Daily vision changes

[jayuk]

Andrew

I agree with you totally.

In the run up to my graft, I hadnt actually used (or able to gain) vision in that eye, as it was some 18 month post-hydrop with a large central scar. In effect I couldnt see from it

Now POST graft I had to close my LEFT unoperated eye to actually see anything from that eye. When I wanted to see how effective my post graft vision was I couldnt get any kind of visual feedback, until I closed the other eye.

Over the course of of 6-8 weeks my brain got used to the switch, and with the glasses etc I now use the grafted eye.

I know that I will have to go through the same re-adjustment when I have the now UNUSED left eye.

its a funni old game!

J

[John Smith]

Hi Andrew,

Yes, you're absolutely right - the brain certainly does need a period of re-adjustment to new specs / a graft / whatever.

But I don't think the brain is that slow. Remember the experiment where someone is given glasses which turn the world upside-down? After a short while (2-3 days maybe) the wearer has no problems in navigating the world... until the specs are removed, then everything seems upside-down!

Now I'm settling in to these specs, they don't seem as good as the previous ones, judging by the headaches, anyway In fact, I find that vision is a lot better (insofar as I can read the EPG on my TV) when I move the specs so that they're balanced on the very tip of my nose

Unfortunately, that interferes with breathing and is rather uncomfortable. Not to mention that they fall off if I look down

I suspect that rather than being refracted traditionally, with the open frame and lenses being slotted in, I was inserted into this huge machine which rotated lenses in front of my eyes. I suspect that I was not close enough to the glass, so I have a perfect prescription... when my glasses are further from me than they ought to be.

I think I'll be back at the opticians on Monday!

Keep looking for beauty and you will find it.

A wonderful quote as always, Andrew. So true in many aspects of life

[Andrew MacLean]

All the best on Monday

Andrew

[Andrew MacLean]

John

I have thought further about your observation that people get used in a day or two to 'upside down glasses'.

So they do, but the image they see is not distorted in any way other than being inverted top-bottom. But while I was waiting for my second suture removal my eye was held in an artificially steep astigmatism and I never got used to the distortion. For that reason I was still legally blind in that eye until the last sutures were removed and things had settled down.

I'd guess that there were about eight months during which I saw the world look as if somebody had taken hold of it by the lugs and stretched it side-ways.

I know that in its struggle to make sense of the image my eyes were sending, my brain had a tendency to put into my field of vision things that turned out not to be there.

Sometimes, it was only when I touched an object that I saw it at all clearly.

You are right, John. some work has been done on the result of efforts to trick the brain, but we live or have lived with a longer term and more complex set of distortions.

Anyway, you continue in our thoughts as you keep trying to find a spec prescription that suits your current eyes. All the best on Monday.

When you get back to work, ask them to set you up with a G5 PowerMac. Give them the name of the Director of Sarcastic Comments and Withering Stares as a reference. I'm sure he won't mind, but maybe you ought to check with him first.

Andrew

[Paul Osborne]

John/Andrew,

Yeah give em my name, I have a fine line of emails that go:

you have been a bad bastard, don't do it again or I will take your accounts away etc etc

Best Wishes

Paul
---------
The "best wishes" bit is the important bit - cos it really winds people up.

Seriously though, I am of the view that if any new glasses give you headaches then they are not right. Your eyes/brain needing to adjust is fair enough but surely this should not result in painfull headaches.

Just my two pennies worth.

Paul

[Andrew MacLean]

John

I was thinking some more about your variable vision. Could it be that your astigmatism is changing as the day goes on, rather than your focus?

This would give you blurry sight and explain the headaches.

I'm not sure about your suture status. I have had all removed bar one that broke and wouldn't let go of my eye. I know that this sometimes shifts slightly and then its back to the optician for new specs. Gets expenisvie; all this renewal of glasses

Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

Andrew says that yet again I have put my finger on something....

Yeah, that's me; always plking my sticky fingers into places that don't want them!

I don't know, in any specialist sense, about the brain piecing together distorted signals, or adapting to new types of vision.
But I do sense that mine just has a hard time of it. that it takes it so much effort to read, for example. And I do wish I could see better, just so I could just sit down and *read* something, and not have to put so much hard work into making out the letters. I coudl go so much faster, read through so much more of my vast piles of stuff building up waiting for me to get through reading them. ANd have so much energy and brain power left for everything else in my life!
Oh, and I could be able to skim-read! What a luxury!!
Of late, it has become a real struggle to read through the racing results in the Racing Post. And I'm not, usually, trying to struggle them - rather, to look through and pick out anything interesting (like any particular horses I remember, or women jockeys winning races!) - and it is such hard work, requires a really good light to make out the writing at all, and is soooo sloooowwww!
ANd I'm sittin ghere, looking at a pile of trade journals I'm supposed to be reading....
..... it's this sort of thing that is what I find depressing about KC.

Another factor, that I also find: even when I can physically see something, for once, that's a different matter from interpreting it and responding correctly.
ANyone here read "The Strange Incident of the dog in the night time"? (If not, I can recommend it.) At one point, the narrator is shown a row of drawings of faces with particular expressions, but they mean nothing to him. (Maybe someone who can see the funny faces on here can work out te nearest matches?)
In his case, it's because of his ?autism. but someone who has having thier sight restored after a long time iwthout, or maybe getting some sight for the first time, wouldn't be able to understand visual cues like that either.
FOr me, it is bellringing! Most people who ring church bells keep intheir place with the other bells by watching all the ropes go up and down. I can only normally see at most half the ropes, so can't do this - I have to keep in place by listening hard and counting like mad. But even when I started piggybacking and could and did wear my right lens in the church tower, and so could for once see some of te bells I was following, and could stand and watch the ones just in front of me in the order, my poor brain couldn't unscramble the pictures it was seeing and turn them into useful information!
Rosemary

[Louise Pembroke]

Moorfields once made some glasses up for me and they said I probably wouldn't be able to cope with the distortion but I wanted to give it a go anyhow. Couldn't do anything for the left eye because that's at hand waving level. The right is normal with a lens but I think it's about 1/36 without, there's a fair degree of post graft astigmatism. I tried these glasses and even after a week it was the same problem, I felt drunk and giddy wearing them, especially when I moved my head and walked. So the only use I have for them is when I can't afford a bottle of wine...! [was a bit swimming pool like visually anyhow!]

[Andrew MacLean]

Rosemary

I didn't know you were a bell ringer! When visiting family in Cheshire I was taken to a bell tower and invited to pull one of the ropes: it was hrder than I had anticipated, both to pull and to remember when to let go!

I'd be hopelss at 'changes'. Not beause of any visual handicap, but because I'd be the fool who went shooting up into the loft because I forgot to let go of my rope.

Congratulations on having found a way to overcome your visual handicap so that you can enrich the lives of all who hear the bells.

Louise

I guess we all know the feeling of 'seasickness' while trying to get used to new specs. I think at one time I felt that it wasn't going to be worth the shilling!

Andrew

[Louise Pembroke]

I know, unfortunately this one wasn't going to adjust [as they suspected] no matter how long I wore them for, plus the vision was c**p.