This story about my vision should have started when I was in preschool but it started much later. All throughout my childhood and early teenage years I had no vision problems and passed all vision screenings with flying colors. My problems started when I was about 15 but I did not realize how they related to my vision until much later. During that time, I started having occasional headaches but they were not frequent or bad enough for either myself or anybody else to worry. While these headaches got a little worse over the years it did not really get bad enough for me to do anything about it until I went to college. Almost overnight things started getting really bad as I was hitting the books hard to study. I did not really make any connection of my headaches to potential vision problems until my new college friend and roommate Matt asked me whether I had my eyes checked recently. Like many college students he was wearing glasses but his were different. While most students wore glasses that made their eyes smaller to a certain degree, Matt’s magnified his eyes quite significantly. I did not know much about glasses then but they felt strong to me. More on that later. While I acknowledged his recommendation, I still did not quite make the connection and did not do anything for a while. When I was complaining about headaches again a few weeks later, Matt mentioned that he was scheduled for an eye appointment next week and he would be happy to call and make an appointment for me as well. I called my mom for the insurance information. She was curious as to why I needed it and I told her the reason. A few days later, my friend and I were on our way to his eye doctor. As you can imagine, I felt uncomfortable to even go there as my vision was fine. When we arrived at the office, we were greeted cordially and Matt was soon asked to go see the doctor. After a few minutes, the receptionist asked me to follow her. I was guided to a room where a young nurse sitting in front of equipment greeted me cordially. She asked me to sit down and inquired what brought me here. I told her about my headaches and how my friend recommended that I should get my eyes checked. The nurse said that this was a good idea to make the appointment as headaches can indeed be caused by vision problems. I told her that I can see fine. She acknowledged and said: “Let us check”. She asked me to sit in front of one of her machines and to put my chin on a chinrest and relax. Images appeared inside the machine and soon after the machine printed out a small piece of paper. The nurse looked at it. Something about her reaction to what she saw was unusual. My concern was soon confirmed when she asked me to put my chin on the chinrest again and she went ahead and re-took the test. When she looked at the paper again, she showed not as strong a reaction as the first time. She then took a handheld instrument with a light in it and looked in my eyes. Then she exclaimed: “I will let the doctor confirm but it looks to me like you are quite farsighted”. I was then asked to take a seat and wait for the doctor to be done with my friend. I was sitting there processing what I had just been told. I guessed that this may probably mean that I will have to wear glasses which in itself wasn’t a big deal as most of my college peers were wearing them as well. I couldn’t stop thinking about her reaction when he saw the piece of paper, however. Fortunately, I was soon called into the doctor’s examination room where I was greeted by a friendly middle aged man. He said: “Have a seat here. I can’t wait to examine your eyes. The nurse has told me that you are not currently wearing glasses, correct?” I acknowledged. He further said: “If what the nurse determined is correct, this would be quite unusual.” This made me even more nervous but I did not ask any questions. The doctor started his examination by using the same instrument with the light and soon exclaimed: “The nurse is correct”. The doctor asked me to read the letters on the other side of the room which I was able to do without problems. Soon after he put a big instrument in front of my eyes and flipped some switches. Things immediately went from clear to very blurry at first but a few moments later without the doctor changing anything, things became clearer again. The chart on the other side of the room seemed bigger and clearer. The doctor really took his time examining me, pausing at times until he finally moved his chair back and removed the instrument. Removing the instrument felt like somebody was trying to pull my eyeballs out of their sockets. The doctor then told me that I should be wearing glasses and probably needed them for a long time. He said that not only is he confident that my headaches will disappear, he also said that I will eventually also need the glasses to see clearly. As I later realized, he was of course correct. He then went on to say that he will give me a prescription for glasses. He added that since it will be a strong prescription for first glasses, he will let me try the prescription before writing it. He then went on to put lenses in an awkward looking frame which he adjusted to fit my face. He put the frame on me and immediately said not to worry because real glasses would be more comfortable and lighter. The glasses felt heavy and I felt awkward with them on. Moving my head felt really strange as things seemed to pop up and down and back and forth. I also could not look left and right normally. After a while, the vision straight ahead felt quite clear and comfortable. The eye doctor inquired and when I told him what I experienced, he said that the popping will disappear. He then took the glasses and put in different lenses. With those, everything was blurry and even after a while, things were not as clear as with the first set of lenses. The eye doctor then went on to write the prescription. He asked me to get glasses right away but to get the cheapest lenses as I will soon need an updated prescription. He also recommended to get a small frame. I would later find out but I had no idea why back then. I acknowledged and he handed me a prescription card and asked me to make another appointment with the front desk in 3 months. At this point I was ready to leave and digest what I had just been told. I made the appointment at the front desk and met Matt who was patiently waiting. We both left. On the way back to our dorm room, he asked me how it went and I told him that I was given a prescription for glasses. He said: “Let me see it!” I handed it to him and unlike the nurse at the office, he showed a pretty big reaction. “Holy lord!” he exclaimed. “This is stronger than my prescription and I have been wearing glasses since I was 3!” Now I was really concerned. He added that he can’t believe this and immediately asked me to try his glasses which I had never done before. I put them on, and after a few seconds I could see pretty well through them. Everything appeared larger. The experience was similar to what I experienced at the doctor’s office. The glasses were of course much lighter. Now I took a look at the prescription card for the first time. It read OD +7.5 OS +8.0. I had no idea what that meant at the time but given the reaction at the doctor’s office and now from Matt it was clear that this was strong. Matt said that we should not go home but instead go to the optical store and pick out a pair of glasses. I declined as I did not have enough money to pay for them. I also wasn’t ready to go from no glasses to glasses in just a matter of hours. Matt understood but said we should really go tomorrow. We left it at that, went home and ordered a pizza. Later that evening I wondered what this all meant but with the internet just getting started at that time, little information was available. Over the years, I became very knowledgeable about the subject but I was quite clueless when I went to order my very first pair of glasses the next day.
The store was attended by a very pretty young lady. After I told her that I am here to shop for glasses she immediately asked for my prescription. I handed it to hear, expecting another “unusual” reaction, but she just said: “I presume you wear contact lenses most of the time. Will these be mainly for backup or do you wear glasses often?”. After I told her that these were my first pair of glasses, I started to realize how unique my situation was. She couldn’t help but exclaim: “I have never seen a first glasses prescription this high!” She soon realized that this may have hurt my feelings and treated me even nicer. She gave me good advice on frames and after some back and forth we picked a frame that we both thought suited me quite well. It was an oval metal frame in a gunmetal color. The young lady then asked me to take a seat and immediately started talking to me about various different lenses that I can choose from. Of course they all had a price! I then recalled that the eye doctor had told me to get the cheapest lenses as my prescription was going to change. The young lady immediately acknowledged that this is quite common with prescriptions like mine. She then went on to measure something with a contraption she put in front of my eyes, filled out some paperwork and told me that she will rush my order through. She asked me to call the next day for an update. I went home and it slowly sunk in with me that I had just been prescribed strong glasses. I had a huge headache that day and I started thinking about the possibility of those glasses helping me get rid of them. This made me feel better.
The next day I called and the friendly young lady answered the call. With a cheery voice she proclaimed that my glasses came out nice and are ready to be picked up. She said I could come by any time to collect them. After class I went by the optical shop to pick up a piece of metal with two huge pieces of plastic mounted in them that closely resembled the eyes of a bug. The only good part about this was that the pretty young lady put them on me and took them off several times for some adjustments. After a while she was happy with her work and asked me to look around and tell her how I felt. The vision was quite good but I felt the same popping I experienced at the doctor’s office and I could really only see clearly straight ahead and not to the sides. I told her that and she assured me that “it will eventually go away once you are used to your new glasses”. As it later turned out the popping went away but the field of vision would never be the same. She then asked me to look at myself in the mirror. I did and I was shocked. What happened? The glasses looked good when I first tried them on yesterday but now my eyes look huge! I barely recognized myself. Still in shock I went on to pay and asked the young lady for the case to put the glasses in. She handed it to me and wished me good luck and to come back in case I experienced any problems. I put the glasses in the case and left the store. I was still in shock. On the bus, I took the glasses out of the case and looked at the lenses again. They were definitely thicker than my friend Matt’s. I feared that everybody would notice how thick they are. I could not believe they were mine. I put them back in the case and went home. When at home I put the glasses on and looked at myself in the mirror again in disbelief. This was supposed to be the new me? After a while I took them off. Later that evening my headaches returned and for the first time since getting my glasses, I was somewhat glad that I had them as hopefully my headaches would go away if I wore them. Did they ever! It took all but a few minutes of wearing these strong glasses that my headaches went completely away. Of course I kept wearing my glasses but when my friend and roommate Matt opened the door, I took them off and put them in the case. He immediately noticed the glasses case on the table and said: “Oh, you got your glasses. Let me see them!” He said “nice” and put them on. He proclaimed “yes, definitely stronger than mine but I can read very well with them. Why aren’t you wearing them?” I confessed that I was wearing them until just before he entered the room. I also shared my feelings about them with him and thanked him as they did appear to make my headaches go away. He said: “Put them on. You will get used to them”. It later turned out that he was right but coming out as a glasses wearer was not going to be easy and I wasn’t sure whether I would ever like the way I looked with them on. I kept the glasses on for the rest of the evening and enjoyed the increasingly clear vision and complete absence of headaches. I almost forgot that I had them on when I went to the bathroom. On the way there, I bumped into the corner of my desk. Somehow, I didn’t see it was there. I shook it off and went on to the bathroom where a look in the mirror instantly reminded me. I took the glasses off to look at the “old me”. I was not in focus but after a few blinks I was pleased to see this familiar sharp image again. The only difference was that there were red indentations where the nose pads of the glasses rested before. I put the glasses back on and once again was shocked by how different they made me look.
As you may have guessed, I did not even bring the glasses to class the next day. Late morning my headaches came back and I was glad to be home where I could put on my glasses. Like the day before, the headaches went away almost immediately. I was starting to worry that I would become dependent on these things before long.
Over the next few days, I wore my glasses more and more but never outside of my room. Matt was very understanding and ultimately helped me “come out” with them. I was very concerned about what the reaction might be when other students see me in glasses for the first time. Matt suggested that most people won’t notice and the ones that do will just assume that I normally wear contacts. While this made sense I wasn’t ready. I also wasn’t sure I needed to wear my glasses. Matt suggested to just wear them when I want to wear them. What a great piece of advice. It turned out that I wanted to wear them more and more. As a matter of fact, I wore them constantly when I was at home. This went on for a while but every time I was outside the house I struggled with headaches and soon also with blurred vision. This really freaked me out as my vision was fine just a few weeks ago. I called the doctor’s office as I was getting concerned. The doctor could not answer as he was with a patient and I was told he will call back. He did call back about an hour later. When I expressed my concerns to him he started to explain to me what was happening. I learned all about accommodation and how it would become increasingly difficult to overcome my level of farsightedness with increasing age. He somehow managed to not make me feel old. I had just turned 20. He went on to say that I should consider myself lucky to be blessed with such incredible ability to accommodate that allowed me to go without glasses for so long. While I obviously did not really want to hear it, he said that I would be completely dependent on glasses soon. He assured me that my eyes were healthy and that he promised much better vision than before. I told him that I was already experiencing better vision and that the headaches had gone away. I thanked him. He asked me whether he can share something else with me. I said sure. He then went on to tell me that my current prescription was only a start to get me used to wearing glasses and that my actual prescription is higher. He told me to expect an increase soon. He also shared with me that my prescription was the highest first time prescription he had ever written for an adult in his career. I suppose this explains everybody’s reaction at the office that day. While I wasn’t glad to hear what I had just been told I was at least glad that I knew why the doctor wanted to see me again soon.
Fortunately, the weekend came and instead of going to class and struggling with headaches and blurred vision, I was glad I didn’t have to go anywhere this Saturday. Instead, I could wear my glasses all morning as long as I wanted. Then Matt suggested that we should go catch a movie and have some Chinese food right after. I thought it was a great idea. Soon after, we got ready. On the way out, I realized I still had my glasses on. I took them off and put them on my desk. Matt asked me: “Do you want to wear them?”. I admitted that I did. He then said: “Why don’t you, we are just going to the movies where nobody knows you and it will be dark there”. It made perfect sense to me, so I put them back on but immediately realized that people might see me on campus on the way out. My understanding friend suggested that I should bring them with me just in case I wanted to wear them later on. Soon after we cleared the campus, I put my glasses on and enjoyed my first time wearing them outside. It felt good to look around without strain and enjoy the clarity. I looked forward to no headaches all day. We enjoyed a good movie and were soon on our way to a Chinese restaurant. I hardly realized that I was still wearing my strong glasses until we stood in front of the hostess at the restaurant. She was cordial and kind but I felt like she was staring at my glasses. This made me very uncomfortable but we were soon seated and enjoyed some great chow mein which made me forget. As I was headed for a bathroom break, the hostess just happened to come out of the women’s bathroom. She gave me a big smile. She was a little embarrassed when she stopped me and went on to tell me that she liked my big blue eyes. What a relief for me that it turns out that she wasn’t staring at my glasses earlier but instead just liked my blue eyes. I thanked her but was too embarrassed to ask for her number. I went back to the table thinking to myself that perhaps the magnification of my eyeglass lenses was not disfiguring me after all. On the way home it was getting dark. I checked my vision without glasses by looking over them. I was no longer surprised or concerned that my vision was now better with glasses than without. This ended up being a great day and I will always remember it as the first day of full time glasses wear for me. It was followed by a full day of wear on Sunday.
By Monday morning I really wanted to wear my glasses all day. I decided to just do it. As expected by Matt, I received a few comments in passing about not wearing contacts but nobody remarked on the strength of the glasses. At lunch time a girl I liked named Sara remarked: “I had never noticed how big and blue your eyes are!”. She either did not realize that it was my strong glasses magnifying my eyes and making them more noticeable or she did realize and chose not comment on it. Either worked for me and I thanked her for the compliment. Over the next few weeks, more people made similar comments and I was all but over my concerns about my new appearance. I went from not knowing that I needed glasses to full time wear of strong glasses in a matter of four weeks. Things were good and I continued to receive compliments on my big blue eyes. After a few weeks my unaided vision had deteriorated dramatically but was great with glasses. The popping effect was completely gone. Occasionally, I still struggled with the limited field of vision but with the +7.5 prescription there was a fair amount of peripheral vision. Unfortunately, after eight weeks the headaches came back. Suspecting the reason, I called the doctor’s office to pull in my appointment. They were able to see me the same day. The doctor went through pretty much the same routine and eventually handed me my new prescription and advised to get another pair of inexpensive lenses as he still wasn’t able to give me my full prescription. This time the prescription card read OS +10.00 OD +10.25. I was told to schedule another appointment in 2 months.
I went back to the optical shop. The nice attendant immediately recognized me and asked how she could help. She looked at me wearing my glasses and noted: “I really like strong plus prescriptions. It works particularly well for you with your nice blue eyes. They look very nice”. I thanked her and told her why I was here. She asked for the prescription, commented that it was quite a bump from the last one and immediately asked whether this was now my final prescription. I told her that the doctor expected another increase. I also told her that I couldn’t really spend the money on another frame and that I would like to have new lenses put in my current frame. She said no problem but also went on to say that they don’t stock these lenses and that they would need to order them. Once they have them, she would call me and I could come by and wait while they put my new lenses in my existing frames. I thanked her and came back a couple of days later when she called. When I got there, she asked me for my glasses and only then did it sink in with me how bad my vision really was. I was sitting there for what turned out to be less than an hour but it felt like an eternity. I was unable to read or recognize the faces of people in the store. It was good to finally hear the voice of the friendly attendant as she proclaimed: “Here you go”. I could see that she was stretching her arms but had to guess that it was my new glasses she was handing to me. I almost dropped them as I did not have a good grip on them. I put them on and immediately looked at myself in the mirror but was held back by the attendant exclaiming “Nice! Your blue eyes are even bigger now!”. Then I looked at the mirror. I expected my eyes to look bigger but this was a huge difference! Also, when turning my head, the lenses just appeared a lot stronger and thicker. It’s because they were. Maybe it was a good thing that I could no longer inspect them while holding them in my hands as I could no longer see clearly when I wasn’t wearing them. I noticed in the store that things were not as clear at a distance as they were with my old lenses but I felt relaxed and the headache I developed earlier in the day was soon gone. The distance blur was almost gone by the time I got home. When I entered the dorm room, my roommate wasn’t as sensitive as usual when he immediately exclaimed “wow, these are strong”. We then compared prescriptions and I now had glasses 4 diopters stronger than his. He tried on my glasses and said he could not see well beyond a foot or so.
My roommate was not the only one who felt compelled to comment on my new lenses. Sara noticed a difference as well and rather than comment on my even bigger blue eyes, she commented that my lenses are thicker now. She was nice about it but it still didn’t feel good. Later that day at a coffee shop it felt to me like the barista was staring at me. Now I felt it wasn’t my big eyes that was getting the attention but my thick pair of glasses instead. I went home and took a picture of myself using my Polaroid camera. Looking at the picture, I felt that my glasses did indeed look a lot stronger and thicker. I was not feeling well. After looking at myself in the bathroom mirror for a long period of time, I decided that I still liked the fact that my eyes look really big now. I remembered the hostess at the Chinese restaurant and quickly decided to have dinner there by myself. When I entered the restaurant, she was right there, recognized me immediately and greeted me saying: “Good to see my friend with the big blue eyes”. She gave me a nice table and later stopped by to check on me. We started talking a bit. It was a quiet evening and she was able to leave early. We went to have a drink together. She remarked on my big blue eyes again but never made any comments about my glasses. I felt very comfortable and we exchanged phone numbers.
With Christmas approaching, I was looking forward to seeing my family and old friends soon. But then it hit me like a bomb. Nobody there had ever seen me in glasses, let alone the strong ones I was now sporting! My parents and siblings knew that I had gotten them but they had no clue how thick they were. And what was worse is that I didn’t really have a choice but to wear them. I sure wasn’t ready to be the talk of town. Before I panicked, I thought of a great solution: Get contact lenses! I did get them but was having a really hard time to get used to them. It was also a big struggle to get them inserted, unable to see clearly. I did end up wearing them when I arrived at my parent’s house for the Christmas holiday but soon had to take them out and present myself to my family in glasses. Fortunately, nobody remarked on the strength of them. There were only some questions about my vision and whether I wear them full time. I just wore them from that point on and decided to just bite the bullet and wear them in front of my friends as well. The worst thing that could happen was that I needed to answer some questions and somebody may have remarked how strong they are. If anybody made fun of me, they weren’t good friends anyway. Everything went fine. Only one friend, a wearer of strong glasses for nearsightedness himself pulled me aside discreetly and remarked on the strength of my glasses and inquired about my experience. Fortunately, my glasses had the same effect on my female friends back home as in my college town. I got a lot of remarks on how they did not remember that I had such beautiful big blue eyes. I was so glad I made it through this. In hindsight, there wasn’t really anything to be concerned about and this is what I now tell every new glasses wearer. And for those of us with strong prescriptions, be confident wearing them because people will only notice if you are not self-confident.
At my third appointment, I was given my “final” prescription. The card now read OS +12.00 OD +12.25, pretty much double that of my friend Matt. The doctor remarked that this is exactly what he and the nurse had measured during my first appointment. He re-iterated that this was the strongest first prescription he had ever seen in an adult. He remarked that he didn’t really know whether my prescription will change again soon but he hoped that it didn’t. He said that it will go up as I get older (which it did, more on that later) but hopefully increases will be limited throughout my twenties and thirties. He said I could get more expensive lenses now.
I went back to the optical store and was once again greeted by the cheery attendant. She said she was happy to see me and asked for my prescription. She looked at it and carefully asked whether this was now the final prescription. I repeated what the doctor had said. She mentioned that they had a buy one get one for $50.00 deal. She whispered in my ear that I should take advantage of it as they would need to sell me my lenses below cost at that price. I decided to get a pair of aviator sunglasses and update the lenses in my current regular glasses. This is when I got my introductory lesson on lens technology, frame sizes and shapes, their effect on lens thickness, and an explanation why high plus lenses and high index materials don’t go well together. At that time, cataract surgeries with lens replacements were not commonly done, so strong plus lenses were still widely available but it was clear to me right there that if I wanted the best vision, I could not have the thinnest lenses. I was given the choice of a plastic lenticular, a plastic blended lenticular, a full field glass, and a full field plastic. I went with the full field plastic for both the regular glasses and the sunglasses. The attendant was concerned about the large aviator frame size and wasn’t sure whether they could be made at all. She called the lab technician out front and he said he will give it a try but said that he would need to order the lenses. This was the first time making glasses for me wasn’t straightforward and it has not been since. We decided to make the sunglasses first which I could then wear while I waited for my regular glasses to receive the updated lenses. This time it took almost a week and I was getting anxious to get my updated prescription as my headaches were coming back. It was a rainy day when I received the call and I was offered to come in to collect my sunglasses and wait while they updated the lenses in my regular glasses. The sunglasses had big bulges out front by well over half an inch but it wasn’t too attention catching as many sunglasses have quite bulgy non-prescription lenses as well. It felt good to put them on because of the updated prescription but they were quite heavy. The attendant introduced me to and installed large size nose pads that were connected with a strap over my nose. To this day I often install those on my glasses.
Fast forward about 30 years. Only a few months after I got my first glasses, my vision without them was completely blurred near and far. There is a misconception about being farsighted. Most people believe that farsighted people can’t see clearly up close but can see clearly far. This is really only the case for presbyopic people (namely life-long non-glasses wearers that need reading glasses due to age). Farsighted people have blurred vision near and far. And with a prescription of +10 or more it gets really blurry. But then people with +3 are quite helpless without correction, so the difference is mainly how thick your lenses are. Nearsighted people on the other hand can see clearly at some near distance, which may only be an inch from your eyes if you are really myopic. My strong magnifying glasses have become a trademark of mine and I continue to get compliments on my big blue eyes. I am sure these compliments would be less frequent if my eyes weren’t as magnified as they are through my powerful lenses. I still live in the town I went to college and my eye doctor is nearing retirement. I still see him. He was correct that my prescription wasn’t going to go up much in my 20’s and 30’s but it did end up creeping up to +13.50 by the time I was 40. Now in my early 50’s I am up to +15.50, still not requiring a reading add. I am glad I don’t as bifocals are not easy to come by. It is also now getting very hard to find full filed lenses in my strength in general and with the somewhat larger frames required for my large face in particular. I am only aware of one current manufacturer that makes them to +16. I don’t know what I will do if I get another increase. Maybe some of the new freeform technology will be available. If not, I will need to resort to lenticular lenses. Over the years many opticians suggested them because of the lower weight and because they “look better”. They are lighter but I don’t think they look better. I really don’t like them as the reaction of people to them is noticeably different than when I wear my regular full field glasses. People do seem to notice the little circle more easily (as in “you must be blind”) than the thickness of my regular glasses. Even though the full field lenses are heavy and approaching an inch thickness at the center now, I like them better. I am also able to wear contact lenses for short periods of time but it never feels right when I do. I therefore only use them during activities such as swimming or skiing where this makes sense. The rest of the time I am the guy with the big blue eyes. They get bigger every time I get a new eyeglass prescription.
I hope you enjoyed reading my story.
Statistics: Posted by HDT — Wed Mar 09, 2016 7:12 pm