Eyes-just some questions

Hey,

HOpe someone out there has the same eye issue & might be able to help. I wear glasses as i'm far sighted in one eye & near sighted in the other. On top of that my left eye is lazy & i mainly rely on my right. I've worn glasses for about 20+yrs.

I'm tired of not being able to see when i'm cycling-I could be here forever but mainly I want to ride in the rain & be able to see, be able to judge depth & distances etc

question to you out there is-Have you had eye surgery? Did it make the problem worse?

I have an appt with an optometrist next week & will get a referral to an opthamologist that someone recommended.

Any information would be helpful.

Thanks
C

I'm not answering your question, I'm afraid - but have you tried contacts? I wear contact lenses for all sports, wear glasses at home and at work if my eyes are tired. I'm very near-sighted in one eye and somewhat near-sighted in the other. I use contacts that last 1 month, sometimes dailies if I'm on a hiking trip.

Umm i'd get contacts but the poor optometrist had a very hard time going near my eyes to see if i was suitable!

I thought about asking on my next visit about permanent contacts. I don't like anything near my eyes..

C

Oh, right. Just wanted to pitch in, because once you get used to them you really don't notice them. I find glasses a lot more irritating, because of the smaller field of view!

I considered eye surgery once, but it scares me a bit, plus it's expensive...

I'm not a good candidate for total correction with surgery. About 8 diopters in both eyes, with serious astigmatism. I'm well on track for needing bifocals by 40. I'm also not-quite-phobic about things near my eyes, so contacts are out.

I know several people who've had corrective eye surgery. They all seem pleased with the results. They also did a *lot* of research before getting surgery. They had much better vision to start with than I do. And they got the surgery in the prime window of 20-30.

Lph-Yes the price :eek: for one eye scares me :eek: We know it'll cost a bit and that's why i've put off looking into it but Ian's encouraged me to reconsider.

Torrilin-Thanks for your reply & have to agree that i need to do a lot more research.

I'm wondering if i should pay a visit to the medical library at UWA...If i go I might never want to leave...ahhhhh..libraries...:D

C

I have not had eye surgery b/c I have an astigmatism and am not a very good candidate, but my older sister and my father have both had it, with great results!!

They were both pretty much blind without glasses, my older sister wore bifocals. Now she doesn't wear anything at all. My dad still needs reading glasses for some things, but he can get away with the glasses you buy at the drugstore now.

If you go to a good eye surgeon(opthamologist?) you will have nothing to worry about(except the price).

My husband and I have both had eye surgery - he had LASIK and I had PRK. They're very similar, but my corneas were too think for LASIK, which is why I had PRK. I did do a little research, though not a ton. I just picked a doctor/hospital that I respected (which meant that I probably paid more than if I'd gone somewhere else, but I firmly believe you get what you pay for!) and everything worked out well.

Here's a link to my blog post just after my surgery that gives you an idea of how I felt afterwards. It sounds scarier than it was, and I believe you can get the doc to give you a mild sedative if you're overly anxious about having him touch your eyes.

If you have questions that I can answer, let me know. I don't have any regrets and I love not having to wear contacts or glasses!

Raleighdon had the surgery and he LOVES LOVES LOVES life without glasses. Okay, he's 56 and sometimes for close up stuff he needs reading glasses; but for everything else; he can see EVERYTHING and well.
He suffered discomfort for a month after the surgery, and he had to go back for a tune up in one eye (they made him too far-sighted) but he happily went back and got the one eye fixed up. and it healed, and he's like a guy who never wore glasses; except sometimes when going to sleep he tries to take his glasses off.
kind of cute.. they're not there.

he started wearing glasses when he was a little boy.

he recommends it to anyone who is bespectacled.


good grief, CC, you are like me! (I re-read your post) if you are far-sighted in one eye, why are you wearing glasses? I am 20-20 in one eye and 20-200 or 400 in the other.
I do not wear glasses except for computer work and reading (I'm of the age you know)
I took the driving test w/o glasses, was told i did not need to wear corrective lenses if i have one good eye. I pass the test just fine.
I can't be an airplane pilot (don't care) and don't have depth perception, but my lazy eye does almost nothing so why correct it? it's great for closeups.
I hope this different perspective may cast some light on your situation.

I have the same "setup" (left eye amblyopia + myopia in the right one). The lack depth perception is a consequence of the lazy eye and will not be corrected by the surgery.

CC - apart from the Lasik surgery, which I'm considering myself, can't you get your lazy eye corrected? I thought they normally did that when you're a kid. I remember my sister having it fixed when she was about 4-5....

it depends. you can teach the lazy eye to work and then a few years later; it gets that way again. Mine didn't appear until i was in my teens. There was a fight for dominance. I think it's cool to have an eye for all reasons; except 3.5 feet from my face.. :(

CC, can't help you at all but just let you know that my sister had the Lasik surgery done. She would fumble for her glasses when she woke in order just to make it out of bed. She had to wear some special correcting glasses for like a month after surgery and she had it done about a year or so ago. She only has to wear glasses when she does close up stuff at work. She recommends this to all. I also wear glasses and am a CHICKEN when it comes to doing something electively. I could spend that money on a bike, get some great accessories and a new biking wardrobe for what the surgery costs. (we all have our priorities don't we?:D) I wear contacts when I do biking or x-c ski so that makes it easier for me.

I wore glasses for years, and had worn contacts for a long time until I got into my forties, and needed bifocals.I had LASIK surgery a year ago in April, spent $5000 to have top-of-the line surgery, and did not have good results. Afterwards, any middle distance vision I had before was destroyed, and the 20/20 long distance vision lasted less than a year. I spent months waiting for my prescription to stabilize, and now wear trifocals. It was a waste of time and money, and my BIL had to have cataract surgery less than 1 year after his LASIK disaster.

I would advise anyone considering it to do a LOT of research, and realize that it is a huge profit maker for these surgeons.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kelownagirl

CC - apart from the Lasik surgery, which I'm considering myself, can't you get your lazy eye corrected? I thought they normally did that when you're a kid. I remember my sister having it fixed when she was about 4-5....

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When caught early (before 9 years of age?), like in your sister's case, the "good" eye is covered so that the lazy eye is retrained. My case was caught relatively late, when I was in primary school, and I cheated (removing the patch) to read... In adults, there is some controversy -- most ophtalmologists will tell you there is no chance of retraining, a few suggest that it might be possible, after a long time. I guess it may also depend on the cause of amblyopia. Many cases are due to strabismus, some are caused by other problems. In my case, it seems my left eye was farsighted. There is some ongoing research about retraining in adults, e.g. professor Zhong-Lin Lu, in USC's Laboratory of Brain Processes (LOBES).

The reason I have not had LASIK is that I don't like even the low risk it presents -- I rely on the one eye that would get the surgery.

THanks for all your replies.

We found out about the corrective patch for my left eye about 2yrs too late..

I'll see what info i can dig up round here.

I'd be going to the Lions Eye institute here in Perth...

C

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pll

When caught early (before 9 years of age?), like in your sister's case, the "good" eye is covered so that the lazy eye is retrained. My case was caught relatively late, when I was in primary school, and I cheated (removing the patch) to read... In adults, there is some controversy -- most ophtalmologists will tell you there is no chance of retraining, a few suggest that it might be possible, after a long time. I guess it may also depend on the cause of amblyopia. Many cases are due to strabismus, some are caused by other problems. In my case, it seems my left eye was farsighted. There is some ongoing research about retraining in adults, e.g. professor Zhong-Lin Lu, in USC's Laboratory of Brain Processes (LOBES).

The reason I have not had LASIK is that I don't like even the low risk it presents -- I rely on the one eye that would get the surgery.

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Yeah, amblyopia is something that needs to be caught early--the age that seems to stick in my mind is 7. I had/have it as well, due to strabismus. At least in the case of strabismus it is very obvious so it was caught very early (I was totally cross-eyed as a baby) and I had eye muscle surgery at the age of 10 months, as well as having to do the patch thing off and on for a number of years to make my left eye do its share of the work; I also wore glasses all the time from the age of 10 months until I was in high school. I still do not have normal binocular vision (brain doesn't fuse the images from both eyes properly, so the right eye is definitely the dominant one) but the vision in the left eye is about 20/50 and the right is 20/25 or 20/30 so I only wear my glasses now for driving (and legally I don't have to). However, I seem to compensate well for my rotten depth perception other than the fact that I have always been horrendous at sports that involve catching, hitting something out of the air or throwing!!!

Jolt-I think binocular vision is what I am looking for...I can relate to what you said in your post.


C

I know several people who have had the surgery and it was very successful. But, they had simple nearsightedness. I am nearsighted, with a pretty significant astigmatism in my left eye, and now, of course, i need reading glasses. I started wearing contacts at age 24 after getting glasses when I was 8 (which I didn't wear full time until my early twenties). At first, i had a lot of trouble with the soft lenses, but they have improved so much that I don't even know they are in. I wear the kind that last for 2 weeks and then i put a new pair in. I do take them out at night for sleeping. Also, I was not able to wear the toric lenses that correct the astigmatism, so the vision in my left eye is a bit less than 20/20, but i deal with it. I wear reading glasses over my contacts and I have a pair of bifocals for emergency,or at night if i am reading in bed. So, I don't think any surgery would help me! I also have absolutely no depth perception, which has precluded any career that involves mechanical ability, or any sport that requires eye hand coordination. In fact, it has affected my cycling in that I still cannot judge corners well, especially at high speed, so hence, I often am the slug descending, even though i can climb fairly well compared to the others I ride with. I just started using my drops last year and i still can't descend in the drops, not because I can't reach the brakes, but because everything looks and feels different and if I combine that with terrain that I am not sure about (hills with twisty descents), and speed, it totally scares me.
I wish there was a surgery for depth perception. I would love to be able to look at something and understand how it works, how something is put together, or how to fix something.

I visited my optometrist last night and asked him what the possibilities were for eye surgery etc. I was told the following.

1-I have a turned eye, not a lazy eye!

2-A patch or even behavioral optometry wouldn't be a best option for me.

3-This one's a bit more complex. If i wanted to improve the eyesight & turned eye, two surgeries would have to be done. Also, lazer surgery would be first, then the muscle surgery on my left eye. He stated that the vision would change even more if the muscle is operated on first.(or soemthing like that!)

There's only one surgeon in Perth that does the muscle surgery so this should be interesting!

The optometrist is referring me to the clinics & i shall find out more...DOn't know anything about the cost...:eek:

I shall keep you updated

C

Yikes! Good luck, CC. Anything with the eyes is so scary, as we only have two to start with!
I've had glasses/contacts for 40+ years now. Can't even imagine what it'd be like to see with unaided eyes.
Eye surgery has come a long ways. Just be sure you find an experienced and trusted surgeon before you do anything.

Annie