Glasses / Vision
2016 02 20
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I've been wearing glasses since I was two years old, bifocals since grade school, and while we used to have to send to the U.S. to get them made because they didn't make the lenses I need in Canada, getting glasses has never posed much of a problem - until now. For some reason, and I have no idea why, no one makes the kind of lenses I need anymore. I can't even get thick Coke bottle lenses anymore. No one will make the magnification I need with the bifocal power I need. Either I go a contacts and glasses combo, or I get two pairs of glasses. Neither of these things is a workable option for me.
Contacts irritate my eyes, and even wearing them I'd still have to wear glasses because the prescription strength can't be attained with contacts alone, so there's no point. My eyesight is so poor that were I to drop a contact, I'd never see it again. Two pairs of glasses, one with just the bifocals for reading, is also not tenable, because of my heavy dependence on them - I'd be switching glasses every few minutes throughout the day, and that's just a monumental pain in the ass.
I do not, absolutely do not understand why - after decades of no problem - that now I have a problem. After the fourth or fifth lab telling me they can't help me, I actually started crying in the mall. I had to go find a place to hide where no one could see me.
I am so at a loss I don't know what to do. I was so looking forward to having a new pair of glasses, and it might turn out that I might not be able to have them, ever.
* * *
After a brief conversation with yet another optician today, now I know why no one makes my lenses anymore - the miracles of laser surgery and lens implants, neither of which are an option for me. Because there is simply a microscopic need for what I need, no one keeps the grinders that make the lenses I need, and the computerised technology isn't equipped for it. Progress in treating cataracts, which has cut down on the need for entire labs that did nothing but cataract-related stuff, has rendered the handful of folks with needs like mine, screwed.
And before anyone asks:
1) Laser is not an option: I no longer have the cataracts I was born with, so there's nothing to laser. A hole was bored right through the cataracts/lens in order to let light into the eye. The upshot, is that I won't get them again, so I've been told. My vision won't get worse, at least not for that reason.
2) Implants are not an option: With the current technology that looks into the eye to see what's going on in there, it can't see into my eye to find out what's going on in there. Because of that, they can't even find out if I'm a candidate or not, and the only option would be to open up the eye and take a stab at it, which, to be blunt, no thanks. Also, my doctor says that given the length of time I've lived with the vision I have, he doesn't think my brain could retrain itself sufficiently to make use of implants. I could end up with double vision, or worse.