Trying New Things

A while back I looked into getting Lasik because contact lenses were uncomfortable after a few hours due to dry eye, and glasses are just impractical when walking dogs in the rain or going to the gym. It took me ten years to pluck up the courage as I'm a bit sqeamish with eyes, but eventually off I trotted to the eye clinic with my loan offer all sorted for the fees so that I can do things quickly before chickening out. I get the eye checks done and find out that the only part of me that isn't too fat is my corneas. They are both too thin for Lasik and there's nothing I can do, there are no alternatives, I just have to live with being a speccy four eyes. ARRGGHHH... Fast forward a few months..{{{wibble wobble fast forward hands thing}}}.. I'm reading a magazine a few weeks ago and I read about something called Ortho-K. It's been around for a while apparently but no-one I've spoken to has heard of it. Why does no-one know about it? It's freaking awesome! Ortho-K: contact lenses you wear at night that correct your cornea so that during the day you don't need to wear glasses or contact lenses. And NO SURGERY REQUIRED! It's cheaper than Lasik but is of course more high maintenance. With Lasik you get it done and that's it. With Ortho-K you need to keep wearing the lenses at night to make sure your cornea is the right shape in the morning for clear vision. In New Zealand, Lasik costs $5800 to get both eyes done, Ortho-K costs $940 the first week when you get the lenses and fitting, then you have 3-4 follow up visits at around $200 each throughout the first year, all up it works out at around $1700. On Thursday I had my lens fitting and Friday morning I could see! When you're young apparently you get awesome vision after the first night, when you're an old fuddy duddy like me, it can take a few nights. I've noticed a gradual improvement over the past few days. The lenses are not the most comfortable thing to wear, but as you're asleep most of the time you're wearing them it's not normally an issue, and the first night was definitely the worst, by the third night (last night) they weren't too bad. If you've never worn lenses it will probably be quite unpleasant initially. In the morning you have to apply liquid tears to free up the lens as it suctions itself to the cornea over night (it's supposed to). Once it's freed up and moving, you have a little orange tool that you use to get it out of the eye - it comes out with a popping sound. :) For the first few minutes things are blurry, and then you realise you can see the pattern on the curtains on the other side of the house - RESULT! Driving to work without glasses or lenses made me feel as though I was back in my early 20's. It's so nice driving without the discomfort of lenses or the peripheral limits of glasses. My sight wasn't 100% perfect, but I could see road signs clearly a long way down the road. 8.30am on Friday was the first night follow up, and the sight test showed an improvement of 2 points, from a -3 to -1, plus the astigatism was also improved by 2/3rds. The legal limit for driving without glasses in NZ is -1.5. The optician gave me some -1.5 soft lenses for the evening as I'm pretty picky about having good vision for driving and your cornea does start to reset over the day, so by bedtime you're not as clear as first thing in the morning. The eyes should continue improving each night to get better and better vision, with longer last effects, some people report having improved sight for 2 days at a time, only needing to wear their overnight lenses on alternatte days. I will find out at the follow up next week just how much improvement we get over a week. It was fantastic going to Taste of Auckland without glasses or lenses, and even better was a really challenging hike on today around Waiheke Island unencumbered by glasses or lenses. If you're thinking of giving these a try, I went to OPSM at 185-187 Queen Street, Level 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthokeratology http://www.opsm.co.nz