10.27.2010

I can see clearly now

When I was in high school, I got my eyes checked and discovered that I was basically blind in my right eye. (maybe when I went to get my driver's license? I don't remember.) However, my left eye was perfect. Since I only had the one bad eye, I got one contact and a pair of glasses (with just one treated lens.) I liked wearing acrylic nails, which made it difficult to insert and remove contact lenses. I didn't really like wearing glasses, so instead of bothering with good eyesight, I just let my left eye do all of the seeing. Eventually, it had overcompensated so much that I just didn't really see well at all.

I got another pair of glasses, but by this time, my prescriptions in both eyes were so different that the glasses gave me major headaches. So I didn't wear them. I just squinted whenever I needed to see anything far away.

My best good boyfriend, Larry, had Lasik like 15 years ago and LOVES it. My brother had it done, as did 2 co-workers, and they all LOVE it. They all say it is the best thing they ever did. I'm just terrified of it. I don't know why, but it just freaks me out. So when my eye doctor told me about Ortho K lenses, I was really interested. It does the same thing as Lasik without a scalpel or laser to the eye. It is a hard (gas permeable) contact lens that you only wear at night. It reshapes your cornea while you sleep. You take it out in the morning and you can see.

Well, I got mine on Tuesday. At first it is sooooooo uncomfortable. It feels like you have a piece of hard plastic in your eye. But the good news is that you don't put it in until right before bed. So it was uncomfortable, but once I close my eye it is fine. You have to keep them in and go see the doctor the morning after the first night you wear them so that she can check and make sure it is fitting correctly after a night of sleep. So at 8am on Wednesday, I went to get checked.

Long story short, on Tuesday, I had 20/400 vision in my right eye. On Wednesday, I had 20/20.

Word.

5 comments:

Knitrageous said...

Wow! That's way cool. I went and all the doctor told me was I'm old. He said I could spend a lot of money on one prescription or I could spend a lot of money on tons of cheap readers. I got the readers.

The JP Behnkes said...

Awesome, Rach!

sarahsmile3 said...

WOW! Do you have to wear it every night?

Jessica said...

WHAT?! Thats awesome!!!

Pat said...

Rachel, I'm so glad to hear this! Dad has come across some contraindications of the LASIK surgery....so sounds like noninvasive is the best. I wonder if it'd to anything for a cross-eyed mama like me?