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The state of my vision

by vroom (His Eminence)
on Oct 17, 2000 at 00:12 UTC ( [id://37006]=poll: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Vote on this poll

Wear glasses
[bar] 203/47%
Wear contacts
[bar] 53/12%
Don't need em
[bar] 71/17%
Don't have either but should probably
[bar] 40/9%
X-Ray vision
[bar] 61/14%
428 total votes
Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: The state of my vision
by myocom (Deacon) on Oct 17, 2000 at 00:55 UTC

    I have, in fact, had LASIK (hence my vote for X-Ray Vision). Before surgery, I was somewhere in the -5 diopter range. In the 20/whatever scale, that's roughly 20/4,000,000. Ok, not really, but suffice to say I couldn't see much of anything without my glasses.

    After the initial screenings, consent video, etc., I went in for the surgery on June 30, 2000. I was rather nervous (I mean, really, despite the very high success ratio, they're cutting on your eyes and it's just hard to get past that), but once the procedure started it wasn't bad at all. I won't go into detail for the sake of those monks who are squeamish (if you're curious, drop me a /msg and I'll be happy to discuss it), but suffice to say there was only a slight amount of discomfort, and I was seeing one hell of a lot better immediately and even better by the next day.

    This past Friday I had my 3 month checkup and I was able to easily read the 20/15 line with either eye. Am I pleased? You bet.

      I was all keen to have this done... then I caught a /. reference to this article on the use of adaptive optics to improve vision. They're correcting not only for the curvature of the lens, but for irregularities in the retina, improving vision to about 20/10, with big gains under low-light conditions. They've got a device which does this now... and though they don't mention it, I'm thinking that the same principles could be applied towards laser surgery (though the reshaping would be static, not dynamic with a deformable mirror).

      Anyway... I'm holding out for super-vision! 8-)

        I waited for quite a while, since I was originally interested in RK (or even PRK). When LASIK came along (and after I'd waited a while to make sure they weren't burning holes in people's heads) I decided to take the plunge, figuring that even if something better came along a few years later, that'd be a few more years I would have to wear glasses.

        Basically, it came down to the typical risk/reward ratio. The risks had come down enough, and the reward was reached often enough that for me, it was the time to do it.

        Oh, and the fact that I could use pre-tax dollars to pay for it also helped...

RE: The state of my vision
by Zarathustra (Beadle) on Oct 17, 2000 at 00:17 UTC

    I wear glasses, my vision sucks.

    ... and it's getting worse every year.

    Soon I'll be completely blind - I've just been staring at the monitor for far too long now I guess.

    Any perl monks out there had laser eye surgery yet?

    I've been considering it myself, but am still somewhat cautious of any long-term, as of yet undiscovered, consequences.

      I, too, have lousy vision. I'm slightly myopic at -11.75L, -12.50R. If you don't know what these numbers mean, imagine it this way: I can barely focus on my hand, when the palm of my hand is touching the tip of my nose.

      I've been considering LASIK, and some of the more radical treatments, but I have developed this theory. Until my opthamologist is willing to have a procedure done on himself, I won't do it. He does several thousand LASIK procedures a year, and is very well known. However, he's still wearing glasses. And as long as I can wear contacts, I will, until he does a procedure himself.

      SurgicalEyes is a resource for people that have had unsuccessful LASIK, RPK, RK, AK, ALK, etc procedures. This is the place to look for the 1% that you hear about that have problems. These include such problems as dry eyes, halos, starbursts, retinal tearing, etc. Another link with some good information about how eyesight is measured, how to read the prescription, etc is here.

      That being said, LASIK DOES work for a lot of people. I know directly of 3 people that have had it done, and are thrilled with it. No problems, near perfect vision, etc. They were starting from a more middle ground than I would be however, and as such, were better candidates.

      The new technology is pretty remarkable. Rather than just determining the overall correction factor, as they do for contacts or glasses, they actually map the eye from several hundred to several thousand points, producing a complete retina topology map. This allows them to adjust the correction so that even if the top of the eye is -2.0 diopters off, and the bottom is -2.3, it all comes out correctly. Pretty cool stuff...

      But I may wait until Nikon comes out with Digital Eyes, and just skip this whole analog thing...

      --Chris

      e-mail jcwren
        I don't wear glasses, although my most recent eye-test said I'd probably benefit from some glasses for reading and computer work (+1.00L/+1.25R).

        But I have been doing some reading, and you may be selling your opthamologist short. I'm apparantly far-sighted, and my reading tells me that Lasik doesn't help far-sightedness, just myopia. If your Dr. is far-sighted, then he may need glasses, but can't benifit from Lasik.

        I also have friends who have been told that Lasik likely wouldn't provide enough correction to eliminate the need for glasses. Based on that, they don't see a real benefit from Lasik. Your Dr. could be in the same boat.

        If you are concerned, you might want to ask him why he hasn't gone for Lasik.

      I'm told that "clear lens replacement" is a lower risk/higher cost alternative to lasix, and is actually the same procedure as cataract surgery (where the mis-shaped lens is replaced with an artificial lens of correct proportions).

      So... if you're an ooooollld geek with cataracts, insurance will pay for it.   I don't think even our beloved merlyn is that old, though.   ;^)
          cheers,
          Don
          striving for Perl Adept

      Maybe if the font size was one size bigger, maybe most of you guys wouldn't be blind.
RE: The state of my vision
by merlyn (Sage) on Oct 17, 2000 at 06:39 UTC
    I had LASIK done 15 months ago. My left eye is textbook 0/0 correction, with 20/15 acuity (much better than I could ever get with glasses), while my right eye remains about 0.75 diopter nearsighted (0 astigmatism), giving me a built-in "reading glasses" eye for when my lenses start hardening up with age.

    The surgery was painless, the recovery quick (I could see well enough to get a "OK to drive without glasses" card the next morning), and I've been happy ever since.

    And as the facts at the link state, I was 8 diopters nearsighted, with 2 additional astigmatism in both eyes. This means I couldn't see anything more than two inches away, and I'd been that way since age 7.

    Amazing stuff. I'd recommend it to anyone that they allow.

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

RE: The state of my vision
by johannz (Hermit) on Oct 17, 2000 at 08:20 UTC

    I have been interested in LASIK, but I have recurrent Herpes Keratitis infections, usually brought about by stress or illness. My doctor has told me that I probably wouldn't qualify since if I had an outbreak while healing I could permanently damage my eye. So I suspect I'm doomed to wear glasses for the rest of my life. Oh well.

RE: The state of my vision
by royalanjr (Chaplain) on Oct 17, 2000 at 17:50 UTC
    I have had these specs so long, I can not imagine myself without them. Besides... I am too clutzy for contacts

    "Sorry sir, but I will be a little late again. Yes, sir, same reason as last time. Yes, I will try to stop shoving my finger into my eye...."

    And I guess I am a little too chicken for the surgery.

    Roy Alan

      I can understand this. Got contacts. Trained myself for a few days before I could actually touch my eyeball. (yech.) Went back to glasses anyway.

      I *like* glasses. I'm nearsighted with astigmatism (can't tell you my numbers off the top of my head, but they're rather bad). I take 'em off to read, wear 'em for everything else.

      I think laser surgery is safe enough, and the cost low enough to go for it, but I like my glasses. What can I say? They help define my face. It looks weird in the mirror without them. *shrug*

      =Blue
      ...you might be eaten by a grue...

RE: The state of my vision
by AgentM (Curate) on Oct 17, 2000 at 02:21 UTC
    General Question (perhaps something for another poll): is there a correlation between monitor size/ resolution vs. eye comfort/ vision destruction? Personally, I've got a 19" at 1280x1024 and .22" dp and I can see just fine two feet back from it. I also noticed that, since my upgrade from my 15", my eyes feel less strained and more relieved, especially in the wee hours of the night, when the extra strain can kick in (yes, I am a procrastinator).

    Just out of curiosity, how many of you folks went for the titanium "fun-and-bendy" glasses frames? I did.

    AgentM Systems or Nasca Enterprises is not responsible for the comments made by AgentM- anywhere.
RE: The state of my vision
by Snowdog (Sexton) on Oct 17, 2000 at 10:31 UTC
    Lucky for me my wife is an Eye doctor. I lose my glasses to often. Methinks I should not put them down.
    I have lost them so often she has started charging me now...not for the glasses though
    hmmmmm

    Gandalf tea Wednesday.
RE: The state of my vision
by ChOas (Curate) on Oct 17, 2000 at 17:09 UTC
    -4.5, -4.5 Though when I was young I
    had double vision which my brain compensated
    by just 'focussing' using one eye...
    So nowadays, I can see pretty clear with my
    lenses, but depth is a no-no....

RE: The state of my vision
by Penfold (Novice) on Oct 18, 2000 at 05:38 UTC
    The last time the scary devil monastery had this DSW< I think I won it. L-15.00 R-23.00 (at a rough guess, based on the correction I appear to need for my current pair...)
The state of my vision
by Malkavian (Friar) on Oct 19, 2000 at 19:58 UTC
    Last time I visited the optician, he put loads of lenses in those weird glasses things, one after the other. At last he came to a setting that just made the world come into sharp and clear focus. Everything spot on. So I told him these were perfect, and I could read every chart right through. The joy of that was, he then informed me that he'd just taken all the lenses out, and that was my unmodified vision. Not bad for 20 odd years of staring at monitors.. :) Malk
RE: The state of my vision
by adamsj (Hermit) on Oct 20, 2000 at 21:02 UTC
    This is so depressing--we've all got bad vision! It's a shame this poll doesn't also ask for age (or at least age group). I'd love to think I'm not the only old and feeble person here.
RE: The state of my vision
by mt2k (Hermit) on Oct 21, 2000 at 22:52 UTC
    Um, seems to me like all the people sitting at computers all day have bad vision... Damn computers!

      I have had bad vision years before I started sitting at computers all day long. Do you think the effect works retroactively? (Okay, I read books all day long at that time, and inherited bad vision from parents too.)

RE: The state of my vision
by mitd (Curate) on Oct 19, 2000 at 08:52 UTC
    How I discovered I needed a visual assistance device? While bending over a PC trying to screw in a Printer cable, I discovered that I could not get far enough away from the screw head to see it. Made in the Dark - grey appears to be my favorite colour.
RE: The state of my vision
by lytheum (Initiate) on Oct 22, 2000 at 14:21 UTC
    Lytheum -- Too many years in front of the terminal. I heard they have some really sensitive braille keyboards though. Refer to movie "sneakers".
RE: The state of my vision
by TStanley (Canon) on Oct 17, 2000 at 06:49 UTC
    I'm in the same ball park as BlaisePascal, in the fact that I only
    need reading glasses, since I get the occasional migraine
    from staring at a computer screen or reading a good book.
    Unlike you all, I don't have the option of getting any type of
    corrective surgery done to myself, since it would medically
    disqualify me from the Air Force Reserves. I still was on active
    duty when RK came out, and I remember hearing that
    if you got RK done, you were out of the Air Force.
    On the other hand, it couldn't hurt if the first thing you
    do in the morning is put on your glasses to turn
    your alarm clock off.

    TStanley
    There can be only one!
RE: The state of my vision
by wombat (Curate) on Oct 19, 2000 at 02:22 UTC
    My vision is seriously messed up. From a genetic standpoint that is. My father is much like you people, and cannot see much of anything without glasses. My mother uses contacts, and could get around without them, but not very safely. Both sets of grandparents have really bad eyes too. My brother and I have near perfect vision (Don't know the numbers). Does anyone know which side gives out the sight genes, and how all sorts of rotten genes could produce this?

    ~W
      Neither eyesight or eyecolor are sex-linked. No help there I'm afraid. The only sex-linked vision problem I've heard about is chromatic, i.e. color-blindness. One or two of the color-blindness forms seem to be at least partially based on the X having a regressive that your Y can't block because the branch that expresses that blocking gene is missing.

      --
      $you = new YOU;
      honk() if $you->love(perl)

        What?

        While I do *have* red-green colour-blindness, that is hardly my defining characteristic.

        At least you didn't capitalize it, though. :)

        You're right - red-green color blindness is a flaw in a gene on the X chromosome. This is why there are so many men with the condition but so few women. A woman has two X chromosomes, and so would have to get two flawed copies of the gene.

        Men only get one chance.

        Let's hear it for redundancy!

        Vision can vary greatly amoung family members because much of vision quality is environmental. Not to say that genetics aren't important. Unfortunately, vision degrades when you abuse it. But happily, contacts aren't that bad. {grin}

Re: The state of my vision
by ambrus (Abbot) on Apr 10, 2010 at 16:08 UTC

    I am myopic too. I wear glasses. I'm trying to wear contacts sometime, but I hate them. They are just so inconvenient. I'm trying to train myself to them because they really give a better vision, but I don't think I'll ever really like them.

    Also, I would like to see more activity in this thread. It's like ten years old now, and both laser eye surgery and contact lenses got better in that time.

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