girls who wear glasses

[mayhap]

It is a bad idea to wear six months worth of disposable contacts for two years. Sure, everything seems to go swimmingly for a year, eleven months and a couple of weeks, but then one day you find that you can't look at any form of light source without being stabbed repeatedly in the eyes.

I got Stan to drive me to work, since I was completely incapable of looking at the bright unrelenting world outside of the car and experimenting with various contortions to block the evil sun from my vision. At work, I ended up squinting painfully at my monitor with my right eye, which was the more painful of the two, almost entirely closed.

At some point I realized that a.) this was not normal, and b.) this was not going away. I asked my mom for her advice and she was the one who figured out that it'd actually been two whole years since my last checkup. They advised that I come in immediately, which was fine with me because I wasn't exactly getting a ton of work done while squinting.

Conclusion: inflammation of the corneas caused by excessive wearing of worn-out contacts. I have to put in corticoid drops four times a day and, of course, refrain from wearing contacts until this inflammation has been relieved and soothed. It is difficult to get a prescription filled when you can't see anything. My glasses aren't a huge improvement, since they're a couple of prescriptions out of date and also scratched up all to hell, but still, I like seeing. It is useful to me. I really appreciate the technology that lets me have perfect vision without thinking about it very much, although apparently I should be thinking about it slightly more often.

Comments

[prillalar]

Eek! I hope it clears up soon.

[mayhap]

Already my sclera has gone from angry red blotches to a nice white, so I have hopes for a swift recovery. Follow up appointment tomorrow.

[coercedbynutmeg.livejournal.com]

Honestly, routine vision maintenance isn't that expensive (~$500/yr, probably less) and is totally worth it. Yours is a tale I will share with others.

[mayhap]

The really pernicious part, at least for me, was how comfortable my contacts were and how easy it was to forget that I even had them, much less was wearing them. I would have sworn that it had been roughly a year since my last checkup, and I kept meaning to get around to ordering a new batch, but eh, out of sight, out of mind ...

I'll probably program reminders in my calendar for fresh contacts and regular checkups. Otherwise you'd probably be hearing this tale from me again in 2011.

[coercedbynutmeg.livejournal.com]

My parents used to make me write on the calendar when I put in lenses so I'd throw them out in a timely manner. Now, here, in CA, the air is so crappy they start to get all coated with protein after about 6 weeks or so and have to be replaced, because they hurt like hell. However, I will say the CibaVision ones at $100 for 12 pairs last longer than the Bausch and Lomb ones at $300 for 12 pairs. Cost doesn't always equate to longevity.

Yet, my thirtyninedollarglasses.com glasses are as ghetto as ever.

[mayhap]

Ow. Well, pain is a good reminder to swap your contacts out, I guess. It's certainly effective, anyway.

LOL, have you ever posted pix of your thirtyninedollarglasses.com?

[coercedbynutmeg.livejournal.com]

I did. Look back to October 13, 2006 or thereabouts.

[mayhap]

Oh wow, it's been that long already! (As you can see, I have some difficulty with the passage of time ... )

Yup, those look familiar. And hilarious.

[hakkai-sensei.livejournal.com]

Ahaha. Oh, woman, woman after my own heart. A milder version of that happened to me with my contacts a while back. It probably would have been as worse if the things hadn't insisted on falling out all the time after months of abuse. I can't remember exactly if I tore one in two or if I put it in a tissue and squished it beyond redemption (this has happened to me more than once, yay, go me), but it stopped me wearing contacts because I couldn't be bothered getting replacements and the next replacements I got were new frames. My boss sort of talked me into getting them when I told her how lazy I was about cleaning contacts (plus my job pretty much keeps me tied to a computer, like, 75% of the time), so I haven't been brave enough to stroll into the store and get me some more pairs. But a couple of months with just my glasses are reminding me of all the stuff that I hate about them - how they fog up at the most inconvenient of times, they get caught in your hair, slide down your nose in the most annoying manner, plus I seem to have the worst irregularly-shaped face there is because the straightest of frames get bent weird where it touches the left side of my face after a few weeks.

So. Hugs, fellow-sufferer. Never again, yes?