Last month I got my routine 6 monthly eye test. My prescription has altered, which I knew before going to the opticians. I was struggling to see my phone, without holding it at the end of my nose and looking over the top of my glasses as I could no longer see close-up with them.
The change in my sight wasn’t a big change, but it was a significant one.
The way my eye condition is, with the strength of prescription that I need I can’t have near vision and long vision. I can have ‘reading glasses’ to see things that are close to me, like reading, seeing my children etc. Or I can have distance glasses and be able to watch tv or the kids playing around in the park. But I can’t see anything closer than my arm length away. If I didn’t suffer with LCA or Nystagmus I would be able to wear varifocals. But as I do, I can’t.
With my LCA I am now also unable to adjust easily to different light levels, meaning that I am also unable to adjust between two different prescription glasses, to go from distance to reading lenses.
So I had to make a choice…….
And I chose to see my children, large printed letters and the people that I love. Because on a bright sunny day, I wouldn’t see anyone even with distance lenses!
However, this time at the optician I received the news that I was very close to the limit of what they could do for me with prescription glasses. I am getting to the limit of a difference that having a prescription would make to me.
The other issue I had, is that although my eye’s have only changed ever so slightly in the last six months, it has actually been over two years of ‘ever so slight changes’ since I have been in a position to purchase a new pair of glasses, because before I have even chosen pretty frames, the lenses themselves are in the region of £280 (after allowances)
So, having the money to spend, I bought a new prescription and the frames to sit them in. Two weeks to make them, and additional £100 to reduce the thickness from 9mm to 3mm, I got my new glasses……
And all the ‘slight changes’ have added up to one hell of a dramatic change.
A change that means that on a bright sunny day, I am better protecting my remaining sight with a pair of non-prescription sunglasses than wearing my actual prescription.
My new prescription, although strong for me. Is in-fact the equivalent of a reading glass prescription in the amount of difference that it makes, especially with my distance vision.
So for the first time since I was about 4, I am getting used to not wearing glasses full time. An issue that I am struggling with just a bit.
When I am outside in the glorious sunshine that we are experiencing at the moment, I am comfortable and confident wearing my new sunglasses, but inside is a different story.
At home, right now as I write this I am wearing my glasses, when I at meetings I am wearing my glasses, but when I am in the gym or on the climbing wall, I do not wear my glasses.
And it is not a look or feel that I am getting used to…… Just Yet!
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