Here is a story to start the New Year off. Happy New Year everyone!
With everything in life there seems to be a point where the road you follow leads off in a certain direction. That has certainly seemed to be the case in my life. Probably the first fork in the path of life I was following came the day that my best friend at school got a pair of glasses. Carrie had known for a while that she couldn’t see as much, or as well as I could. We had done some searching on the internet and we had discovered that Carrie was very likely a bit nearsighted and would probably need to wear glasses. It was very interesting to me to read about eyes, and eyesight and the various problems that could occur with your vision that would require you to have to wear glasses, and this may have been when I became interested in glasses.
Through all my research I learned that the eyeball was a complex system, much like a camera. There are 2 lenses that focus the image on the retina. One lens is the cornea, and it can grow a little steeper than needed, increasing the plus power in the lens system. The other lens is your inner lens. Together these lenses can give you perfect vision. But things can go wrong. In a growing young lady like Carrie, the eyeball can grow a little longer than it should be which causes the lenses to focus the image in front of the retina. With the addition of a minus lens of the correct power – by wearing a pair of glasses, or contact lenses, the focus can be returned to the proper place on the retina – the macula actually. There are muscles all around the lens which change the focus of the lens for close work, and the same for distance, although the eye is focused for distance at rest. These are called the ciliary muscles. I copied the following from an article on eyes: “ The lens is suspended in the eye by a bunch of fibers. These fibers are attached to a muscle called the ciliary (say: sil-ee-air-ee) muscle. The ciliary muscle has the amazing job of changing the shape of the lens. That's right — the lens actually changes shape right inside your eye! Try looking away from your computer and focusing on something way across the room. Even though you didn't feel a thing, the shape of your lenses changed. When you look at things up close, the lens becomes thicker to focus the correct image onto the retina. When you look at things far away, the lens becomes thinner.” I was very interested in all of this, and I also found that it was suggested that by wearing stronger minus glasses than a person needed they could increase the length of their eyeball as well. I discovered through further research on a number of different websites that there were a few people on the internet who had managed to get slightly stronger prescriptions than they required. They actually wanted to wear stronger glasses, and at this point I thought this was a bit crazy.
One of the things that I found while doing my research was a movie of a spinning disc. I went to the website and downloaded to my computer. According to the instructions if you stared at the black dot in the center, and watched a bunch of circles on the disc spin around from a distance of 12” to 15” for a period of about 15 minutes 3 times a day you might be able to make yourself nearsighted. When I downloaded it I had no intention of using it, but as I said before there are many forks in the road.
I suppose that another fork in my road was the day that Carrie actually got her glasses. She let me try them on and wear them for a while. I suppose that they were so weak that my eyes were young enough to accommodate for the prescription in them, because I really couldn’t see much difference. Without them I could see well, and with them I could also see very well. But when wearing Carries glasses I found that I liked having a pair of lenses in front of my eyes.
Carrie had told me that if her eyes ever got bad enough to have to wear glasses all of the time, if she didn’t like wearing glasses, she could have her eyes operated on to fix them. And I suppose this was another fork in the road. One of the senators in congress had a daughter who was fairly nearsighted. She was, according to the news reports, a borderline case for a successful laser surgery to correct her myopia. Unfortunately for her, and for all the people who made their living doing this type of eye surgery, her surgery was not a success. Many attempts to correct the problem had been made, and now she had some vision, but could no longer see well enough to read, or drive or even live a productive, unassisted life. After the botched surgery her father had been instrumental in passing the “Do No Harm” legislation. Now the only eye surgery that doctors could do had to be performed on people who no longer had better than 20/40 as their best corrected vision. This meant that if you were a -6D and could see 20/30 with glasses or contacts corrective surgery was no longer an option – at least in this country.
One of the country’s top supermodels, Dayna Sweet, had been scheduled for an operation on her eyes. No one had ever seen her wearing glasses before now, but rumor had it that Dayna was very nearsighted. However, her vision with glasses or contact lenses was extremely good. Following the new legislation, now no doctor would dare to operate on her eyes. And this is where another fork appeared in the road. Dayna Sweet had an eye infection, which prevented her from wearing her contact lenses on the eve of a major fashion show. Once the promoters of the fashion show discovered that their top model was going to have to appear wearing glasses they made the dumbest move of their lives. They fired her. The show went on without Dayna, and the world did not fall apart. But Dayna Sweet filed a multimillion unlawful dismissal suit against the promoters. When the dust had settled, Dayna Sweet ended up with an apology, an increase in her bank account of 2.5 million dollars, and a contract to model Vague eyeware, with an endorsement from Hoyt specialty eyeglass lenses. Now, although she could likely have gone back to wearing contact lenses, Dayna Sweet was appearing on all the covers of the fashion magazines wearing glasses. I loved the before and after pictures. Dayna would appear in a gorgeous Vague frame in the before picture, and the frame would be fitted with regular lenses. Then the after picture would show Dayna in the same frame with the newest, thinnest Hoyt lenses. I must be a little weird, because I liked the thick lenses the best. And I really liked the pictures of the lenses where they cut cross sections of the lenses and showed them side by side for comparison. According to the captions Dayna’s lenses were -17.50D, and the new thin lenses were only about a third of the thickness of the regular lenses.
As the top fashion model in the country, Dayna set the trend. I would never have guessed that there were so many actors and actresses that required vision correction. Men in high positions had discarded their contact lenses as well, and now the age old stigma that wearing glasses was a sign of weakness seemed to have disappeared. Of course, the new thinner Hoyt lenses helped, because only the strongest prescriptions showed a decent amount of lens thickness. Sales of contact lenses plummeted and the end result was that a few of the well known contact lens manufacturers consolidated into only 2 major companies. Certainly there were still a lot of people who wore contact lenses, especially when playing any form of sports that required good vision. And some people who suffered from extremely high myopia had found that they still wanted to wear contacts because their corrected vision was much better. But all in all, glasses were the order of the day.
When Carrie had gotten her glasses we had both been between age 13 and 14. Now, a year later Carrie required a slightly stronger prescription, and she wore her new glasses all of the time. She gave me her old glasses, and while I didn’t wear them a lot, once in a while we would go out together and I would wear her glasses. The more I wore them the better I liked wearing them, so one night I decided that I would try staring at the spinning circle movie to see if it would do anything. I followed the instructions and did this for the next 2 weeks. By the end of the 2 week period I was having a lot of trouble seeing things at any distance. Carries glasses didn’t even help. So I got scared and stopped what I had been doing. It took a while, but my eyesight gradually reverted to almost normal. But it didn’t come back to give me the perfect eyesight that I felt I had before. Now I found that I actually needed to wear Carrie’s old glasses to be able to see properly. But I couldn’t wear her old glasses around my parents, so I ended up telling my mom that I was having problems seeing things, and she got me an appointment with one of the eye doctors that were in our area.
I really don’t know what caused me to do it, but now that mom had made me an eye appointment I went back to staring at that rotating disc three times a day for 15 minutes at a time. I held my eyes back from the computer monitor a distance of 12 to 15” and soon I noticed that my vision was getting worse and worse. By the time I had my eye exam I was barely able to function. The result was that I ended up with a prescription of -5D in my own very first pair of glasses. When Carrie saw me wearing my new glasses she was surprised that they seemed so strong, and she was even more surprised when she tried them on and found out that they were strong, much stronger than hers were.
I know now I probably should have stopped there, but I was thrilled to be wearing glasses. I loved the feel of the frames on my nose, and I enjoyed moving them down my nose a little and looking over the lenses into the blur. I stayed away from the rotating disc for a few months, but a bit before my 15th birthday I decided I wanted a stronger prescription. After all, if Dayna Sweet could wear glasses with a -17.50D prescription, I could too. So I told mom that I thought I needed new glasses, and after she got me a doctor’s appointment again I started looking at the spinning disc movie again. I didn’t have quite as long a time to look at the disc this time, but I still ended up with a new prescription of -9.00D. This time I had some astigmatism as well, and my new glasses, which again were made in regular plastic, had flat fronts and stuck out behind the frame quite a bit. The doctor was quite surprised that my eyesight had deteriorated so significantly, but he explained to my mom that sometimes this happened, and that I could see well with my glasses, so that was the main thing.
Now I was actually pretty helpless without my glasses. I even found it easier to wear them for everything I did. Reading was very inconvenient without them, because I needed to bring everything up really close. And now when I slid my glasses down my nose and looked over the top of the frame the blur was fantastic. I loved it, and I probably shouldn’t have, because I know that this was why I decided about 6 months later that I wanted to increase my prescription even further. This time I ended up with a prescription of -13.50D. My mom wanted to buy me the new expensive thinner Hoyt lenses that Dayna Sweet advertised, but I told her that I was Ok with the fact that my glasses would be really thick, and we just got regular lenses again. And my glasses were so thick that the outer edge of the lens had no prescription in it. The circle that had the prescription didn’t reach to the edge of the frame. That was when I decided that maybe the next time I might take my mom up on her offer to get me the Hoyt thinner lenses, because my glasses looked a little weird. And you noticed didn’t you – I said “maybe the next time.” I had already decided that I wanted my glasses to be at least as strong as Dayna Sweet’s were. Once I started down this slippery road there was no way I was willing to stop before I reached my goal.
If I had not been able to see properly when wearing my glasses I would likely have stopped this nonsense immediately. But while my vision without glasses was pretty much nothing but a blur, my eyesight with glasses was great. I did feel badly about how much time my parents spent worrying about my deteriorating eyesight, but I didn’t know how to tell them that I wasn’t concerned. And I certainly could not tell them that I had brought my now severe myopia on myself. It had not helped that the eye doctor had told mom that with such large increases at age 15 1/2 I likely had progressive myopia, and that my eyes would keep getting worse and worse until I was in my early 20’s. Whenever my parents would ask me if I was seeing all right, which was more frequently than I felt comfortable with, I would always tell them that I wasn’t having a problem. But I couldn’t stop what I was doing. It seemed that every 6 months or so I would tell my mom that my glasses appeared to be too weak again, and she would call to make me another appointment. Now I had to be careful, because my doctor had me on a list of problem patients, and it seemed that whenever mom phoned I was given an appointment the following day. I almost got caught the first time this happened, but just for the fun of it while I was deciding if I wanted to go for a new exam I had been looking at the rotating disc for a couple of weeks . Then I changed my mind and decided I didn’t want stronger glasses right now. Then I changed my mind again and decided I did want stronger glasses after all. I hadn’t gained back all the vision I had lost when I was trying to decide, and even though I didn’t get too large an increase that time I still went up to -15.00 x -1.00 x 90 for my right eye and -15.00 x -1.25 x 85 for my left eye with this examination around the time I turned 16. Mom had again offered to get me the more expensive lenses, but I didn’t think my prescription increase had warranted the extra expense, so I chose the regular thick plastic lenses once again. This would be the last time I got regular plastic lenses in my glasses. My lenses were now dished in on the front, and the circle still didn’t come to the outer edge of the frame, so they looked really strange, and I really didn’t like the distortion I got with the biconcave front of the lens.
I still had another -2.50D to go before my glasses would be as strong as Dayna Sweet’s. By now I knew I wasn’t going to stop, as no matter how much the conscience part of my brain told me that I was crazy, the part of my brain that controlled my desires kept telling me that I only needed to go on a little more.
I did manage to fight down the desires until I was almost 17. I had actually noticed that my eyesight was not as good as it had been when I first got these glasses, so I had a suspicion that I had developed a little myopia on my own. But I still wanted a little more, so I started to look at the rotating disc a week or so before I told mom I thought I might need new glasses again.
This time I ended up with a prescription for my new glasses that was just a little bit higher than I had been aiming for. My new glasses were going to have to be -18.25 x -1.00 x 90 for my right eye, and -18.00 x -1.25 x 85 for my left eye. I had surpassed Dayna Sweet, but this didn’t really bother me. Since I had no plans for any further increases I did get the thinnest lenses that Hoyt made for my new glasses, and when I picked them up a couple of weeks later I was amazed with how thin and nice they looked.
At the high school I went to there had been a couple of other girls who seemed to have higher prescriptions than I had, but now I appeared to have caught up with them. They had both worn glasses since they were in grade 1 or grade 2, and I had only worn glasses for about 4 years now. While the 3 of us had the strongest prescriptions, there was no shortage of glasses wearers. Since hardly anyone wore contact lenses anymore at least 80% of the girls in my class wore glasses, and there was never any discrimination towards glasses wearers. One of the girls who had previously worn stronger glasses than mine wasn’t very attractive and was quite overweight, so it wasn’t a big surprise that she wasn’t really popular with the boys. But the other girl had glasses like mine and we had absolutely no trouble finding boyfriends. I didn’t have to fight them off or anything, but I will just say that the only time I sat at home alone on a Friday night was if I chose to.
Because I had actually surpassed my goal I decided that it was time to delete the rotating disc movie from my computer. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it completely so I still had a copy, but it was on an old hard drive that was put away, and I had no desire to access it. I was completely satisfied with my prescription and my new glasses.
Since I no longer had to fight my conscience to acquire what I had so badly desired I managed to spend a lot more time focusing on my grades, and when I graduated at age 18 I did so as an honor student. I applied for as much financial assistance as I could, but I was only going to be able afford to live at home and go to our local community college. I enjoyed writing, so I concentrated on languages, and creative writing. And, although I hadn’t looked at that rotating disc for about 18 months by Christmas of that year I knew that my glasses were again too weak. I worried a little that I had gone too far, but I soon realized that there was nothing I could do about it now, and I figured that the best thing I could do would be to have another eye exam and get a new pair of glasses. This time my prescription ended up being slightly over -20D, and another pair of glasses were soon ordered, again with the same Hoyt lenses that Dayna Sweet was still promoting. Once I got them they allowed me to see very well again, and I went on with my studies, not wasting any time thinking any more about my eyesight. The only thing that crossed my mind was that for the last couple of years my glasses had been stronger than my age.
I graduated from the community college by the time I was 21. And just before I graduated my eyes got worse again. This time my prescription ended up being -23.00 x -1.50 x 90 for my right eye and -23.00 x -1.50 x 110 for my left eye. Other than the axis of my astigmatism my eyes were now the same prescription. But even using the Hoyt thin lenses with flat fronts my glasses ended up as myodiscs, and I had a circle in the center of my lenses that held my prescription. But I didn’t find this as a problem, and I felt that I could see quite well with my latest pair of glasses.
Ever since I had first started visiting internet sites to research myopia I had remained a frequent visitor of any of the sites that had anything to do with vision or glasses. I am not a big internet user, but like most girls my age I have a smart phone with a number of internet apps on it. I do use twitter, and I have a facebook profile, but I am not really a regular poster. I probably should be, as I could stay in contact with friends and family a lot better than I do, but I am not that interested. Sometimes I will post a new picture to my account, and once in a while I will update my profile picture. I generally don’t think anything about this though.
Imagine my surprise when I went into one of the internet sites I occasionally visit. There was my picture posted on the site for anyone to see. Thankfully the poster had not identified me, although I had seen other pictures of me posted around on other sites that had previously been taken from my facebook account so it wouldn’t take a lot of looking to get my name. I probably should have been angry with the poster, and I was a little, but I was more upset that I hadn’t restricted access to my pictures to friends and family. But the damage was done. I did get a chuckle out of what the person had posted. He called me one of the most attractive girls on the internet, and he commented that I likely didn’t realize how beautiful I appeared to a certain segment of the population. He would be very surprised to find out that I actually did know how desirable I was to that segment.
Once I got my head around this I decided that I might as well get all the mileage I could from this. It wasn’t like me posting a picture of myself and saying that I was gorgeous. I could never have done that, but it did swell my ego a little having someone else do it. I wondered how long it would take for someone to identify and contact me.
The first contact was a real surprise, and lead me down another road. Dayna Sweet was still the model for Hoyt lenses, and Vague frames. However I was contacted by Pravda to see if I would be willing to model Pravda frames with Estilor lenses. I signed a contract with both companies and the contract was embarrassingly financially remunerative. I was whisked off to have a new eye exam, and the people at Estilor supplied the lenses for around 10 pairs of the latest styles of Pravda frames. Even though my prescription had increased about -1.00D for each eye my new 1.99 high index glass Estilor lenses were amazingly thin. The lenses were still completely flat on the front, but the Hoyt myodisc lenses that I had in my old frames were gone. These glasses were all full field lenses, and they all looked dynamite on my face.
I could not understand why a company like Estilor would choose a person like me with such a high prescription as a model. But when the company executives explained their reasoning to me I began to understand. About the time I was born the makeup of nearsighted people was around 40% of the population. Of that percentage, only around 10% were considered high myopes, with a prescription of -6D or greater. And of that 10%, only another 10% of the high myopes had prescriptions that were over -15D. This group of high myopes was not really large enough to attract the specialty lens makers, as there wasn’t enough profit in serving this market. But a couple of the lens makers such as Estilor and Hoyt went out and developed high index lenses. Hoyt specialized in plastic lenses and Estilor supplied mostly glass lenses. They found that even people with a -5D prescription wanted wafer thin lenses, so as the profits started to pile up they continued working on even thinner technology. Now Estilor had 1.99 index glass, and Hoyt had 1.87 plastic as their most expensive thinner lenses.
Now, after 20 years of computer and cell phone usage the percentage of glasses wearers had increased to around 82% of the population. In the under 18 crowd the percentage of myopes was around 68%. In the university graduate crowd the myopes had increased to 93%. It seemed that the more educated the population was, the more myopic it was as well, because some of the Asian countries were experiencing 100% rates of myopia in their university graduates. And, the higher degrees of myopia had increased as well. Now almost 35% of the 82% were over -6D and there was talk about changing the definition of a high myope to be those people who were over -10D. Most of the one hour optical stores could easily do up to a -20D prescription in around an hour, as the demand for higher prescriptions was now there. And of the 35% that were high myopes, 42% had prescriptions that were -15D or greater. Of course the lens manufacturers were interested in this market. And the brains had decided that if Dayna Sweet, with a -17.50D prescription could sell people on Hoyt high index lenses, then little old me with my -24D prescription should be a shoe in to sell people on Estilor hi index glass lenses.
As the money rolled into my bank account I was pleased that the slippery road I had chosen seemed to have been the right one. I was being whisked all over the world to eyewear conventions, and I was meeting some pretty high profile, great looking men. I was smart enough to realize that not every man I met was going to be a good choice, but through careful dating I was able to weed out quite a few of them as being unsuitable for me.
As my bank account grew I realized that I had now put myself beyond the group of society that I identified myself with. I could no longer marry just any ordinary person. I regretted the fact that I had opened myself up to this problem, but a person can’t always control that slippery slope that we travel down.
Specs4ever
Dec 2011.
Statistics: Posted by Specs4ever — Mon Dec 31, 2012 3:41 pm