New glasses, and rusty nails :-|

[urocyon]

Ingvar and I met up at the station on his way in from work, and we went to pick up the new glasses.

There had been some bizarre problem with his sunglasses, something about the level of extra-thin lenses he'd picked not working with the frame size. He actually stopped in yesterday to find out what was going on with them, and had to pick new frames for the sunglasses, because even the not-quite-so-high-index tinted ones wouldn't work in the initial frames. Still, he was under the impression that the regular glasses had arrived. As it turns out, they also had to switch his regular lenses for the not-quite-so-high-index ones, and they weren't there yet either. Too bad they didn't catch the conflict before sending the order off to be made up. At least that's £30 per lens refund due, IIRC.

Both of my pairs were there. After trying them on, I'm really not looking forward to putting them on in the morning as the optician suggested. I've been wearing glasses for 25+ years now, and this is the worst prescription change so far. It had been about three and a half years, and I wish I could find the old prescription to compare. (Naturally, Ingvar's old one is handily tacked on the kitchen bulletin board, and mine has been devoured by the Diopter Gnome.) In past, I've expected to have a headache, dizziness, nausea, and lurch around like a drunken sailor who hasn't gotten his land legs back, for about a week. That I was expecting, with the astigmatism changes in particular.

With these, wearing them for a couple of minutes made me feel like someone had jammed a rusty nail into my left eye socket, and a couple more into the cheekbone. (I just double checked that the sunglasses were the same, and it happened again!) Very unhappy muscles there. I am also having the problems with worse-than-nothing blurriness through the lens which changed a lot more (the left) as mentioned here; that person described the sensation well: "The right lens is perfect, but when I look through both lenses, it feels like some one just punched me square in the face." In a particularly nauseating way.

The left eye also feels like it's getting pulled toward my nose.



If the prescription is wrong, it's consistent between the regular glasses and sunglasses. There is no prism in either lens (at least, there shouldn't be), but that left lens feels horribly like the ones I got for strabismus when I was four or five, when an inexperienced opthalmologist freaked out at the way my eyes were tracking when he was treating a corneal dog scratch. He was worried about amblyopia developing because of the strabismus, and went on about the possibility of my going blind without swift treatment! (That still hasn't happened.) That is probably what got me so upset about these glasses, since that was such a miserable month or so that I still remember it--and my parents were afraid not to make me keep wearing the horrible glasses, in the face of migraines and vomiting. Finally, my mom took me back to see the practice's older partner, who just said, "Kids' muscle coordination develops at different rates. Ditch the glasses and [painful] exercises." I've still got some degree of strabismus. It apparently goes along with ASDs a lot, and is not really a problem unless I'm really tired and/or stressed. (Like in a doctor's office with someone staring into my eyes. :-| )

Now I am wondering if a sufficient cylinder and axis change might be pulling my eye, and if the strabismus (more noticeable in the left eye, which drifts toward the outside) may be aggravating the problem. Since kids with uncorrected/improperly corrected vision problems can show strabismus, I'm wondering if this might not have gotten worse lately because the prescription was way off and causing a lot of eyestrain and muscle fatigue; I have been noticing it more, but blaming it on stress. And now I might also be noticing the cylinder/axis changes more, with that eye wandering because of muscle fatigue? *scratches head* I never really looked into the intermittent exotropia before, since it's rarely been a problem (well, other than with depth perception and the like, but I'm used to that by now!).

Well, I did get into two fender-benders before I learned--definitely the hard way!--to compensate for the truly crappy peripheral vision on that side. One happened while I still had my learner's permit, and my mom got ticketed over it. But other than that... ;)

Interesting article I ran across: Ninety Percent of Children With Intermittent Exotropia Will Become Nearsighted by 20 Years of Age*. My left eye is now at -7.50 (no wonder they were pushing the really high-index lenses!), while the right is -5.50. The astigmatism is also a lot stronger on the left (cyl. +1.50 vs. +0.50).


My wonky vestibular system and some other visual processing weirdness are no doubt also involved, and I seem pretty sensitive to input changes.

At any rate, I was hoping they would check to make sure the lens was, indeed, the proper prescription before we left, but I have trouble dealing with things like that. It's frustrating. They saw I was having problems, and apparently did not find the reaction unusual with the prescription/eyeball-shape change. (Yay, shapeshifting eyeballs! :/) The suggestion? I should put them on in again in the morning when I haven't been wearing the old glasses all day, and wear them as much as possible to adjust. And come back in a week or so if it hasn't improved.

With any luck, it won't feel as awful when there is not already a day's worth of muscle strain and fatigue on the left side.

Has anyone else had this kind of thing happen with a new prescription, with myopia and/or astigmatism changes--and the right prescription? ;) If so, how long did it take your eyes and brain to adjust?


_____________

* Along with a semi-disturbing one from a couple of years ago: Eye Divergence In Children Triples Risk Of Mental Illness, '"They can hopefully be alert to the earliest signs of psychiatric problems in patients with exotropia, so they can consider having them seen by a psychologist or psychiatrist."' Yeah, it's a neurological difference.

One parent's reaction to reading about this? "I feel like I have a time bomb here and will never be able to relax." Thankfully, someone chimed in with just what I was thinking. I will go ahead and quote the whole message:

It's always important to remember that correlation does not mean causation. The study found a correlation (or co-incidence) of exotropia and later mental illness. This does not prove that one condition cuases the other. It shows that this is an area that deserves further study.

In this study, "mental illness" was defined as ANY condition in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness). This covers a huge range of conditions. The study does not indicate how many patients were diagnosed with more mild conditions like anxiety problems vs. more severe mental disorders like schizophernia.

My son has High Functioning Autism and it is well known that many children with Autism Spectrum Disorders have vision problems beyond simple refractive errors. My son has macular hypoplasia contributing to stabismus and bilateral amblyopia. He also is very farsighted with has high astigmatism. When he was diagnosed with autism, I had to sign a paper stating that I had been informed of the relationship between autism and vision problems and that he was already seeing a PO. (His vision problems were diagnosed a few months before his autism diagnosis).

Personally, I think this is an subject that needs to be studied more. After all, many vision problems are in fact problems with the brain, not with the eyes.

Edit: I tried to play around with an interesting-looking blur simulator, based on entering a prescription. That didn't work so well with mine, which gave "beyond simulation range". Odd. Apparently it "[s]imulates prescriptions from +5 to -5 for the spherical error and +5 to -5 for astigmatism."

Comments

This is why I don't wear glasses.

[foresthag]

I got my first pair of glasses about 12 years ago, and when I went to try them on at the store, I started crying and couldn't stop, from the disorientation and stress. They said this was from the astigmatism adjusting to the lenses, and it was not the fault of the lenses.

I did get used to it after a few days, and wore them for about a year, but then gave them up. They didn't make that much of a difference, and they didn't help me get taken more seriously either. So I stopped bothering, and have been making do ever since.

The adjustment period is the big reason I'm staying away from opticians these days. I went to try my old glasses on a little while ago and the disorientation was back again. Yuck.

Lucky I can get away with not wearing glasses. It hides my wrinkles, too. :)

Re: This is why I don't wear glasses.

[urocyon]

Thanks for the response.

Someone on LJ suggested that maybe the center of the lens is misaligned, but it doesn't seem to make much difference which part of the lens I'm looking through. So it's probably either the wrong prescription or just adjustment. That did feel like a brush-off, though.

Glad in a way (and really not glad in several others!) that I'm not the only one who gets really disoriented and stressed with this kind of thing. I was on the verge of crying yesterday, at least partly out of frustration at not being able to press the issue. (I'm glad most of the time that Ingvar doesn't turn nearly as pushy as my mom, but sometimes it would be handy dealing with other people.) Already dealing with a bunch of sensory issues probably helps with the disorientation, unfortunately, especially if you're already on the verge of overload. It's hard enough to deal with the vestibular weirdness and visual processing stuff without the added funhouse effect.

It is a little better today, putting them on first thing. (Actually, I wandered around with no glasses for at least half an hour, postponing dealing with it. *wry smile*) Things are not quite as blurry, and I'm definitely getting eye strain--I keep catching myself squinting too, since it helps with the blur!--but it hasn't turned into stabby pain yet after about an hour and a half. I'll probably try to give them at least a few days, if things don't get much worse.

I can understand the urge to avoid opticians! It is lucky that you can get away without the glasses--I'm almost envying you right now. ;)

Re: This is why I don't wear glasses.

[astrophe]

By center of the lens I think they mean the center of focus, not that looking through other parts of the lens would be better.

Re: This is why I don't wear glasses.

[urocyon]

Yes. But, at least with it set sufficiently far away from the pupil, that commenter could apparently look and find the center of focus where it shouldn't be. I got a similar effect to what she was talking about with some of the poorly-fitting sliding glasses, so that I was looking through the top edge of the lens instead of the part that was supposed to be in front of my eye. I got in the habit of looking downward to see through the sweet spot for reading. Sort of like bifocals, but unintentional. :/ I also tried moving this lens around in front of my eye, and can't find even an approximate alignment that makes things look clearer that way, either.

At least I think that was similar to what she was talking about, but from the way the lens was installed in the frame, misaligned with the pupil. My description could probably still be a lot better. :)

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

I don't get quite that level of reaction, but sometimes it can be quite painful and disorienting adjusting from contacts to glasses at the end of a long day. The glasses correct my astigmatism properly, but it is insufficient in one eye to be corrected for with contacts. Sometimes it feels like the visual disturbances I get with migraines.

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

That sounds unpleasant. :/ I used to wear gas permeables (because of the astigmatism)--do you have soft lenses? It was still a little odd switching back and forth between them, since things were sharper in general with the contacts.

[angiereedgarner.livejournal.com]

The glasses people often don't bother to take that measurement of where the center of your eye is in relation to the glasses frame, and they should have taken it, and they don't want to have to remake the glasses on their dime so they try to blow you off and get you to put up with a crappy fit. Less skilled people working the counter might not even know how to take it. Correct prescription is not correct unless your eye is in the center of the lens.

I experienced pain like what you are going through, I put new glasses on and instantly knew it was T-trouble. It turned out the frames sat a bit different than my previous pair and they hadn't taken that measurement and adjusted. I made it 45 minutes with the wrong pair, it was excruciating, and I went back totally freaked "something is really, really wrong!" They only worked correctly when I looked down and forward, and not well then-- I did not need glasses that only worked right when I was looking down while keeping my chin level.

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the response.

Yeah, it definitely felt like I was getting brushed off, and I could understand why they might want to do that. :-| The person who fitted them initially seemed to know what she was doing a lot more than the one I dealt with yesterday, too. They did measure where the center should be when I picked the frames--and they were sitting right on my face--but that doesn't mean that the lenses went in properly on the other end. Or that someone didn't misread the measurements. Or something.

OTOH, I wondered if that might be a problem, so have been looking through different parts of the lens with the other eye closed to see if it makes a difference. Not so much. It's all less blurry than yesterday, but it doesn't make much difference which part of the lens I look through. I'm wondering if they just messed up the prescription on that side.

I'll probably try to give them a few days, since it has actually been a little better putting them on first thing in the morning. Still very disconcerting.

I did not need glasses that only worked right when I was looking down while keeping my chin level.

Erm, no. :/

[angiereedgarner.livejournal.com]

Good luck. I'm about to go in for an update myself, I'm a bit fuzzy.

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And I hope yours is less, erm, eventful this time.