Plus, they do occasionally fall out or get stuck somewhere in your eye, but it’s something that happens less the longer you wear them. It’s kinda like taking shots to the nuts. When you’re a kid, it happens from time to time. As an adult, even during sports and things I couldn’t tell you the last time I got whacked in the balls. Similarly, I don’t remember the last time I got a contact stuck in my eye. I’m just “good” at wearing them now.
It depends what your habits are. I couldn’t cycle in my glasses, for example. I would be loathe to do martial arts wearing them.
It also depends on the rest of your face. Years of trying different frames has convinced me that the high bridge to my nose is the reason that glasses never fit properly on me - they slide off really easily. I can’t wash the dishes wearing glasses - they slip off as the heat from the dishwater rises.
My ears are also slightly lopsided, so glasses don’t look right. I can’t have cool frameless glasses because the lens would dig into my skin, or light coloured frames because then I wouldn’t be able to find them easily when I’ve taken them off to wash my face at night. Those are all aesthetic reasons for not wearing glasses, but they matter to me.
FWIW, my contact lenses work out way cheaper than replacing glasses every couple of years.
I’ve worn glasses since I was in third grade; they feel natural to me, and going without them sounds unnatural and weird. Peripheral vision is never an issue; my neck works fine.
Also without these special transparent-mithril lenses, my flash vision will be out of controll
I am extremely nearsighted and wore glasses from grade 3 through 11. (You know, they made really, really, really ugly frames way back in the '60s. I was stuck at first with sparkly cat’s eye frames like a Gary Larson cartoon and then stuck with dark horn-rimmed glasses. Wire frames like John Lennon wore were unavailable outside of The Big City.) Then I got HARD, rigid contact lenses and went through sheer HELL getting used to them. I suffered the tortures of the damned, but I was determined to wear them. And I did for many many years. On the pain scale, went from a 9 to about a 3… Much later I got the gas permeable contacts, and they were a bit more comfortable, but not much. It got to the point where I wore them just a few hours a day, at work, and took them out at home. Or worse, fell asleep with them in my eyes (and hurt my corneas)… About 10 years ago, I said “f**k it” and went back to glasses - lineless bifocals now. Took a week or so to get used to them, a very weird experience, especially trying to walk down stairs! I like my glasses, though I have to clean them several times a day. And I wonder whether it’s worth the time and effort to put on a lot of eye makeup, that no one will notice it.
Nearsighted (20/600 roughly -5.00) and I love my glasses.
I was offered free Lasik (doing animation for an eye clinic) and turned it down. Why, he asked rhetorically? Because my glasses have saved my vision many times. I wear aviator style glasses usually, and they are effectively safety glasses. I can’t recall the number of times they have prevented metal chips, or little bits of wire from hitting my eyes. Obviously, if I was wearing contacts or had Lasik I could carry a pair of safety glasses with me, but that’s a pain compared to having a pair mounted on my face every waking moment.
During a moment of weakness, I tried contacts, but I was never able to leave the office. I could never handle reaching in and grabbing my eye. Squicks me out just typing that. Bleagh!
I’m astigmatic and have worn glasses since I was four. So I’m really, really used to them by now.
I wore contacts for a year, and quit. I kept getting inflammation of the cornea, but most of all I just can’t bear to touch my eyes. I have a thing about eyes in general - my friends know to warn me if an eyeball scene is coming up in a movie (I am forever grateful to the universe that I happened to look away when a patient’s eyeball exploded in that episode of House M.D.) and the cow eyeball was the one thing I let my lab partner dissect for me in high school.
I would like to get laser surgery, but my optometrist says my eyes are outside the range they like to do it on. I would be perfectly happy to get it improved to the point where I could wear normal glasses, though, instead of the $500 lenses that are imported from Japan so that they don’t indent my nose. And distort my face. I hate looking at pictures of my face because my glasses distort it so badly.
I wear contacts out in public, and glasses at home. It works out great – after wearing my contacts for while, I am tired of having things in my eyes, and it feels awesome to take them out and put on my glasses. After wearing my glasses for a while, I am tired of having something sit on my face, and it feels awesome to take them off and put in my contacts. Win - win!
The eye chart! It is terrible! I already know what it says, so it’s hard to answer when they want me to read something. It makes me completely neurotic because I can’t really read any of it, but because I know what the letters are, my mind tries to fill in the blanks in my vision. My doctor has the E F P one … I wish she would get a new one.
I have bad eyesight and wear glasses. I’ve worn contacts before, but find them to be a pain. I still wear them for snorkeling/swimming, but that’s it. I like glasses because as soon as I weak up, I put them on and I can see, I don’t have to worry about wether I have the saline, blah blah blah. I wake up, I put them on, I am done with any eyeball maintenance for the rest of the day.
I love my contacts. At -10.00 diopters, my high-index lenses are still thin, but I hate the distortion the lenses produce in terms of what my face looks like through them – everything is minified, so it looks like I have tiny eyes and a “break” in the profile of my face when I look at myself straight on. Add in the prismatic effects and unwanted astigmatism that occurs when I look off into the periphery of the lens, and ugh.
I thought I had sensitive eyes and hated to have my eyes touched until I became an optometry student. Gonioscopy lab (where we place a massive glass lens on each other’s eyes, and turn it on the eyeball to get different views of the iridiocorneal angle) cured me of that pretty fast. Not to mention the many small corneal scratches I can thank my classmates for (I’ve caused some too) — people new to applanation tonometry who attempt to take your IOPs should be avoided at all costs.
What might help the person who mentioned a sensitivity to the Fluress (yellow drops containing topical anesthetic and fluorescein) is to press below the nasal corner of your eyes after the drops are instilled. Doing this supposedly narrows the passageway between the eyes and nose (nasolacrimal duct/canal/sac etc) and reduces systemic absorption of the drops.
- Emotional trauma causes bad eyesight?!?