Early lens fitting after graft

[Andrew MacLean]

Way to go Rosemary

6/5

That's an amazing outcome!

All the best as you get used to your new lens.

Yours aye

Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

Thnks, Andrew.
I haven't had it in today - it was rather sore and sticky when I took it out yesterday, and a bit sore this morning, so I'm resting it for a while.
Can't help thinking of the last time I could read the bottom line on the chart - January 1980. Just got new lens from Keith Nelson (on Merseyside). He asked what I could read, and I read the whole chart without a pause or error.
Next morning the world was completely white with hydrops!
The eye is still changing, clearly, hence the arms being too short.
THe good news is that there is plenty of clearance between the eye and the lens, so scope for eye to change shape and same lens to fit still.
Bad news is that ASDA's only sell cheapo reading glasses up to +4........
... so if it changes shape and gets less short-sighted more than that, I really will need longer arms.
It's also getting more astigmatic as it gets less short-sighted - as if one axis is getting more long-sighted and the other isn't much.
The other thing is going to be getting used to it. The world looks so different from anything I've seen for, well, ahem! 28 years!! that walking round in them is very surreal.
I have to concentrate on not starting to feel dizzy as I'm walking along.
Have to see how that goes.
Rosemary

[rosemary johnson]

Well, The evil empire of WalMart (Hiss spit..... yeah, I know) is now richer to the whopping big tune of five quid, and I have a pair of reading glasses for the first time in my life.
Delivate purple frames, +1.50 correction.
Much easier to read paper, also screen on laptop so long as I learn to sit still (!)
Matching up labelled questionnaires to mail merged letters in office today now easier, even before the reading glasses. Hope with them that I can "just do it" in a way I haven't for ages.
My driends watching me holding things at arm's length are finding this very funny...!
Next will to see how eye changes shape from here on.
Rosemary

[Andrew MacLean]

Reading glasses? Did I ever tell you about my first encounter with them? I went into an optician to complain that they were printing the telephone book in a type that nobody could be expected to read. He suggested reading glasses. I objected that I couldn't possibly need reading glasses because I wore contact lenses. He told me that my lenses would be fine for distance work, but that I'd need glasses for 'close up'. I said that I thought it would be a far better idea if they just printed the phone book in a legible font. He smiled and said that the phone book was fine for people without presbyopia. Then he asked, "What do you expect at your age?"

I was only 36!

I said, "A bit of civility from opticians".

[rosemary johnson]

Oh dear!!
I remember all the comments that were made - many of them, to be fair, by him - when my dad first got bifocals.
The optician said roughly the same thing to him, but then he must have been nearer 50 than 40.
Errmmmmmm..... now I think about it, so am I................
Rosemary

[Andrew MacLean]

Rosemary

Do what I did; get those reading glasses that you use by peering at people over the top of the lens and frame. That way you create an impression of mild eccentricity.

Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

Oh, all reading glasses these days seem to be the thin, narrow, almost oval shapes (except a few narrow rectangles) that are easy to peer over the top of!
Mild eccentric?????? - don't think anyone who knows me will belise I'm a "mild" eccentric!
[I can just hear Ken laughing when he reads this!!]
Seriously, now.....
I put the new lens in on Wednesday, and wore it most of the day at work - much easier to match up labelled questionnaires and mail merged letters.
Eye felt quite sore when I took it out, and again in the morning, so put in the other one.
TOok the other one out when I got back from the field seeing Duke, and put the new one in to go out to meeting in the evening.
Very strange feeling getting used to dealing with reading glasses in meetings - putting them on to read agenda and handouts, etc, pushing them down nose to read posters on wall and see faces of people at far side of room, etc.
Oh well, will get used to it, I suppose.
Eye agin pretty sore by the time I got home and took the lens out. SOre again yesterday and today, so didn't put the new lens in yesterdaya nd won't today. Will ahve to see how it feels tomorrow.
Also been quite red at times, and getting misty - which seems to clear when I take it out and (try to) wipe away mucus.
I hope this is just hay fever.
Of course, one should expect to have to get a piece of someone else's eye, that has probably never had a scleral lens in before in his life, used to wearing lenses and build up the time gradually.
What sort of timescales did anyone else find for getting used to wearing lenses again after a graft?
Also, I noted coming home in the evening after the meeting that though the multiple ghost images round lights - street lamps, car headlights, traffic ights, etc - there are still huge haloes round lights, and they scintillate slightly. Not streaky, much, but like large bright clouds.
And the lights all feel very bright, almost painfully so.
Is this normal?????
Graft was 20 weeks ago.
Rosemary

[rosemary johnson]

Put new lens into grafted eye again yesterday to go to meeting in central London.
SO much for peering over top of them! - I'd been standing reading on the escalator at the tube station, looked up over top of reading glasses to look for the "way out" signs, then realised the lowered reading specs were just where I needed to look to see the steps disappearing intot he ground to jump off safely. Oops. Oo-err.
Found myself already wishing I'd got +2 rather than +1.50 - surely my eyes can't have changed that much in a week? - not with having a contact lens in just 4 times...... or is this a reflection on the overcrowded nature of London tubes and need to read at short range because of lack of space??
Without the lens, the ye seems to be getting ever more astigmatic - I'd thought it was getting less short-sighted because I was holding paper further away to read when lens-less, but looking at the Metro "Clockword" today, I worked out that the horizontal lines are in focus about 4" away and the vertical lines 7" away (was once 4.5" and 5.5" respectively). It is getting harder to read again.... not that I can't cope, or aren't reading faster than with other naked eye.
I also think the other, left, ungrafted eye is changing. I don't know if this is the (anti-hay fever) eye drops, the effect of overuse (having to wear the contacts all the time cos the one couldn't), or what..... but am getting quite a different pattern of double images from anything I'd noticed before.
I have one of those "coolie hat" lampshades in my hall. If I sit in my kitchen with the hall light on, and look up the hallway with my left eye lensless, the light looks like a whole fleet of flying saucers.
Similarly for car tail lights heading away up the road when I look out of the front window - there's a whole forest with each car. Siilarly street lamps, etc.
I'll obviously be asking about it at my next appointment with my new consultant. But meanwhile ahs anyone else noticed anything of the sort?
Still interested to hear anyone's findings with tolerance times for new lenses over graft. Am slightly concerned that the eye may feel OK with the lens in it at the time, but more sore the day after than I'd expect from the experience of actual wear.
Rosemary

[Andrew MacLean]

I think that the general advice that optometrists give is that you should not wear reading glasses when moving about. If you are reading a paper on the train, then wearing reading glasses and looking over the top of them to talk to your companion is pretty good; but, when you get up to leave the train, take off your specs.

It takes time.

My wife used to suggest that I get those string things that mean you never lose your glasses. I reckon that, at 58, I am still 20 years too young for that technology!

Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

Ah, flasses on strings!
Janet, who I do some temping for when she has a rush on, has reading glasses on strings. She says that is why there are so many pairs of reading glasses about the office with one arm broken off - she keeps getting the string caught on things and breaking them.
I do have a string for one of my pairs of sunglasses - originally to hang them round my neck, but more often used when I'm riding, tied up in a knot round the back of my head to stop the glasses sliding down my nose when the horse trots (shies, slips, etc etc .... or just sliding in the sweat on a hot day like today).
What I more often do with my (other pairs of) sunglasses is to push them up onto my forehead - I'm regularly to be seen walking round all over the place with shades up on my forehead! I've been doing that with the reading glasses too - and trying to remember not to, because they are a different shaped from the sunglasses and when pushed up onto my forehead the glass tends to rest on my skin and/or hair and get hot and steamy at least, and likeky sweaty and smeary.
The next excitement will be going to the races on a sunny day - I'll have dark glasses, and reading glasses so I can read the form in the Racing Post as I watch the horses parading before their races - and a big pair of binoculars handing on a strap round my neck. If the reading specs are on a string too, I can foresee a cat's cradle developing!
Rosemary