right eye crystalens (plano): day 1

[drunkensailor]

My new vision is very poor. As soon as my bandage came off, I could tell that my vision wasn't right.

I hadn't expected quality vision right away. The central mechanic behind the crystalens is that your eye learns to changes its focus, or "accommodate," as your ciliary muscle strengthens and learns to operate the lens, which sits on tiny, flexible

Comments

[wondershot]

How did they like your eyepatch?

[drunkensailor]

Like most doctors/nurses/staff who I've subjected to unexpected flash photography, half-joking body notes about which side to operate on, forts made out of IV pumps and sheets, overly-morbid but cartoonish doodles, and whatever else, they called it cute and funny while their eyes screamed "nutcase."

(Almost none of them ever seem to understand that it's really the insanity that keeps me sane; see one Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce)

[wondershot]

People never understand.

[crucibelle]

Wow... I don't even know what to say! That's got to be rough. I hope your vision improves, soon. Try not to get too upset about it until you've completely recovered, though.

[drunkensailor]

I am trying to be calm. Admittedly, there are times I feel like surrendering or throwing a book across a room as I sit and try to read the same large print word ten times, but I just keep reminding myself that it only gets better from here, and hoping the eleventh time is a charm.

[fooganschnot]

I used to fantasize that someday I'd get lasik. Then I saw all those makeover shows on tv and realized you'd have to be awake during those procedures.

I'm going to settle for being .450 and wearing glasses for the rest of my life. I don't know anything about crystalens at all, but you're made of tougher stuff than I am. Superimposed images and halos? I'd sit in the dark all day and become a recluse.

Good luck.

[drunkensailor]

It really is not very traumatic being awake for eye surgery; I doubt LASIK is a whole lot worse.

The crystalens just might be something you get in your lifetime, if you ever need that cataract dealt with, as I predict that it, or at least its base technology, will dominate the market in the not-too-distant future, particularly as it sees further revisions and more old, set-in-their-ways surgeons retire to be replaced by young blood.

It's tempting to sit in the dark and live like a hermit, but the fact is, this lens adapts, and the adaptation directly correlates to the effort you put into doing all the harder things, visually, so instead I torment myself with masochistic reading exercises and word search puzzles.

The halos I seem to have brought under control, and maybe the superimposed images as well. More when I rewrite the hour long update that LJ just ate.

[katayla]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for your eyes.

[drunkensailor]

Thanks. Focus is not really improving yet (they say it takes at least 12 weeks to perfect itself), but some of the other effects are now being managed.

[acmedunveiled]

Even if my glasses do weigh a ton and contacts are annoying, I'm glad they're that easy to fix. As fooganschnot says, I've though about Lasik, but didn't want to risk it. I'm also not bothered by the idea of going blind - since I was in second grade, I always had this weird sense that I eventually would, and I still tend to prefer walking around in the dark, yet knowing where everything is. (Not that I'm trying to romanticize blindness.)

Fascinating how your eyes and brain work together to adjust. Like those experiments where people put on glasses that make everything mirror image and eventually their brains just switch stuff for them.

The other reason that I don't want to get Lasik is that I feel free when I can't see. Sometimes I like being able to take off my glasses and not see anything clearly. The world is like an impressionist painting. I like that. But I am in no way saying that I would like to live that way forever.

[drunkensailor]

I'm convinced that LASIK is a rather safe procedure, these days, so long as you do your research to make sure that you're a good candidate, and you find a top-notch ophthalmologist (eg extensive LASIK experience). The only problem I see with it, given my preconditions, is that nobody knows for certain what affect LASIK has, say, 40 years out, but nobody actually knows it does anything inherently bad, either