Monovision [update]
In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the newly-empowered critters proclaim “four legs good, two legs bad,” only to later betray their entire belief system with the new wisdom that “four legs good, two legs better.”
I can relate. After extolling the virtues of wearing one contact lens (i.e. monovision), I took the bold step of putting the second lens in. Guess what?
One lens good, two lens better.
Sorry, monovision. I am fully committed to binocular vision.
And contact lenses aren’t bad at all. I had tried them a few years ago, and hated them. But the new lenses are comfortable enough that I genuinely forget that I’m wearing them. I’m a person who’s always had bad touching-my-eye squeamishness, but it’s been cake.
So my advice to my glasses-wearing brethren: give contacts a shot, even if you’re convinced you could never handle it.
The only reason I was trying contacts at all was as a trial-run for LASIK monovision. Now I’m just a guy who wears contacts. It’s really good, and doesn’t involve slicing my cornea.
Articles
August 10th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
I dunno, man… putting in contacts always makes me think of that scene in terminator when the t800 returns to his room with the x-acto knife (brilliant piece of writing by the way, to find a plausible, logical reason for a cyborg to wear cool shades!).
August 10th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
I’ve always been squeamish about touching my eyes as well (and as such I’ve avoided LASIK). Fortunately, I only have astigmatism, so I don’t need glasses for sports. I know other athletes who only wear contacts when playing as well, and then return to specs for civilian life.
August 10th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Sure you’re not wearing them because of what Greg the propmaster asked during the shoot of your Movie and your realisation that you’ve become a full-time four-eyes…?
August 11th, 2006 at 12:03 am
I had glasses since I was 5. Then I changed to contact lenses (and man! was I squeamish) and it was amazing! I asked my doctor about LASIK and he said: “Wait 10 years” and I did. Now I wear the lenses inside my eyes. Scary? A liitle. But it represents better quality of life by at least an order of magnitude.
Go for it!
And it makes for a cool story to tell
August 11th, 2006 at 1:58 am
It’s cool that the contacts work for you.
August 11th, 2006 at 2:17 am
Don’t forget that Malcolm McDowell has a fear of eye drops, solely because of the Ludivico treatment scene from A Clockwork Orange.
How does it relate? I don’t know. He scratched his cornea in the making.
August 11th, 2006 at 3:34 am
I’ve worn hard contacts since I was 19 and when I hit the reading-glasses age I didn’t just have the usual denial to get through, but the dumb-feeling situation of having to wear readers over the contacts for close-up work.
The answer turned out to be bifocal contacts. They make no logical sense and shouldn’t work. But they do.
August 11th, 2006 at 5:37 am
I think somebody just bought stock in a contact lens company.
August 11th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Which lens? I like the new Acuvue Oasys, though it’s a bit expensive.
August 11th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Phew, I´m sure glad you decided to use your head for once. The mind is a powerfull tool and you have made great mental progress desiding on contacts rather than going to the eye butcher….next thing you´ll know you´ll be getting diabetes insipidus every time you walk into a public toilet.
August 11th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
i’ve been wearing glasses since kindergarten, and will not wear contacts, not because i’m squeamish but i like to look smart. i see glasses as a cool accessory. plus i can take my glasses off anytime i want without having to poke my eye.
August 11th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Cheers to not having your corneas sliced. Scribe
August 11th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Here’s a trick to getting better vision and stronger eyes: Don’t wear your glasses/eye wear while using the computer. Since we’re all writers here, I imagine that we can all relate to sitting in front of the computer for hours upon hours after coming home from our day jobs of sitting in front of computers. Anyway, if you do that long enough, you’ll train your eyes. I was able to cut my reading prescription down by half by doing this.
Or you can keep jabbing your fingers into your eyes.
R
August 11th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
contacts good, lasik better!
August 11th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
Slicing body parts is best avoided, whenever possible. Though I have similar feelings about touching my eyes, I may consider contacts down the line. I guess I now know what to look for.
August 11th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
What’s so unappealing about shooting lasers in your eyes?
There’s so much detritus floating around my job site that I wouldn’t consider contacts. My fellow preschool teachers are constantly darting about looking for eyewash. The most I have to do is wipe my glasses with my shirttail.
When they invent contacts that darken in the sunlight — now that would be worth a try…
August 12th, 2006 at 12:29 am
Contacts good, LASIK bad.
My two brothers went the LASIK way. One suffers from dry eyes and sensitivity to bright lights at night, making driving slightly challenging; the other, back to wearing glasses after two years of so-called 20/20 vision.
August 12th, 2006 at 4:13 am
My sister-in-law needs good vision for her job and had the complete surgical lens replacement within the eye. They make a cut alongside the cornea, clean out the living lens, and slide in a plastic lens that unrolls into its place. She had to go back for a correction but she now has perfect distance vision. But it’s like a fixed-focus camera so she’ll always need glasses for close work. It was elective surgery but to my mind it was kind of radical. You have to be really dissatisfied with your vision to go for it.
Meanwhile a friend who had laser surgery experienced a ’star effect’ around bright lights at night and now, around four years later, is wearing glasses again.
August 12th, 2006 at 10:44 am
To bring this discussion back home, I might suggest that shooting lasers out of your eyes has much more dramatic potential.
August 12th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
John:
Go LASIK. Let not the fear mongers concern you. It’s the single best medical procedure I’ve ever experienced. No pain. Quick. Worked perfectly.
Couldn’t be happier.
August 12th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
I stayed away from contacts for years because I was afraid of touching my eyeballs. Finally when I started playing tennis, I had to get rid of the glasses. I couldn’t deal with smudgy sweaty lenses on the court. Now I wear contacts almost every day.
I’d consider laser surgery, but my insurance doesn’t cover it.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Contacts aren’t bad at all (been wearing them for 23 years). I had a cornea transplant in my right eye several years ago so I am used to people sticking thier fingers in my eye. Once you have had stitches on your eye removed and you can see that happen nothing phases you.
August 14th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I had contact back in high school, I only wore them for playing baseball and football…but even then it was sparingly. They irritated my eyes so much I just couldn’t bring myself to attempt to put them in every morning.
Have there been improvements in eye contact technology in recent years that makes them easier to put in and less painful? Otherwise, I’ll be enjoying my emo-style black rimmed glasses as I get all the chicks
August 15th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
I’ve considered getting LASIK or contacts, but as a skinny guy with glasses, everyone assumes I’m smart — what would I do if I were just a skinny guy??
Ack!
August 17th, 2006 at 11:11 am
I went through the Lasik procedure last April. It’s a totally freaky experience and had I known what I was in for I might not of had the courage to go through with it. First of all, they put you in a tiny room with about four other people waiting to get the surgery. The doctor comes in. He’s very relaxed, almost too relaxed, and he has these very tiny pills. He says to not worry. He’s done the procedure over 50,000 times and he wants me to take the pill. I ask him if I’m in for pain. He says “not at allâ€? and then he tells me that I don’t have to take the pill – almost daring me.
So I wait in the room as one patient after the other leaves to go into surgery. I take the pill. My turn comes and I’m ushered into the operating room. The doctor has two very cute, very crazy assistant girls with a giant stuffed dinosaur. I learned later that the stuffed animal was there to keep me calm and comfortable.
So with big smiles, these assistant girls ask me to lie down. This orb lowers to my eye and the doctor tells me that things are going to go black. But first this orb thing sucks my eyeball up and the doctor puts this clamp thing in - something right out of Clockwork Orange … and it does go black and I can feel them cutting my cornea. Yes, even with the little pill. Then the light comes back and I see the lens being flipped back. Then the laser goes to work and I can smell the burning (kind of like hair). Same thing happens with the other eye. The whole procedure takes about 3 minutes and 22 seconds. Then I see the gleeful assistants again and they usher me out to the waiting room, while they shove their dinosaur in the face of the next guy entering the operating room.
But it’s not all shits and giggles, because later that night your eyes feel like they have a layer of sandpaper over them. My wife calls the phone number they gave me and the doctor that answers basically calls me a pussy and says that it is perfectly normal for me to want to gouge my eyes out. And interestingly enough, it’s only the men that complain.
My vision is currently 20/15, and I really have nothing to complain about other than the outer glow that surrounds every light I see at night (like little Christmas lights). So anyway, everyday is Christmas and the best part is the morning when I don’t have to blindly stumble around looking for my glasses. And I can sweat without my glasses falling off. And when I go to adjust my glasses out of habit, I’m reminded of the former handicap I no longer have to deal with.
Be bold, John – you’ll go through less pain in the long run.
August 18th, 2006 at 4:11 am
Contacts are great. After having spent ten years with glasses, I’m now into my sixteenth year with contacts, wearing the ones you actually don’t have to take out every night. Feels like having perfect vision (I guess - since I was seven when I got glasses I really don’t know how that feels). The benefit of waking up in the morning and be able to see everything clearly (I’m nearsighted) is unbeatable
August 18th, 2006 at 8:35 am
George Orwell allegedly said the idea for one of his books (I believe it was 1984) really came to him the day he got his new false teeth. Maybe the same will happen to you!
Bart, the Netherlands
August 18th, 2006 at 9:58 am
two years ago i went through 5 different brands’ worth of trial contacts, and could never get one that was as good as wearing glasses. in movie theaters, the air conditioning would dry out the eye, and the lens would get stuck, unable to move.. or i’d have too many tears, and it would still be blurry.
if you have a stigmatism, the soft lenses must sit on your eye exactly in the upright position.. if they rotate just a hair, you’re blurred..
hard lenses, which I also tried, don’t behave this way optically, but unfortuantely they are more difficult to adjust to, and my eye doc grossly miscalculated the fit and it was like putting rocks.. no joke.. right into my eye. retina was scratched for 3 days, and it burned everytime I blinked. horrible.
at least soft lenses are hardly felt.
but glasses, nice, rock solid things that never move on their own, that’s gonna have to be my style for a while i think.
August 19th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
Small world indeed -
I worked on “Full Throttle” for a few days.
August 19th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
D’oh! This comment is on the wrong post!
I blame the fact that I’ve been re-grouting my shower stall all day.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:18 am
Gotta ask John - you wore just ONE contact lens?? Didn’t that give you a migraine??
On a separate note, I love the idea of shooting lasers out of my eyes. I teach teenagers, so that would really help. Plus I reckon it could even be tax deductible as I’m self employed. Anyone know where I can get it done??