Archive for Optician

The eyes have it

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, Mental Health with tags , , , , , , , on November 15, 2026 by telescoper

Another thing that happened last week is that I had my eyes examined, it being just over two years since my last test. I always approach this event with some trepidation as in my experience it often leads to a new prescription and the consequent need to fork out a considerable amount of dosh on new spectacles. I wear varifocals as I have both astigmatism (which primarily affects long-distance vision) and the usual problem at close range for people of my age.

I’ve had the former problem for many years, but when I reached my mid-40s my short-range vision began to deteriorate rather rapidly, hence the need for varifocals, which are rather expensive but do work pretty well for me. Over the following decade or so every eye examination led to a new prescription, new lenses and new frames and a consequent reduction in my bank balance. Since I’m now an established member of the Over-Sixties Club I just assumed there would be steady deterioration from now on. That seemed to be the case in 2020 when I got new spectacles after a test.

Happily that doesn’t seem to have happened. Last time I went to the optician, in 2024, my prescription had not changed from the previous time (2022). In fact it has been stable since 2020. This time the only very slight change is that my long-distance vision has improved very slightly. I’m told that, even with their glasses on, many people can’t read the bottom line on the the Snellen chart and/or the Jaeger chart for reading. Happily I can do both. I am officially 20/20 with my spectacles on, which is very nice, as well as saving me some money!

Before the eye test itself I had a retinal exam which involved taking pictures of the back of my eyse. This wasn’t carried out by the optometrist but by an assistant, but the resulting photographs were delivered magically onto the optometrist’s computer screen and shown to me. It turns out my eyes are reasonably healthy. The pictures did, however, point out something I’ve known about for a while, which is that there is some unevenness in the surface at the back of both eyes and some signs of swelling of or near the optic nerves. The optometrist showed me the scan and pointed out these abnormalities, but said that it wasn’t anything to worry about as she thought it was historical rather than progressive. She said that such things sometimes occur in who have in the past sufffered some form of trauma to the head (which can cause increased pressure inside and so damage the back of the eyes). I have indeed experienced such a thing, 40 years ago.

Although I’d known about this issue for a while the optometrist made a new suggestion – that I should try to eat plenty of green leafy vegetables (such as spinach and kale). That’s not a problem for me as I like them and they are very nutritious. These vegetables, among others, contain lutein and zeaxanthin which are thought to prevent age-related degeneration of the macula (the region in the centre of the retina).

The optometrist also suggested that I should avoid direct sunlight* whenever possible. Over the years a number of people have remarked that I often have the blinds closed in my office during the day and much prefer subdued lighting; people have remarked on this when I do Zoom/Teams calls. Avoiding bright light in such ways was suggested by an optician some years ago, who suspected I might have some form of retinal damage but couldn’t see anything definitive with the technology available then. It seems he was right.

*Avoiding direct sunlight is not difficult in my office at Maynooth:

Leave a comment »

Eyes Right!

Posted in Biographical with tags , , , on October 17, 2024 by telescoper

Yesterday afternoon I had my eyes examined, it being two years since my last test. I went with some trepidation because for the past several visits to the optometrist have resulted in a new prescription and the consequent need to fork out a not inconsiderable amount of dosh on new spectacles. I wear varifocals as I have both astigmatism (which primarily affects long-distance vision) and the usual problem at close range for people of my age. Varifocal lenses are rather expensive but do work pretty well for me. Since I’m now a member of the Over-Sixties Club I just assumed there would be steady deterioration from now on.

Every time I go to the opticians they seem to have different kit and a different procedure, but this time – to my surprise – the result was the same as last time: no change in prescription and therefore no need to buy new glasses. It was good to learn that my vision is relatively stable. I’m set for the next two years, unless I lose or break my specs and need to replace them.

Before the eye test itself I had a retinal exam which involved taking a picture of the back of my eye. This wasn’t carried out by the optometrist but by an assistant, but the resulting photographs were delivered magically onto the optometrist’s computer screen and shown to me. It turns out my eyes are reasonably healthy. Indeed the picture of my retina has hardly changed since the one from two years ago…

5 Comments »

The Eyes to the Left

Posted in Biographical, Brighton, Mental Health with tags , , , , , , on October 1, 2020 by telescoper

One of the things I managed to squeeze in during these last hectic days was a visit to the optician. I hadn’t had my eyes tested since I lived in Brighton, probably more than five years ago, which is a bit long to leave it for one of my advanced years. Inevitably the test revealed that I needed new spectacles, though curiously one eye – the left – has changed much more than the other since my last test. My prescription has corrections for both astigmatism and myopia (short-sightedness) but these are both well corrected by varifocals, the type of glasses I have worn for some time. My new specs took just a week to arrive and I find reading much more comfortable wearing them than I did with my old ones.

I remember the first time I had to wear varifocals I found it quite difficult, especially looking down through the bottom half of the lens (which is where you are assumed to be looking when reading) as they make it difficult to judge the distance to the ground (or, more dangerously, exactly where the next stair is….). I found after a day or two I was used to the varying focus and now I think nothing of it.

Because it means that your eyes focus differently on horizontal and vertical lines, and that’s exactly how text is constructed, uncorrected astigmatism makes it difficult to read words and numbers at a distance. With varifocals you have to look through the top half of the lens, which is the bit that corrects the astigmatism, and move your point of view until you find the place where the optical performance is best. I’ve often found myself in the audience of a lecture moving my head in odd ways to try to find the best angle to read what’s on the screen. I hope it’s not too disconcerting for the speaker when I do that!

The most interesting bit of my visit to the optician however was that I had an optical coherence tomography scan which generate a three-dimensional picture of the back of the eyeball. I’ve never seen one of those before. Here’s an example (not me):

This type of scan can be used to diagnose things like glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, neither of which I have. In my case though it did reveal a significant level of unevenness in the surface at the back of both eyes and some signs of swelling of or near the optic nerves. The optician showed me the scan and pointed out these abnormalities, but said that it wasn’t anything too worry too much about as he thought it was historical rather than progressive. He said the only time he’d seen anything like that was in the cases of people who had in the past had some form of trauma to the head (which can cause increased pressure inside and so damage the back of the eyes).

I’ve blogged before about the long term effects on my mental health of the beating I experienced in Brighton over thirty years ago, but this was the first time I’ve seen such clear evidence of the physical damage that I presume was caused by that event. In extreme cases I experience periods of exaggeratedly heightened awareness of things moving in my peripheral vision that I can’t keep track of, accompanied by auditory and visual hallucinations. I’m not an expert but it seems likely to me that what the scan revealed may play a role in these episodes. It doesn’t explain why they seem to be triggered by stress, though, so there must be other factors.

Over the years a number of people have remarked that I often have the blinds closed in my office during the day, and that as well as that as well as being varifocals the lenses I wear in my glasses are reaction lenses (i.e. they go dark in bright light). Avoiding bright light in such ways was suggested by an optician some years ago, who suspected I might have some form of retinal damage but couldn’t see anything definitive with the technology available then. It seems he was right!

 

4 Comments »