With everything else that’s been going on, I forgot to tell you the MOST EXCITING NEWS EVER about my new eye doctor. I know, you thought today was going to be a boring old Monday and here I am with this SCINTILLATING story. Because everyone knows that eye doctor visits are the stuff legends are made of! Yes!!
Okay, maybe not. But I did go to a new eye doctor.
I hadn’t been in over three years, if you don’t count my last few sorry attempts to wear contact lenses. I figured I’d learned my lesson that score, anyway; I just wanted to get an updated prescription and some new glasses.
I picked a nearby optical place I’d heard good things about, and went in for my appointment. It didn’t start off well; someone called my name and brought me back into a room and started adjusting things and telling me to look here and look there and give her my glasses, and she never introduced herself. I am definitely becoming southern because I was kind of offended by that. Bless her heart.
So this unnamed person who I assumed was the doctor I was seeing did some stuff and THEN she straightened up and said “Dr. Eyeball will be right with you!” and scampered off, so at least it wasn’t the doctor who was without manners.
I sat in the exam room for quite a while, trying to be patient. I checked my email on my phone. I played solitaire (also on my phone; it’s not like I spread out a deck of cards on the floor or anything). I read the posters scattered around and stared at the ceiling. Eventually Dr. Eyeball appeared.
She was very nice. She conducted the exam and informed me that my prescription had indeed changed a little bit, and I was right, my computer glasses aren’t strong enough anymore. I joked about how spending 12+ hours at my desk every day is probably not doing my vision any favors, and she assured me that my work habits have nothing to do with it, it’s just that I’m getting old. (HAHAHA. HA. Ha. Hmph.)
Then she said she needed to check my eyes for glaucoma. “Oh, do you use one of those air-puff thingies?” I asked, full of trepidation, because I’m the twitchy idiot who cannot keep her chin in the little cup for that test, because I really do not enjoy having a puff of air squirted into my eye.
“Oh no, we don’t do it that way,” she assured me. “We just use this meter!” She held up something that looked very much like one of those electronic forehead thermometers on steroids. “It measures the ocular pressure much more precisely.”
“And you… put that… in front of my eye?” I asked.
“We use a numbing eye drop, and then place it on the hydrating membrane,” she said.
“You are going to numb my eyeballs and then touch my eye with that,” I clarified.
“Well, sort of,” she admitted. “But we only touch it to the outer membrane!”
“I feel strongly that the ‘outer membrane’ is indeed PART OF MY EYEBALL, but okay,” I said.
She put in the numbing drops. They stung, at first, but then… then I felt like I was losing my mind. Because I could FEEL my eyeballs with my eyelids, but I couldn’t feel them, themselves. IT WAS CREEPY. And then Dr. Eyeball was putting that thing DIRECTLY INTO MY EYE SOCKETS and I couldn’t feel it, not really. I mean, I could feel a little pressure, I guess?
OH MY GOD, you guys, I just figured out what it felt like. It was like she gave my eyeballs an epidural. FREAKY.
Anyway, my eyeball pressure is exemplary (go, me!) and I was dismissed to go out to the optician area to look for some new frames. Except I still couldn’t feel my eyeballs, and my eyes were all bloodshot (possibly because she’d just drugged them and them beaten them with a glaucoma stick thing), and every time I shifted my gaze it felt weird, and every pair of glasses I tried on, I was all, “I can’t tell! My eyes feel weird! I can’t move my eyes! I mean, I can, but they’re WEIRD FEELING! WHEN DOES IT STOP??” After about ten minutes it wore off, thank God.
I found one pair of frames I liked. Of course, I needed a second pair, because I need a regular pair and a computer pair. So as I continued looking I mentioned to the optician that I’ve never been able to tolerate contacts but I really wish I could. Dr. Eyeball was passing through when I said this.
“Have you ever tried dailies?” she asked. I shook my head. “Oh, you should! I can get you some samples. Come back over here when you’re done.”
I tried on every pair of glasses in the place and finally agreed to order the one pair I’d found, and to wait for some other frame the optician thought I might like to look at for my other glasses. The total on the first pair caused me to have a small aneurysm, but I bravely went back into the exam room to potentially spend even more money, anyway.
“You’ve worn contacts before?” Dr. Eyeball asked.
“A few times, but I never tolerate them well. I have really dry eyes.”
“Well, I think you’ll like these. The trial packs come with five pairs, but I think you need at least a week to see how you do, so here’s ten days worth. Go ahead and put them in.
I inserted a pair and let her check my eyes and then went on my merry way.
It turns out that I can very nearly tolerate the dailies. I can wear them for about 12 hours, which isn’t 16, true, but it’s pretty good. Certainly that’s a useful thing for those occasions when I would like to shed my regular specs. So I went online to price out the dailies and try to figure out how many I’d want to order, given that I don’t plan to wear them every day.
I think the idea behind the dailies is that they justify the higher cost by saying, “But you don’t have to buy solution for them! So really, this is the same price, practically!” And really, it would be more honest for them to say, “But you don’t have to buy solution for them! Or pesky bits of gold leaf! So when you just buy these, really, it’s the same price as all of that!” The dailies are expensive, is my point. But I’m not going to wear them every day, so I used my deal-finding powers and ordered three months’ worth (which will be, for me, a year’s worth) online, the day after I bough the first pair of glasses.
Then the next day I went back and bought a second pair of glasses. I didn’t like the frames the optician wanted me to look at, so because I am incredibly boring and really liked the frames I’d already picked, I just had them order me another set of those in another color. Done.
So, I have two new pairs of glasses and a year’s supply of contact lenses. Now I just have to hope I don’t die any time soon, because I spent all of the money I was supposed to leave to the kids. And I still need some decent non-prescription sunglasses.
My eyes are complicated.
I can NOT handle the air puff glaucoma test. I say, “Thanks, but I’ll just get glaucoma.” I always move. The weirdest was my Lasik surgery. W-eird. They numb your eyeballs, then place little holders on your eyelids while they cut & burn you with a laser. So freakay it’s not even funny. Except- BOOM! I could see. Awesome.
This is not a good time of year to be trying out contacts, especially if you must be outside. I’ve worn contacts for 2/3 of my life now (yikes that’s a long time) and I have trouble wearing them during pine pollen season – I try not to go outside for a couple of weeks here in the spring, or I end up crying in at least one eye.
I just got new glasses last week. And I blogged about it. What can I say….I live an exciting life. ;o)
I had the pressure test glaucoma thing done a few years ago; weird, but better than puffs of air. I’m very nearsighted, and am at the age where my vision is IMPROVING because of that whole age-related farsightedness thing.
Between the gas-permeable contacts and the no-line, extra lightweight not-glass lenses, special scratch and glare resistent coatings, I -want-cute-frames-for-a-change (even though I wear the glasses on average twenty minutes a day) frames on my bifocals…let’s just say that even after insurance, I have an annual heart attack.
Which reminds me, I need to schedule an appointment.
Its so hard choosing glasses. And thanks from me too as i need to also make an appointment!
every pair of glasses I tried on, I was all, “I can’t tell! My eyes feel weird! I can’t move my eyes! I mean, I can, but they’re WEIRD FEELING! WHEN DOES IT STOP??â€
You must be their Very. Favorite. Patient.
They’re probably still talking about you. :)
Glad your eyeballs are taken care of!
The eyeball-numb is the worst maneuver EVER. I’d rather be air-puffed! But really, I’d rather just have perfect vision so I’d never have to go back to the eye doctor again :(
I spaz at the glaucoma test thing, too – but I think your thing sounds worse :P I should really look into the dailies, because like you I don’t tolerate contacts well, but every so often I would really prefer them. (Including long-term driving – I find winter worse, actually, because of the snow glare, and because prescription sunglasses cost the earth, and of course I don’t have any).
(I wish I had super Canadian Deal-Finding powers, because I can’t just piggyback on yours with that whole “different countries” nonsense!)
THe numbing eye drops TOTALLY freak me out. When I was in high school, before all the air puff things, they did the drops and push on your eye as the standard. When my eyes were numb I started to feel really light headed and bent over a bit to try to get blood back into my brain….and I fainted and totally rolled out of the big chair and onto the floor!
Evidently it’s fairly common for people to freak out and faint. A standard fight or flight response of some kind. You never know how much you feel your eyes until it seems like they aren’t there!!
I laughed so hard at your numbing experience only because the same thing just happened to me and YES…FREAKY it was. I can’t do contacts because of this problem I have with blinking. It takes 3 people to put drops in my eye (my Dr. Eyeball can vouch for that). I’m so glad you (we) can see now! Oh and same reason why your prescription changed is the very same reason why I have glasses now. It sucks getting old(er).
I keep tossing around the idea of new glasses. By tossing around I mean, “avoiding the inevitable cost of”. The glasses I have now are 13 years old. They look 13 years old. I can picture someone wearing them with a plaid shirt, Doc Martins and a Rachel cut. I keep seeing deals but I know when I finally leave the store I am going to have to take out a loan for them to thin out the spectacularly thick lenses (what is a “coke bottle”?) and adjust for the Mr Magoo prescription. It never ends up feeling like a deal. It really blows my mind that glasses/contacts aren’t covered by health insurance. What if no one bought their own and just fell over things? Probably more expensive, also probably not a protest I would get many volunteers for. Look at you though! Seeing clearly for a whole year or longer! I hope you see some really great things!
Watch out for Acuvue Oasys lenses. There’s a pending class action law suit against them for all the corneal damage and loss of vision that have been caused by those lenses… I have cornea scarring from them and had to give up wearing contacts for a year, after 20+ years of wearing contacts. If you do a quick google check, you’ll see tons of complaints against them.
Old contact lens wearer here… didn’t always follow the rules, but I never did sleep in them if I could avoid it (OUCH, that hurt!). So, these are dailies, but if you don’t wear them very often, could you not take them out and put them in solution to wear again? Are they really that thin that you wouldn’t want to do that? Don’t know a lot about them, but thinking about how to stretch the dollar.
If you picked the same frames for your regular glasses as for your computer glasses, how are you going to tell them apart?
Was their Wandy Thing of Eyeball Death tipped with a blue-glow-y donut? (Okay, yes, I realize how trippy that sounds.) Because that happened to me once instead of the puffer and I don’t know which is worse. Last time I asked if they could just put me under. He laughed, but really, it would be so much quicker for everyone involved.
I am laughing and crying and cringing. ALL AT THE SAME TIME. My eyeballs and I have issues. I wear glasses all of the time because my eyeballs FEEL like they are shaped wrong. YES, IT’S TRUE. Dr. Eyeball visits are pure torture for me. I can’t stand for stuff to be “pointing” at me. It hurts me physically even though it has to be entirely psychological. So, I can’t wear contacts because I wouldn’t be able to stand having something floating around on top of my eyeball all day (yes, I would feel them. YES I WOULD!) and that is IF I could actually get them into my eye…you know, the whole things “pointing” at my eyeballs really limits the amount of fingers near my eyeballs…
OH! Btw, the wrong shape thing is due to some ridiculously minor astigmatism that is barely there. Seriously. OH! AND! My oldest was diagnosed with Asperger’s and a sensory processing disorder and the whole ocular sensitivity thingy? Totally sensory. (I tell my son he’s welcome regularly. heh)
I can’t wear contacts well on account of dry eyes, just like you. I also have the dailies to wear for special occasions (like my wedding a few years ago, or Phillies games). My three year supply is still working now, 2 years later. Good luck!
If you want a really great pair of sunglasses, with bonus points for looking like a dork and utterly humiliating any teen girl who has to be seen with you, look at Cocoons. I can’t get out of bed without putting on my glasses, and I don’t like having to switch between multiple pairs when I need sunglasses. Cocoons slide right over my glasses, and block sun rays coming in from any angle.
Hate those air puffs, but I think I would prefer them to what you just had.
And HFA daughter worked at it, and learned to tolerate the air puff!
I can’t believe you’ve never had the numbing drops in your eyes before. I have had it done several times and yes, it is weird. I also am extremely blind which is getting more complicated as I get old and need reading glasses too now. Boo. But anyway, glad you found some contacts that will work for you even if they are equivalent to the cost of liquid gold. I’m pretty sure beauty is priceless. : )
What about that wonderful online-super-inexpensive eye glass website you told me about?!?!?!
Pretty much a lurker here, but wanted to know if you tried Costco for your contacts. My uncle, the eye doctor will get my husband’s contacts for us at cost, but it is actually cheaper for us to go to Costco.
Enjoy being able to see!
Oh…my eyes are watery and burning. ICK!!!!!
I can’t wear contacts. I have an astigmatism and my eyes are all wonky shaped and the contacts slide around….which makes them watery and burny. LOL
Congrats on the new specs and contacts!!!!
Oh I can’t wait to spend my kids’ inheritance on glasses! (Waiting for my second cataract surgery) I’m also hoping to be able to wear contacts. If you think YOU are a wimp when it comes to having things stuck into your eyeball, I’d like to introduce you to ME. I can’t even do eye drops without jumping out of my seat with fear.
I’ll take the numb-drops and the whatever-the-hell-it-is-they-mash-directly-onto-your-eyeball thingie any day over the air-puff. But it’s not like my eye-doc gives me a choice.
Last summer I came down with a case of iritis. (Try never to do this yourself.) The most annoying part – aside from the extreme ice-pick-like pain, the need to put dilating drops in my eyes twice a day, and the resulting need to wear dark glasses all the time – was having to have my eyeball pressure checked every week for a month. Feh.
My eye doctor had me try the dailies this year, too, and I HATED them. I felt like they were dissolving in my eyes by the end of the day, so I stuck with by 2-weekers. Best of luck to you with them! (And BTW, you know you’re only “supposed” to wear contacts 12 hours a day anyhow, right?)
I hate the dilating drops more than the puffs of air, but I think I would really hate the numbing drops and stick, ick!
Ever have the slit-lamp test thingy at the eye doctor? Not fun at all. They dilate your pupils first. And it lasts HOURS!! Hours of having ginormous (spell check knows that word?) pupils and even if it’s overcast you need to wear sunglasses… indoors. Then they shine a super bright light in your eyes and you can SEE THE BACKS OF YOUR OWN EYEBALLS!!! Without the benefit of a monitor or mirror or something like that. This is why I haven’t had my eyes checked in roughly 5 or 6 years. They always want to do that test on me.
Now, as for fun (cheap) frames, I recommend eyebobs.com, they’re reading glasses, but you can have your prescription put in them. They only cost $60 or so, so you can spend the real money on fancy coatings on lenses that are super light if that’s important to you. I have three pairs because I’ve started to view glasses as an accessory. I might as well enjoy them!
I hate it all, and thanks to both glaucoma and cataracts I have to go every four months and sometimes more. I’m supposed to have the cataracts out but until they find a way to do that when I am knocked out it will not happen! By the way, I’ve had good luck with glasses from Sears and they have incredible sales.
I had my eyes checked just last week. They’re giving me 10 days worth of sample contacts too!
I declined the glaucoma test – they wanted to do the eyedrops to numb my eyes but I thought it was too freaky. I’ll just run the risk of glaucoma, thanks. I asked Dr. Eyeballs and he said my risk was low anyway since I’m young (30) and healthy.
Just a quick note – while you *can* put dailies into solution to re-wear, be careful to only do this once or twice if you have dry eyes. Apparently the outer layer wears off and the surface is not kind on your dry eyes.
I actually had to switch back to monthlies (which has the coating on the inside so it doesn’t rub off right away and holds the moisture on to your eye better) after trying to stretch the dollar on my dailies because my eyes couldn’t tolerate them after awhile.
So REALLY, only re-wear a couple times! :)
I’m feeling your pain. I just spent the GNP of a small country to outfit myself with contacts and my daughter with glasses and contacts (dailies, of course). Thankfully, I have vision insurance – I’d hate to know what it would’ve cost me without it.
I am so very grateful for my site after this post.
My mother does have severe glaucoma though so I’m very happy you got that thing poked in your eye because it really isn’t a fun thing to have, especially if it gets bad before you start treating it….the way almost everything is I guess.
Anyway, is wearing contacts going to totally change your life? Other than the scary price tag, I feel like this is truly life altering and I don’t even wear glasses.
Sorry about the money, but happy for your eyes!
My spine is curling up into a ball and dying, now that I’m thinking about the pressure test. It’s so INHERENTLY WRONG to be able to FEEL YOUR EYEBALL WITH YOUR EYELID BUT NOT FEEL YOUR EYELID WITH YOUR EYEBALL, especially when you don’t usually realize you can feel either one until you suddenly CAN’T. Eye-yi-yi. (HA ha…. no? OK.)
However, this reminds me, I need to schedule a visit to my own Dr. Eyeball. Once a year I like to go by her office to get my eyes poked and dilated while I listen to her staff chortle at my terrible prescription. Yay!
Dailies rock! There are usually rebates when you buy a years worth. Did they give you the rebate forms?
I think you should’ve posted a picture so we could see the new frames!
My eye doctor does the drops and the “device” as I call it. The first time he pulled it out, he kept assuring me “You won’t feel it – because of the drops! They make your eyes numb.”
I think after the third time he said it I simply asked, “Do you have any drops that make it so I can’t SEE your strange little device there that I am supposed to just calmly let you stick in my eyes?”
Feeling it touch my eye is not a problem, but it looks like it could be used to pit cherries! NOT something for which I’m just going open my eyes nice and wide and hold still.
If you were buying for the kiddos, you wouldn’t hesitate at the prices. Well, you’d still look for deals, but it would feel “okay.” Remember, your glasses might last longer. You’re not growing any more!!
Read this aloud to my optometrist husband. He, too, hesitates to tell his patients he is touching their eyes for the glaucoma test. Mir, you crack me up!!! :)
@Jan (#6) – No, I am definitely the Very. Favorite. Patient. at the eye doctor because whenever they numb MY eyes, I go into full-on panic attack mode, complete with crazy sweating and nausea. It’s AWESOME.
To be honest, that experience is one of the major reasons I did not go for the epidural at my birth. I was more afraid of THAT happening (like it does every time I get anything numbed, like at the dentist or eye doctor) than of the pain of birth. And if that doesn’t tell you how crazy I am, nothing will.
Ooooooh the best thing about getting contacts is getting to show for really cool sunglasses!
Ugh, I hate my eyes. First, I go in to the optometrist, the one I’ve always gone to since I was a kid. He does the puff test for eyes, and my pressure is high.
“Oh, no worries! Come back in six months.”
Rinse, repeat FOUR TIMES! So. I have spent a fortune on getting six-month check-ups (basically just the puff test, except I’m paying for the full office visit) before I get fed up with this. Two of my grandparents have had glaucoma, and that isn’t something I want to mess around with.
“Oh, it’s highly unlikely you have glaucoma at your age. We just want to keep checking…” (which was 23-25 at the time, since it took me two years to figure out this guy wasn’t helping me. I think this actually meant, “We don’t really think you have glaucoma, but we are getting some good money out of you, so come back for the fifth time in six months anyway!”)
Yeah, and yet no.
So I decide to go to the ophthamologist instead, since my insurance actually covers real doctors (doesn’t cover optometrists, so I’ve been paying out of pocket for all these “check-ups”). I go in and they do a battery of tests on my eye, ending up with this one where they numb my eye with this yellow gunk (still digging that out of my eye hours later) and they poke me a few times in each cornea to determine its thickness (they determined my pressures weren’t off and my eye anatomy looked good).
Come to find out all I had was super-thick corneas. When the numbing drops wore off, my eyeballs felt as though I’d poked them each with a mascara wand (closest thing I’ve literally done that I can compare it with).
After all that, my eye doctor’s office closes, so I have to find a new one. They have to redo all the tests, not taking my file at face value, and then add a few more for fun. Guess what? Not only do you have thick corneas, but we know why you can’t wear contacts! Your astigmatism? Yeah, well it’s at a weird angle, and you’ll probably never find contacts to fit at that angle (not that I enjoyed trying to wear toric lenses anyway, since they always shifted whenever I blinked — now I know why — and they moved all around to the wrong position if I tried to lie down while watching television).
Oh, and? In addition to the thick corneas and your freakishly shaped eyeballs? You’re colorblind, too! (Yeah, so all those arguments with people about about “what shade of blue that shirt is” that ended with their telling me “it’s the purple shade of blue” or “the green shade of blue” means that I was just plain wrong. This is also the reason I don’t have dark blue or dark purple items in my closet, since I can’t tell the difference between them and black, so I ended up wearing navy blue with black or navy blue with purple, and let me tell you that people laugh at that.)
In the end, I moved to a different state and, well guess what? That doctor’s office wants to do its own tests, too, and doesn’t want to rely on the file I brought with me.
*sigh* and grrrrr… I feel your eyeball pain, Mir. I hate my eyes and how freakish they are and how much trouble (and money) they have caused me. (On the bright side: studies have shown that having thick corneas means I’m less likely to actually have glaucoma. Yay!)
;)
Little bird:
I call that long-lasting pupil dilation “anime cat eyes,” since you end up looking like you have gigantic anime-style pupils for a long time. ;) My husband’s wears off pretty quickly, but mine lasts for hours and hours. I always end up wearing sunglasses indoors and looking like a dork.
I’ve had both flavors of the glaucoma test and hate them both equally. However, there is a family history so I endure it every single time. Shudder.
I don’t know if I am the first person to ask – but can we see pictures of the new specs?
Happy new eye wear!
What ever happened to the super-cheap eyeglass frames online place? Don’t I remember you raving about $15 glasses a few years back? I ask in part because I am getting old and think that I need reading glasses….
I don’t wear glasses but I do get my eyes examined every year to be safe. Last year she noticed that my near vision needed a bit of correction although she didn’t think I needed reading glasses yet. She said the same line, basically, “Your eyes are fine, you’re just getting old!” (Or older, but I just heard old.) I was a bit miffed because while my hearing is far from perfect I’ve always had very good eyesight. I’m resisting reading glasses for a while longer though. At least I have long arms.
Oh, I really hope I don’t have the eyeball numbing thing next time I have an eye appt! I’ll go with the puffy air thing thank you very much!!
I have dry eyes and I suffered through contacts for years – then when I started working F/T from home (vs P/T), I just started wearing my glasses while I’m home working and my contacts for when I run out and then until nighttime activities are done (no, not those activities, the ones where I shuttle the various children around and try to get them fed and homework done at some point). This means I only wear my contacts for a few hours at a time during a day – 4-7 hours typically, oftentimes less if we have no where to go. This has helped DRAMATICALLY!! good luck with yours!
I can’t stand contacts, either. Heck, I can barely even stand to put on mascara (though I do still wear it from time to time). I have sensitive eyeballs that are somewhat prone to dryness, and I also just generally hate having things in or near my eyes and have a really hard time controlling my blink reflex when people try to stick things in there. Optometrists I’ve seen have generally act so surprised when I tell them this, like they’ve never heard that from anyone before. So it’s nice to learn, by reading your posts and the comments, that I’m not actually some freak of nature and lots of people hate contacts and these docs who acted like I must be crazy for not wanting to wear them were really probably just trying to upsell me. Heh.
“But I have special eyes!” I’m sorry, all I could hear in my head the whole time I was reading this was that stupid commercial…”Look, Look with your special eyes!”
Glad you discovered some contacts that you can wear a little at least. Good thing I have good eyesight, as just the thought of someone touching any eye makes mine water like someone turned on a faucet!
I have worn glasses every waking hour for 28 years, and every freaking time I have to go to the eyeball doc, they puff air in my eyes. I think I would almost prefer the numbing/pressure thing!
But on the subject of glasses, there are 2 websites I have ordered from. coastalcontacts.com has both generic and designer glasses starting at something like $25 including all the lens treatments for “regular” lenses, higher for higher index lenses, bi-focals and transitions, but still saved me $100 over wal-mart on my lenses alone (they also have contacts). They are located in the US, and delivery typically takes about 5-7 days. Oh, and for the canadian poster above, try canadiancontacts.com.
zenni.com has literally 3000 styles starting at $6.95 including all the lens treatments, and they are even cheaper on their lenses (saved me $140) and they have all the lens options as well, but they do not have any actual designer frames, just lots of “look-alikes”. Their shipping does, however take considerably longer as they are not in the US. I had my lenses on both my glasses and sunglasses checked out at one of the mall stores and they told me they were perfect. I now have 3 pairs of glasses, and 2 pairs of sunglasses for the price of one pair at the mall stores or one and a half pairs at wal-mart. Zenni is GREAT for extra pairs of kids glasses especially, because kids will always always always leave theirs at school/on the bus/ “lose” or break their glasses, and even if they have a warranty, it never fails that they do so exactly when you run out of money, or the stores are closed for the next three days.
The trick with all online glasses shopping is to go and try on frames you like, write down the exact dimensions of the frame, lense, bridge and arms, and look for the closest match you can find.