occular questions

[linda/IL]

I haven't had my eyes tested for more years than I want to admit due to the wild issues for caregiving for my family-no excuse I know.

Anyway I usually have gone to one of the cheaper glasses in a day places which also tests.  Have been satisfied but no longer travel that direction much and at my age I thought it was time for a really thorough exam.  Made one where I take my mom which has a good reputation and also more than one office/city.

When they called for reminder they had me booked at the wrong office and couldn't get me into the closer one for 3 weeks.  Wanted it off my list so I made an appointment with a local optometrist.  Never gone to him but had his dad for a vet for years.  Good vet so should be a good eye dr., right?  LOL

They had some issues testing with the machine for eye pressure and the gal did it 3 times as it wasn't printing out right.  Then while I was taking another test on my own with another machine, they were working in front of me on the first machine.  Distracting to me.

Anyway, at the end of the whole appointment, he said I have some cataracts (no surprise), but not bad yet, and the start of some glaucoma, and something called blepharitis which I have to do an eyelid scrub for w/hot packs & also eye drops.  Then he also recommends ocular vitamins which he sells or can get at a health food store.  One vitamin was $33/60 days and the other was $50/60 days and need to take with food.  Having enough trouble with taking calcium, osteo biflex, my two prescriptions and vitamins without heartburn so I only took the $33 one.  Need to go back in a month to see if there's improvement.

DH thinks he's a quack with all this.  My question is if you are at all familiar with this type of treatment?  The place my mom goes to has never mentioned any of these "treatments" to her.  BTW, I am going to a "cheap" glasses joint for the actual glasses.

[turkey feather]

I go to a local doctor.  I will not go to a chain store for glasses. I have friends that have done that for years but one of them got a very bad set of glasses that caused him many problems. They were so wrong that he almost wrecked his truck.  I personally don't want to risk and problems with my eyes.

[linda/IL]

Well after feeling crummy for a couple days today I really hit  the wall.  Eyes gritty & itchy, puffy, long story short:  allergic to the vitamins.  Took allergy pill-feeling better.  Has to be them as that's the only new thing.  So much for that.  Wonder if they will take them back to use for demo pills like he showed me.

[dairy mom · Accepted solution]

I go just to the local guy here in town.  Nice enough and probably fairly adequate.  But I will be trying someone else next time I go.  Have been having the same complaint for a couple of pairs of glasses now which means several years and he really hasn't helped my main complaint at all.

Your condition is a new one to me.  Have you been having trouble with itchy or inflamed eye lids?

I hate it when my eyes bother me.  I hope I find someone that can help me enough so I can read comfortably again.  Every time I read it feels like my eyeballs are swelling, and I totally lose the ability to focus for a while.

Local doctor gave me a script for allergy eye drops.  But they don't seem to help much.  Maybe I'm not regimented enough in their use.

[linda/IL]

Didn't mean to hit solution.  We have 2 local optomotrists.  One, I had a bad set of glasses from.  Never could see well in them & I got them from him.  No help there.  When I went to the "glasses in one day" place I did better.  The one I went to last week has been in the area a few years; thought I'd give him a try when my other appointment fell through.  Really wanted this all out of the way before we go to Chicago for Brian's neurology tests.

I have trouble with itchy eyes when my allergies are bugging me which is in the spring & fall.  Had trouble with some Shaklee vitamins years ago and broke out with hives from them.  Otherwise no problems with anything I ingest-mostly hayfever problems.

Hope you find a solution to yours, Dairy mom.  I think I'm going to call the specialists for a medical eye exam.  There are optometrists, optomologists, and medical eye dr.  I think I will just go to the medical dr. even if I have to pay.  Lesson learned.

[Kay/NC]

Just in general, if you don't take a medication or supplement as directed, then it is hard to say if it does/doesn't work.  Dosing is set up for reasons that I am not well-versed in, but it is dsignificant when you talk about whether a patient is compliant or not.

I  havea new regimen of supplemetns, that I started on 90-ish days ago.  These folks follow up every ninety days, and they know whether you have taken what they prescribed or not.  Unless you do, the docs really cannot help you. 

[Kay/NC]

Mike and I have used the same optometrist in NC for twenty years.  He is very good adn conservative.  I have cataracts, but they are small, and he is not pushing operating, which I would resist, since the other eye is functionally blind for most uses. 

It is a chain of eye care centers, but the staff is very stable over time.  We are very comfortable their care.  I have one preferred optician, who is the only one I will allow to fit my glasses. 

Mike didn't know to ask for her, and let another wpoman fit his glasses about five years back.  She sold him some crappy frames, and they were bent on arrival, as were the replacements. 

I took him and the second pair back, walked in and handed them to my girl, and said,"Get rid of this cheap crap and get him the right frames and lenses."   Yes, our sutff runs $900 of more a pair, but after FB discounts and such, about $600, including exam. 

Our prescriptions last for several years, the glasses have good warranty coverage, and we can see.  We also pay for the imaging of the retinas, so as not to have those nauseating drops to dilate our pupils. 

She made sure he got the Optifog lenses, and he is happy as a clam.  He knws to only let Crystal hel[p him now.  There are some places where bargains aren't worth it.  We pay for good vision and dental care. 

[dairy mom]

Oh I agree with you totally Kay.  I know I haven't given the drops a good enough try.  I'm not good at getting them in and I just can't seem to get them into my routine.  Always think about them after I've gone outside in the morning or just as I'm so close to asleep at night that I can't make myself get up and do them.

I too have a just beginning cataract he just watching for now.

Also have a nuisance problem of matter forming in my eyes.  I think that's from years ago when I wore hard contact lenses.  It was when I moved from Colorado to Michigan and the eye doctor said part of the problem was the change in altitude making the hard contacts fit different.  Gave me one of the scariest nights of my life.  I was 20 and had picked up and followed my at the time boyfriend to Michigan.  Had a hard time getting a job.  I think probably because I didn't know a soul in the area except my fiance and the job market was pretty tight in the early 70's and no one wanted to take a chance that I'd not have a fight with him and go home.  So I finally got a job typing, which meant I spent 8 hours a day reading.  Got home from work one night., worked 2nd shift, went to bed.  My contacts weren't bothering me, in fact I went to bed with them in and had to get up and take them out.  Then about an hour later I woke up with my eyes on fire.  Couldn't even open them enough to dial the phone.  Got a hold of my hubby and we decided I should just take some aspirin and try to sleep and find an eye doctor in the morning.  Wrong thing to do.  Turns out the contacts had destroyed all the outer cells on my cornea and by taking aspirin it just made the problem worse.  So know that if you ever hurt your eye, DON'T TAKE ASPIRIN.  Any way took a long time for my eyes to heal and I never did comfortably wear contacts again.  They were just beginning to develop soft contacts back then and they weren't an option for me because they couldn't yet put correction for astigmatism in them.  Then once I started having kids (4 in 5 years) they just seemed too time consuming.

Anyway ever since then I get quit a bit of "floaties" in my eyes.  Eye doctor said I always would

BTW what are Optifog lenses.  Fogging glasses in the winter are a total pain.  I have transition lenses but have never heard of Optifog.

[Kay/NC]

Sorry, I said it wrong, Mike says...we wear Crizal lenses, which are ver lightweight plastic. UV coated, antiacratch coated, etc., in titanium framse, so about as close to contacts as we can get...nearly invisible. The OPTIFOG wipes he uses before going into the hog houses, keeps a wipe every building or two ( he has to do 12 buildings, and they are very warm compared to outdoors right now.

I think if you have ever had an eye injury or infection, it compromises you firecer. I have retina damage on the left, have scratched the right cornea with a burning match fragment in college, them again with a dirt clod while weedeating. Never been right on the right, and the left has a very destroyed center field.
Try your drops more routinely, And ask about the Optifog wipes.

[Kay/NC]

I just googled OPTIFOG LENSES. I was right...they are special coated and the cloths keep it up.