I've just changed opticians.

[DuncanM]

My granddad had surgery for cataracts way back, and they told him they were going to put corrective lenses in to fix his short sightedness. Sadly, they messed up and managed to put a lens in which doubled it! He ended up wearing his glasses and a contact lens on that eye. When they did the other eye, they couldn't correct it fully because it would have given him too great a difference between the 2!

[hellymedic]

My Mum has had successful cataract surgery, which has corrected most of her refractive error; she wears bifocal spectacles with a weak prescription for residual myopia and astigmatism.

[L CC]

I was told I was a poor candidate for surgery as my sight is too unstable. I'm around -5/-6. I also already have piss poor night vision (starbursts and halos) because of the pigment dispersion syndrome.

I buy the cheapest glasses possible- glasses direct. Thus far I have avoided varifocals as I can read perfectly well without any glasses, unless I'm wearing contacts. It's only a matter of time though.

[chrisbainbridge]

A replacement lens CANNOT change its shape to focus, unlike a young biological lens.

However just like varifocal spectacles you can now get extended focus and multifocal intraocular lens so much better than the standard single focus lens.

[ian]

I can't say I mind wearing glasses and contacts that much, so I'm not so bothered with surgery. The cost for lightweight lenses is steep, but it's an occasional expense. I don't much like the multifocal contacts, they're basically not especially good at either extreme, but they're OK for activities or when I need to alternate from studious and wise to damned sexy.

[hellymedic]

I was told I was a poor candidate for surgery as my sight is too unstable. I'm around -5/-6. I also already have piss poor night vision (starbursts and halos) because of the pigment dispersion syndrome.

I buy the cheapest glasses possible- glasses direct. Thus far I have avoided varifocals as I can read perfectly well without any glasses, unless I'm wearing contacts. It's only a matter of time though.

You could always get cheap reading specs for use with contact lenses from the Pound Shop.

[FifeingEejit]

Contacts... urgh... poking oneself in the een gies me the boak.

[L CC]

You could always get cheap reading specs for use with contact lenses from the Pound Shop.

I do. I resent paying more than £5- though I did once pay £8 just to avoid the tedium of a phone - less train journey.
They do, however, last about £1. Almost count as single use plastic if you're as careless as I am.

[Gattopardo]

Sorry to be possibly rude and definitely uninformed, would eye surgery be cheaper?

It only really works for simple changes.  For people with more complex problems and high-diopter issues, they will typically end up still needing glasses (but much lower scrip) afterwards.  There are also issues with internal refraction afterwards that can make driving (or cycling) at night difficult.

Thanks I really have no idea.

[Gattopardo]

Mrs LJ was about -11 in both eyes which isn't far off getting a free Labrador. 

Now I find that funny...

[DuncanM]

Be careful with which cheapass online glasses provider you use (and when entering the details). I bought some as a backup (in a style I wouldn't spend significant money on), but when I used them I got a headache. When I next went to the opticians I took them and he checked them - the prescription was correct but the rotation on one eye was massively out for my astigmatism.

[chrisbainbridge]

I would not totally rule out laser surgery.  I cannot remember my prescription before I had laser surgery but I had major shortsightedness and astigmatism.  I was shortsighted enough that I could virtually do microsurgery without a microscope.

I went to Moordfields to the guy that had several of the patents on the laser machines, was known for doing the premier league guys and the special forces (I knew a guy who had done his opthalmic training with him)

With that level you have to have the flap raised from the cornea which is a whole level more extensive but allows them to sculpt the eye better.  I was able to start kayaking without glasses tied to my head, ride a bike without glasses and a whole host of things.  I had no more nighttime stars than beforehand.

[ian]

Surgery makes me squickle, I don't want people poking around inside my eyeballs. This is why my undercarriage is still connected up, ain't no way they're swashbuckling with a scalpel down there either. I have spent too long working with surgeons to trust them with anything other than other people.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I would not totally rule out laser surgery.  I cannot remember my prescription before I had laser surgery but I had major shortsightedness and astigmatism.  I was shortsighted enough that I could virtually do microsurgery without a microscope.

I went to Moordfields to the guy that had several of the patents on the laser machines, was known for doing the premier league guys and the special forces (I knew a guy who had done his opthalmic training with him)

With that level you have to have the flap raised from the cornea which is a whole level more extensive but allows them to sculpt the eye better.  I was able to start kayaking without glasses tied to my head, ride a bike without glasses and a whole host of things.  I had no more nighttime stars than beforehand.

I think if I'd had access to that 20 years ago (and the funds), I would have gone for the surgery.

As it is now, I need lenses for any distance other than 5" from my eyeballs. A different lens for every distance

[Legs]

I had laser eye surgery, aged 35, in January 2017 and it's been a revelation to not have to wear specs.  It set me back £4000 for LASIK, but I'd say it's been worth every penny.  I love the freedom of not having my specs fog up in the rain, or when opening the oven door, and being able to wear sunglasses.  Clearly, I'm expecting to be wearing reading specs within the next decade or so.  YMMV, obviously.

[L CC]

You know contact lenses don't fog yeah?

I'm like mrcharly, different lenses for every task, too old for surgery to be worthwhile now.
I couldn't afford it then, and they told me I wasn't a good candidate anyway. I don't know anyone who has had the surgery and regretted it.

[citoyen]

Surgery makes me squickle, I don't want people poking around inside my eyeballs. This is why my undercarriage is still connected up, ain't no way they're swashbuckling with a scalpel down there either. I have spent too long working with surgeons to trust them with anything other than other people.

I was put off the idea of eye surgery for life when as a far-too-young-to-be-seeing-that-kind-of-thing person, I accidentally caught a bit of Un Chien Andalou on a late-night BBC2 screening (no idea why I was out of bed watching telly at that time of night at that age).

[ian]

I watched The Omen when I was little and spent a sleepless night sure I was the antichrist. I was tempted to shave my hair and see if I had the mark, but I wasn't brave enough to undertake any nocturnal self-barbering.

In retrospect, had I been the antichrist, shaving my own head probably wouldn't have bothered me.

[FifeingEejit]

I only discovered my dislike of pokey things going on eyes when one of the neighbours cars lost part of its car aerial and I had to walk past it on the way to the bus everyday, and one day I somehow though, "that would be shit if you fell and it went ib your eye", the image of a Peugeot 205 aerial gouging my eye out has haunted me ever since... Even worse the number of people in my hiking club that wear contacts means its not uncommon for me to wander into the lavvies at club huts while someone is gouging their lenses out, prompt about turn

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[sojournermike]

I had a retinal tear repaired a few years ago and then, 12 months later, had a lens replacement to deal with the consequent cataract. The process confirmed a lot of my negative bias about many opticians and gave me a very positive view of the surgeon(S) and the optician I now use.

I now have 4/4 or 5/6 vision in my right eye unaided, but my left remains stubbornly at between -9.0 and -9.5. I can’t wear corrective glasses as the images in each eye are too different in size for my brain to compute, so I wear -8.0 or -8.5 contacts depending whether I’m mostly inside or out that day… which give me vision that matches my right eye (but yellower). Then I add either pure reading glasses or a set of Zeiss Room lens glasses - try-focal and filtered to ease eye strain on the computer. I think the readers were 90 and the Zeiss glasses 400 with a nice Danish titanium frame.



I

[sojournermike]

I only discovered my dislike of pokey things going on eyes when one of the neighbours cars lost part of its car aerial and I had to walk past it on the way to the bus everyday, and one day I somehow though, "that would be shit if you fell and it went ib your eye", the image of a Peugeot 205 aerial gouging my eye out has haunted me ever since... Even worse the number of people in my hiking club that wear contacts means its not uncommon for me to wander into the lavvies at club huts while someone is gouging their lenses out, prompt about turn

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

The latter is easily solved for shortish camping trips by extended wear lenses. I mix and match between daily and extended, but if I’m away for a few days there’s no contest.

[ian]

I don't mind poking my eyes with fingers, I first wore contacts back in medieval times when they were made out of sharp pieces of flint and it took a manservant with a mallet and persistence to get them in. You'd usually stop screaming after about fifteen minutes for long enough to wipe away the blood and tears. Modern wibbly lenses are, I'm sure, part of the reason for the feeble nature of contemporary youth.

War and impermeable contacts, that's what makes a man out of even a woman.

[sojournermike]

I don't mind poking my eyes with fingers, I first wore contacts back in medieval times when they were made out of sharp pieces of flint and it took a manservant with a mallet and persistence to get them in. You'd usually stop screaming after about fifteen minutes for long enough to wipe away the blood and tears. Modern wibbly lenses are, I'm sure, part of the reason for the feeble nature of contemporary youth.

War and impermeable contacts, that's what makes a man out of even a woman.

Gas permeables were worse - they didn’t even numb your eye through oxygen starvation after 15 minutes;)

Healthy, because you soon gave up wearing them

[mrcharly-YHT]

I've experimented, twice, with contacts.

They aren't good if you get dry eyes.

Trying to peel one off once, it was stuck on so firmly that the contact lens tore. Just glad it wasn't my eyeball.

[L CC]

I have dry eyes and lenses are fine. I use drops if necessary. Lenses are an awful lot easier to tear than eyeballs.

If this thread is representative men are so squeamish, they'd never manage menstruation.