NEW SPECS SOON!
Whoo, lj's finally sorta-up.
The Six Apart Status page lists all other Six Apart services as "up" and Livejournal as "degraded." Gotta love that.
Today I went to the optometrist to get my prescription checked, and to see about getting myself some new glasses. After the last mishap with my ancient frames, I figured it was time.
It's been time for a while, actually; I'm good and sick of my glasses falling apart and rubbing the spot behind my left ear until it shreds and bleeds. (I have one ear quite a bit higher than the other, so the longer I wear a pair of glasses without getting them straightened, the more they scrape in odd places.)
So now I have a new prescription, slightly updated. And I have new glasses on the way.
And these glasses? I'm so excited about them. You guys have no idea.
See my icon: it might not be the best picture to illustrate...well, anything (crappy bathroom self-portraits!), but those are the glasses I have right now. At the time I got them (when I was 16), they were wicked expensive (they're Emporio Armani, yo), and they were really stylin'.
But at this point, they're old and worn and out of style. So now I've chosen new ones. They're Dior Homme Black Tie.
And they're FUCKING HOT GEEK CHIC.
HOT.
...Yes? Hot.
They come in black and gray as well, but I tried various black glasses in that sort of style, and decided it was just a bit too harsh for my face and coloring. The brown blends better. (Plus the frames aren't as noticeable in my field of vision.)
These are the style of glasses I've wanted for YEARS, guys. I'm stoked.
In less shallow news, I learned some new and surprising information about my eyes themselves.
The appointment itself, then:
The receptionist/assistant (I truly don't know her position, but I'm sure she's qualified to do more than push paper!) started by running me through some basic tests to check the curvature of my eye, my peripheral vision, etc.
If you wear glasses, you're probably familiar with it all. If you aren't - well, it would take a while to describe. It's just sitting in front of various beeping machines, pressing buttons and such, with your chin cradled by attachments that look like the straps on football helmets.
It's obviously been WAY too long since I got my prescription checked, though. They have this new machine that tests your IOP (that's intraocular pressure to you non-blind types) by blowing a short blast of air into your eye. Uncomfortable, but infinitely preferable to the old-school, "put unreliable freezing drops in your eyes and then poke with a stick" method that leaves you with the sensation that your eyes are creaking like arthritic joints every time you shift your gaze.
And they have this crazy new thing called the Optomap® which just takes a GIGANTIC picture of the inside of your eye. It's sort of a pain to get in the right position for it, but again - much better than the old-school "shine a light in your eyes" method.
Then, on to the actual prescription check.
Since I haven't seen an optometrist since before my family moved from the north end of the city to the south, I've never before been seen by the guy I went to today.
He's young ("I'm Kent,") and briskly professional. Really nice, but not at all chatty. That's fine with me; I really, really like his efficiency.
He's also very good-looking, which I'm sure doesn't hurt him at all. He's got lips sorta like a young John Travolta - the kind you can't help staring at because you're wondering who he killed to get them.
He told me that the opthamologist I saw recently was correct: my prescription hasn't changed much at all in 6 years, which is a really excellent rate of change.
It has changed some though:
I'm MOST surprised by the convergence insufficiency reveal. Apparently the optometrist I saw before noted this in my file, but he did NOT tell me. I'm a bit miffed by that. I was 16 the last time I saw an optometrist; isn't that OLD ENOUGH to be informed?!
Dr. Kent tells me that because of this insufficiency, I might have noted that it's more and more of a strain to focus properly the closer something gets to me. (Although I'm myopic; great combination, eh?) So I might notice double vision and a sense of strain with reading and trying to focus on other things near me.
I said that I HAVE, in fact, noticed these things. Back when I was considering the possibility that I have ADHD, I ran across something called Irlen Syndrome, which often makes learning to read difficult-to-impossible for the people who have it. Just for shits and giggles, I downloaded a self-test I found for it, and was shocked that I have many times more symptoms than is considered suggestive of the condition.
I thought that was odd, because I've never had any trouble reading, and learned to read swiftly and easily.
If, though, this convergence insufficiency has developed only in the past few years - or has always been quite mild - it could explain why I have those symptoms, but no history of difficulties learning to read.
Anyway, Dr. Kent tells me that I'm managing to compensate well enough on my own right now, so I shouldn't need to do anything about it. If it gets significantly worse, he'll show me eye exercises to help it, and possibly they can put prisms in my lenses that will remove some of the need for me to focus in more closely.
Okay, so that's about it.
NEW GLASSES, GUYS.
So. Excited.
The Six Apart Status page lists all other Six Apart services as "up" and Livejournal as "degraded." Gotta love that.
Today I went to the optometrist to get my prescription checked, and to see about getting myself some new glasses. After the last mishap with my ancient frames, I figured it was time.
It's been time for a while, actually; I'm good and sick of my glasses falling apart and rubbing the spot behind my left ear until it shreds and bleeds. (I have one ear quite a bit higher than the other, so the longer I wear a pair of glasses without getting them straightened, the more they scrape in odd places.)
So now I have a new prescription, slightly updated. And I have new glasses on the way.
And these glasses? I'm so excited about them. You guys have no idea.
See my icon: it might not be the best picture to illustrate...well, anything (crappy bathroom self-portraits!), but those are the glasses I have right now. At the time I got them (when I was 16), they were wicked expensive (they're Emporio Armani, yo), and they were really stylin'.
But at this point, they're old and worn and out of style. So now I've chosen new ones. They're Dior Homme Black Tie.
And they're FUCKING HOT GEEK CHIC.
HOT.
...Yes? Hot.
They come in black and gray as well, but I tried various black glasses in that sort of style, and decided it was just a bit too harsh for my face and coloring. The brown blends better. (Plus the frames aren't as noticeable in my field of vision.)
These are the style of glasses I've wanted for YEARS, guys. I'm stoked.
In less shallow news, I learned some new and surprising information about my eyes themselves.
The appointment itself, then:
The receptionist/assistant (I truly don't know her position, but I'm sure she's qualified to do more than push paper!) started by running me through some basic tests to check the curvature of my eye, my peripheral vision, etc.
If you wear glasses, you're probably familiar with it all. If you aren't - well, it would take a while to describe. It's just sitting in front of various beeping machines, pressing buttons and such, with your chin cradled by attachments that look like the straps on football helmets.
It's obviously been WAY too long since I got my prescription checked, though. They have this new machine that tests your IOP (that's intraocular pressure to you non-blind types) by blowing a short blast of air into your eye. Uncomfortable, but infinitely preferable to the old-school, "put unreliable freezing drops in your eyes and then poke with a stick" method that leaves you with the sensation that your eyes are creaking like arthritic joints every time you shift your gaze.
And they have this crazy new thing called the Optomap® which just takes a GIGANTIC picture of the inside of your eye. It's sort of a pain to get in the right position for it, but again - much better than the old-school "shine a light in your eyes" method.
Then, on to the actual prescription check.
Since I haven't seen an optometrist since before my family moved from the north end of the city to the south, I've never before been seen by the guy I went to today.
He's young ("I'm Kent,") and briskly professional. Really nice, but not at all chatty. That's fine with me; I really, really like his efficiency.
He's also very good-looking, which I'm sure doesn't hurt him at all. He's got lips sorta like a young John Travolta - the kind you can't help staring at because you're wondering who he killed to get them.
He told me that the opthamologist I saw recently was correct: my prescription hasn't changed much at all in 6 years, which is a really excellent rate of change.
It has changed some though:
- Both eyes are just a bit worse. I asked about them on the 20/20 scale; he said that my level of vision doesn't translate well to that scale, but it's currently about 20/240 in my right eye, and 20/250 in my left.
- My focal length is 25cm. Outside of that, I need glasses. Basically: there's no way I can take my glasses off for anything but sleeping and bathing. But, uh, I knew that.
- My right eye - my "good" eye! - has deteriorated faster than the left.
(That information makes me slightly nervous. I've gotten migraine aura symptoms in that eye, as well. I don't know if this means anything, but maybe I've been overcompensating with that eye too much.)
- I have some astigmatism in my right eye now, whereas I didn't before.
- Looking at the images from the Optomap®, I apparently have a STRETCH MARK on my left eyeball, which he says is "unsurprising" because it is more myopic than my right. I had no idea you could get a STRETCH MARK on your EYEBALL - did you?
(Also he kept referring to parts of the images in this bizarrely sensual way. i.e. "Vascular's really nice, very healthy. Macular spot's very smooth, very nice and smooth." SO WEIRD.)
- I have something called "convergence insufficiency." Basically, both my eyes have this tendency to drift outward; they don't easily come together to focus on something closer to me.
I'm MOST surprised by the convergence insufficiency reveal. Apparently the optometrist I saw before noted this in my file, but he did NOT tell me. I'm a bit miffed by that. I was 16 the last time I saw an optometrist; isn't that OLD ENOUGH to be informed?!
Dr. Kent tells me that because of this insufficiency, I might have noted that it's more and more of a strain to focus properly the closer something gets to me. (Although I'm myopic; great combination, eh?) So I might notice double vision and a sense of strain with reading and trying to focus on other things near me.
I said that I HAVE, in fact, noticed these things. Back when I was considering the possibility that I have ADHD, I ran across something called Irlen Syndrome, which often makes learning to read difficult-to-impossible for the people who have it. Just for shits and giggles, I downloaded a self-test I found for it, and was shocked that I have many times more symptoms than is considered suggestive of the condition.
I thought that was odd, because I've never had any trouble reading, and learned to read swiftly and easily.
If, though, this convergence insufficiency has developed only in the past few years - or has always been quite mild - it could explain why I have those symptoms, but no history of difficulties learning to read.
Anyway, Dr. Kent tells me that I'm managing to compensate well enough on my own right now, so I shouldn't need to do anything about it. If it gets significantly worse, he'll show me eye exercises to help it, and possibly they can put prisms in my lenses that will remove some of the need for me to focus in more closely.
Okay, so that's about it.
NEW GLASSES, GUYS.
So. Excited.