[andrzejpw]

Well, although I've been denying it to myself, I may need glasses/contacts at the age of 17. :-/

Is there any way, short of laser vision surgery, that I can avoid contacts/glasses? Could my eyes get better somehow? My left eye is perfect(better actually), while my right eye is nearsighted. When they come together, my left eye overpowers, I guess, and I see just fine. Is there any help for me?

 

[gloco]

I've been wearing glasses since second grade...****ing sucks. Avoid wearing glasses if possible, try contacts. If your parents can afford vision correction, go for it, but don't go to one of those places that sees a lot of patients.

 

[andrzejpw]

Well, for now laser surgery is out of the question. Maybe after I make my first million

.

Are there any other methods to correct minor damage?

 

[fiddler]

Quote:

Well, although I've been denying it to myself, I may need glasses/contacts at the age of 17. :-/

You talk about it as if it's a rare abnormality... Tons of people have crap eyesight by that age. I have pretty bad eyes, but not as bad as some people I know. I switched from glasses to contacts a couple years ago and haven't looked back.

 

[andrzejpw]

Sure, lots of people my age have glasses/contacts, but well, I don't know how to explain this, but I just don't feel normal with an attachment. Sort of like putting an adapter to convert between 1/4" and RCA. Wow. I just wrote that.

 

[fiddler]

You don't feel contacts once you're used to them. Well, unless you have pink-eye, but let's save that story for another day.

 

[Squalish]

My eyes are naturally dry, and my eyes tear up painfully maybe thrice a day, so when I tried contacts, I didn't like them. Not only did it feel exactly like there was an eyelash perpetually in my eye, they teared up maybe 5x as much, and that resensitized me to the fact that there was a thing in the middle of my eye, eyes teared up, vicious circle, etcetera etcetera.

If you go contacts, good luck, they're just not for me.

If you're going to go glasses, make sure you have a current prescription(One prescription I had was so on-target that I tested 20/14 vision, and I could read small print on sheets of paper at 10 ft). Shop around for frames. If at ALL possible, get Flexon or something similar. These frames I have now look decent, have lasted me I think 3 years now, and can be driven over with a car. I can wrap them around my finger with difficulty, and they just spring back. I can't tell you the number of times I would have crushed these things if they weren't flexon.

Next, get scratch-resistent lenses and replace them every time you get an eye checkup(every 6 months for me). 6 months seems to be about the average time it takes for the moderately annoying scratches to develop, 1 year is when it gets annoying.


Alternatives:

There are several alternatives to laser vision surgery in development, and there are various grades of laser surgery.

Try this page for discussion of various alternatives to glasses/contacts:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/30/2031214

 

[Sol_Zhen]

You can exercise your eyes. Without glasses, change focus between near, medium, and long distance quickly and repeat for a couple minutes.

At the least, that will help you to not become too reliant on the corrective lenses. Relying only on the corrective lenses will lead to worse vision and the need for a stronger prescription.

 

[bong]

Quote:

Originally posted by fiddler You don't feel contacts once you're used to them. Well, unless you have pink-eye, but let's save that story for another day.

funny, i always feel my contacts. its not that they're uncomfortable, but i know its there. maybe its because i use toric lenses to correct astigmatism, i know these lenses cover a much bigger surface area than regular contact lenses.

anyway, there's lots of people that need vision correction at 17. and glasses are not necessarily a bad thing. once i got over the initial hump of needing glasses, i find i can easily accessorize and change my appearance. i have several styles of glasses, each for different moods and functions, ie: work, weekend, formal wear, etc.

and with contact lenses, you can change your eye color easily. however, they don't make them for all prescriptions, like mine for example...

 

[Hirsch]

Quote:

Originally posted by andrzejpw Well, although I've been denying it to myself, I may need glasses/contacts at the age of 17. :-/ Is there any way, short of laser vision surgery, that I can avoid contacts/glasses? Could my eyes get better somehow? My left eye is perfect(better actually), while my right eye is nearsighted. When they come together, my left eye overpowers, I guess, and I see just fine. Is there any help for me?

It sounds like you've been doing a lot of close work. Laser surgery (or even glasses) will only be a temporary fix, if that. You need to address the causes...which are likely to be in the way you read, posture, and other areas of vision. Best bet is likely to be vision therapy rather than surgery. You sound like you need to increase your binocularity, so that both of your eyes are working together, rather than suppressing the vision in the non-dominant eye. Find an optometrist who specializes in vision therapy (not one of the chains that does nothing but sell glasses). The exercises are pretty simple, if tedious, and are likely to do more long-term good than any of your other options, if you stick to them.

 

[andrzejpw]

Thanks Hirsch, that sounds quite interesting. Will this therapy actually improve my vision, or just prevent it from getting worse? Heck, if need be, I can do the exercises while listening to music.

 

[Hirsch]

Quote:

Originally posted by andrzejpw Thanks Hirsch, that sounds quite interesting. Will this therapy actually improve my vision, or just prevent it from getting worse? Heck, if need be, I can do the exercises while listening to music.

Hard to say. It really depends on why you're near-sighted in one eye. There are a lot of possible causes, and some will respond to exercise. At the very least, you should be able to get both of your eyes working together better.

 

[HappymaN]

Quote:

Originally posted by Hirsch It sounds like you've been doing a lot of close work. Laser surgery (or even glasses) will only be a temporary fix, if that. You need to address the causes...which are likely to be in the way you read, posture, and other areas of vision. Best bet is likely to be vision therapy rather than surgery. You sound like you need to increase your binocularity, so that both of your eyes are working together, rather than suppressing the vision in the non-dominant eye. Find an optometrist who specializes in vision therapy (not one of the chains that does nothing but sell glasses). The exercises are pretty simple, if tedious, and are likely to do more long-term good than any of your other options, if you stick to them.

I picked up my first pair of glasses at the start of this year, when I started University, and realised that I couldn't read the lecture theatre boards.

Hirsch, I was talking to an opthamologist who is a professor at my medical school, and he said that the development of my "short-sightedness" had nothing to do with how close I read, or how close I sit to my monitor/television.

 

[aerius]

My eyes decided to go all nearsighted way back when and I've been wearing glasses since I was about 9. I went from perfect vision to not being able to read the blackboard from the 3rd row where I sat in just a few months. My vision continued on a steady but slow decline until I was about 18 when my eyes stabilized. I've had the same prescription for the last 6 years now and counting.

Glasses are nice actually, the chicks like them which is always a plus and I find them to be better than contacts which I couldn't get used to. Something I learned the hard way. When getting glasses don't cheap out on the lenses and get the best ones you can. Cheap ones tend to have bad tolerances on the prescription which can give you headaches and dizzyness on top of not properly correcting your vision.

 

[wallijonn]

if you are having vision problems - computer screens are your enemy. switch over to LCD if you can. and do not look at your screen at any fixed distance. vary it. otherwise your eyes will compensate to read at that distance.

how far can you read a book before it starts to go fuzzy? that's the minimum distance for you to look at your screen. (do as far back as is possible).

if your left eye is perfect, then you need to put an eye patch over the left eye to force the right eye to strengthen. (like wise you want to put a patch over the right eye when using the computer).

you do not want to do laser surgery. what happens when you become 50 years old?