We’re not sure whether it’s a WP problem or our problem, but at very least she (Lynn knows database stuff as well as the site stuff: we can’t even run Excel) is onto something to investigate…and this means the month of work may not be for nothing, after all.
Jane took the morning off to enjoy herself.
I went off to the eye doc and got a clean bill, finally. The iritis is gone and I’ll be able to wear my contacts by about Friday. The sinus situation is ongoing, but is responding to Mucinex and a decongestant. I have also resolved to get a pair of glasses that corrects for distance and one that corrects for reading WITHOUT my contact lenses. I would have been far less miserable these last nearly 2 months if my glasses weren’t add for wear WITH the lenses.
I’ve been wearing these http://www.superfocus.com for about 2 years now. They’re revolutionary. They’ll change your life!
Those are real neat, and thanks so much for the link: I’ve put it in my computer memory, just in case my eyes get worse than they are. I wish I had the funds to ‘speriment with them, because they’re a great idea. But I’m also such a wimp I get real ouchy from frames of any substance. I wear things that are all wire—they look like they came from the drugstore, there’s so little structure (but they’re memory-metal, so they bounce back even when I step on them, and I have been known to sit on them, bounce them off the pavement—fortunately my stepping on this particular pair has been only once, on the carpet. Am I a klutz? Yep. I also need new lenses because I scratched one, and the scratches are NEVER somewhere it doesn’t matter…
When you get your eye RX for the glasses, make sure you get your pupilary distance… Zenni Optical (http://www.zennioptical.com) has great inexpensive frames and lenses. I have specific pairs of glasses that are Driving/Instrument panel (computer) bifocals, Computer/Reading bifocals, and Reading only. Each pair is juuust right and keeps me from having to deal with Trifocals. (http://www.zennioptical.com/prescription)
Alas, due to the flatness of my face and the peculiarity of my vision, I can’t use bifocals. What I can do is try to get as general a prescription as possible. For instance my reading glasses can sometimes work for the telly…not always. Driving, I’m getting to where a distance prescription might help. But it entails several pair of glasses, each for a specific kind of use. I prefer halfmoon glasses for reading, so I can look up and over the rims, making them function as a sort of bifocal, if I let them slip down my nose—the Ben Franklin look; and I prefer large lenses for driving so I don’t have to look down a tunnel of correction and get smacked by an idiot lane merger outside my frames.
I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do the monovision with my contact lenses. One eye is for reading close, and the other eye is for distance. I’ve done it with my glasses too, and it works fine for me.
My eye doctor says that a lot of people will get a headache from that though. I guess it doesn’t bother me because my right eye has always been wimpy and has a significant astigmatism. So my brain’s gotten used to not seeing all that well with it, and has easily adjusted to using it for reading.
Honestly, I often forget that I need reading glasses unless I need to look at something really close, like the new national park quarters, or something. I’m glad because I hate bifocals… that awkward angle of looking makes my eyes and neck hurt.
Oy, that sucks! With my Astigmatism I learned that I needed smaller lenses so that I have to turn my head to look. Otherwise I get nauseous and roaring headaches.
Mine isn’t that bad, though a muscle defect literally makes walls (and roads) curve upward on one side. I’ve had that since childhood, however, and simply switch vision in one side ‘off’ if I get an unstable image. What the brain can learn to do is amazing. First time they tried me in monofit contacts, they were so worried about my balance, and walking off curbs—ha! I took to it like a duck to water. I don’t normally see in 3-d, and when I finally got glasses to compensate so I COULD have 3-d vision, I made the mistake of wearing them at a window seat during takeoff. Whoa! Fascinating, but! And I was real excited to watch telly with them for the first time…but was quite disappointed to find the tv set itself 3-d, and more interesting than the flat pic on the screen. I eventually gave up on the glasses as problematic.
But this is why I do not go near balconies or other edges. The instability in my visual universe can make me fall if I’m startled into an injudicious glance…I once fell off a very tall sand dune because I didn’t look to my bad side on the climb, didn’t realize I was trekking up a wall-edge, looked, lost my balance, and I and a heavy Polaroid camera must’ve rolled for a block and a half—dunes are BIG. 😉
I’ve worn glasses for ~60 years, with never any desire to have to poke at my eyeball, if’n you know what I mean.
Having a pair of distance/driving glasses was fine for driving, but not so good when I got somewhere and had to fill out some form or other, or wanted to read the newspaper when out to lunch. Reading glasses were fine too, for reading, maybe walking around. But it got to be too much having to have two pairs with me at all times.
I decided something in-between would work for me, say a focal length of 2m, rather than 0.5m or infinity. On a visit to the eye doctor I asked for it and was told they could only do reading (0.5m), “terminal” (1m), or driving. They adamantly refused to set it at 2m. I told them we had no more business with each other and took me to an eye doctor who could and would set it to 2m, and it’s been a fine prescription ever since. Just a bit too strong for reading, but my arms aren’t too short yet. A bit too weak for plane spotting or impromptu astronomy, but for general everyday getting around, just fine, thank you very much! My new eye doctor says it keeps my eyes adjusting enough that my prescription has changed little for presbyopia.
Perhaps you should consider it, given the effect of “half-focal lengths” as used in photographic lenses.
Oh, bifocals were OK, but the only ones I would take were the “half and half”. The “peephole” ones would have made my neck swivel too much. My brain rejected the lineless, gradient lenses. No more bifocals!
You may be like me, flat-cheeked, with a ‘down’ that just requires too much strain and effort to be practical.
I’ve been in trifocals for years now, and they work great for me. I spend so much time at the computer for my work that I used a tape measure to find the eye-screen distance so the middle “focal” would have the right Rx, and had the middle “focal” made a little taller in vertical dimensino. I’ve now gone to no-lines (got them at Walmart — tried them on your recommendation) and I’ve been delighted with them. But guess what! I still read with my right eye only, and read better with no glasses. Since I have such a disparity between eyes (L 20/40 versus R 20/400 — What chart?) I figure it evens out the work load to read without my glasses. Because of the disparity in vision between eyes, I have to go to plastic lenses, because a glass lens for the right eye won’t fit in the frames! (and besides, they can’t get the right kind of Coke bottle any more. . . .) Even so, my glasses still tend to sit cattywompus — although not this latest, Walmart pair, I must say.
My eyes are like that too. My left and good eye is 20/650 and my right bad eye, if corrected to 20/20, is 20/900 or some such. For me, it’s more like “Chart on the wall? What wall???” *lol*
That’s the main reason I’m adamant about wearing contacts. My lenses are so thick and heavy (although better with the newer lighter materials) that it makes my eyes look like little pig eyes. *pout* Not my best look! Ok, so I do have just a wee bit of vanity, but also glasses are far less comfortable, even being lighter nowadays.
I did check out those superfocus glasses too. The idea is interesting, for sure, but dang! Those are some seriously ugly frames! Again, my wee bit of vanity wouldn’t let me ever wear such goofy looking things. They look like the old pilot’s goggles without the leather casing.
I think I could wear the style—I kind of really like the silver one—but for me the cost and the weight are a problem. The nose-pads always rest right on my sinuses, and even glass lenses make glasses heavy enough to give me headaches.
The silver ones are the ones I have. Regular glasses for me used to cost as much — or more — as these, so all it took was a slight windfall and I pounced. It’s really too bad you have a problem with glasses, though these are not particularly heavy. The great thing is being able to see EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME, switching seamlessly from computer to book to window to gardening to driving…
I had cataract surgery last year. Now I have nearly 20/20 vision after a lifetime of strong prescriptions. Remnant astigmatism, and of course the presbyopia, are corrected perfectly; the only disadvantage is having four surfaces to keep clean.
Naturally, no one tells me I look goofy (though I imagine some people think so); instead I get compliments on my ‘rad’ specs! Vanity be damned! I can SEE!
I’m guessing if my vision didn’t correct so well with contacts, I might put aside my vanity and get a pair of the superfocus lens, too. But thus far, using the pure vision lens which are a bit stiffer than the average contact lens, I don’t even have a problem with my astigmatism as the lens holds the right shape to correct for it, for the most part.
And yeah, I don’t imagine anyone would be so rude as to say they look goofy to your face. Actually, as to how goofy or unattractive they look depends a lot on your face shape. Some people actually look good with round lenses. My face however is fairly round and round glasses tend to make me look like an owl. So I stick with more the squarish lenses.
If they ever find a way to make them less round, I would consider getting a pair, although starting at $525 a pair, that is pretty darn pricey. I get my glasses from Costco and with 4 boxes of lenses and a new pair of frames with lenses, the total cost was less than $250, so that is significantly more than what I normally pay.
C.J., I wonder if having to wear glasses because of the iriditis has compounded your sinus problems?
It’s certainly a little more irritation.
Dragonrider Gal, my face is squarish, so I go the opposite route. I’ve found the Ciba bifocal lenses to be real nice; while I can’t wear bifocal glasses—and Lord knows I tried hard to adjust to them, and I tried the gradated ones too—(both resulted in my being neither able to read or to drive) —the contact bifocals, while NEARLY useless for reading, say, an article, ARE real good for telling whether a can of beans has onions in the sauce. About that much reading is as much as I can do with a bifocal lens of any type, but at least it gives me a way to know if I’m about to be fed something I’m allergic to.
So CJ, you would probably be one of the candidates for looking good in round lenses, that being the case. I think the best shape face for the round lenses is the more triangular narrow chinned face, but a squarish face should be just fine, too.
I haven’t tried any kind of bifocal lens though, since I can do the monovision so well. I just throw on a pair of cheap reading glasses if the monovision is too strong for really close up work. But with your allergies (since the bifocal lenses work for reading the small print on labels and such), I can see why those contact lenses would be so handy! That guaranteed level of vision would be good to have, as at a store, you might not have your reading glasses on hand, and it sounds like eating the wrong thing can really put your health/life at risk!
There is a new kind of progressive lens which my spouse says is far superior to the older style. I believe it has to do with the way that they are ground, either posterior vs anterior surface and/or pointille with a three-axis milling machine (which I have observed, vey cool, and it ends up looking like an orange peel until it has been polished even though you can’t feel any surface texture at all).