I’m glad your surgery worked out for you, that’s awesome 👍
May I ask, similar to the other commenter, like what type of surgery did you have and how’s the anesthesia part work out, are you conscious or fully knocked out for it? What was the recovery time like and what’s the risks of something going wrong?
You can pause right here if you care to comment on my questions, beyond this point is a TL;DR of my own experiences, read further if you want…
I originally got glasses at age 8, in 1990. In the past, I have had issues with glasses not sitting comfortably on my face, but I’ve also come to respect glasses not only for focus, but also as eye protection.
For the past couple years though, I’ve been wearing stupid thick bifocals that were donated to me by an old fella, that happen to be a perfect match for my vision, but they were made around 1988, so yeah coke bottle glasses. My left lens is ~7mm thick at the thickest spot, the right lens is ~9mm thick, so yeah they’re a bit heavy, but crystal clear.
What I’ve come to learn about such heavy glasses on my face, is that when I got them as a donation made in 1988, is that initially they gave me headaches. Not from the lenses though, but from the earpieces, they needed to be bent to match my skull shape over and behind my ears. They also needed new earpiece tips as well, the originals were totally dryrotted and crumbling apart.
So, I spent like 3 hours per side, carefully bending and readjusting both earpieces very carefully, to fit properly over and behind my ears, and to conform comfortably to the shape of my skull. Then I replaced the earpiece tips with a few layers of heatshrink/Thermalfit out of my electronics kit, and covered those buffer layers with proper silicone replacement earpiece tips.
I was extremely careful to match up the ends of the earpiece tips to my skull, as that’s not only where they caused headaches, but also why they kept slipping down my nose. So as I fit them to my skull and ears, I curled the earpiece tips in much further than you usually see glasses generically made. I adjusted these things to fit me perfectly, no more headaches, no more nose slippage, and crystal clear vision.
Somehow they survive me working on vehicles and such, and still don’t have a single friggin scratch! I guess they just made stuff to actually last back in 1988, they just needed basically minor maintenance and major skull/ear fitting. It’s not about style for me anymore, it’s about what just works.
If you’ve made it this far, I’m always glad to share stories of people’s journeys towards better vision and learn along the way…
That’s awesome that you got some retro glasses that just happened to be your prescription. Fantastic lol. Part of the reason I got surgery was somewhat the same as the issue with your glasses, just there wasn’t anything I could’ve done to fix it. If it’s on my face, I don’t like it. Also I could see all the smudges and tiny hairs on my glasses at any one time, which annoyed the heck out of me.
I still wear ‘sun glasses’ when I go outside though. I was given a new pair of safety glasses when I was setting up a stage for IATSE a long time ago, they’re clear but still protect from UV, so I use those whenever I go out. I get some weird looks sometimes, but yeah, it’s not about the fashion, it’s about health.
Thanks for your second comment too haha.
I didn’t answer about the risks, so I’ll do so here:
Most common issue is having consistently dry eyes afterwards. If you normally have really dry eyes then you might not be able to get surgery because it disrupts the ‘channels’ in the epithelium that keep your eyes moist. As I said in the previous comment, it took a year for mine to get that back fully and I mine were on the edge of not being able to get it done (they look at the thickness of the epithelium beforehand).
Another issue is rubbing your eyes too hard and the flap opens up again… D: It’s happened a lot before because the dryness after the surgery makes your eyes really itchy sometimes, especially if you’ve put in too many eye drops.
Recovery time is really dependent on age too, I was ~30 when I get it done, and they cap it out at 35 or so because after that it might not heal correctly.
I’m glad your surgery worked out for you, that’s awesome 👍
May I ask, similar to the other commenter, like what type of surgery did you have and how’s the anesthesia part work out, are you conscious or fully knocked out for it? What was the recovery time like and what’s the risks of something going wrong?
You can pause right here if you care to comment on my questions, beyond this point is a TL;DR of my own experiences, read further if you want…
I originally got glasses at age 8, in 1990. In the past, I have had issues with glasses not sitting comfortably on my face, but I’ve also come to respect glasses not only for focus, but also as eye protection.
For the past couple years though, I’ve been wearing stupid thick bifocals that were donated to me by an old fella, that happen to be a perfect match for my vision, but they were made around 1988, so yeah coke bottle glasses. My left lens is ~7mm thick at the thickest spot, the right lens is ~9mm thick, so yeah they’re a bit heavy, but crystal clear.
What I’ve come to learn about such heavy glasses on my face, is that when I got them as a donation made in 1988, is that initially they gave me headaches. Not from the lenses though, but from the earpieces, they needed to be bent to match my skull shape over and behind my ears. They also needed new earpiece tips as well, the originals were totally dryrotted and crumbling apart.
So, I spent like 3 hours per side, carefully bending and readjusting both earpieces very carefully, to fit properly over and behind my ears, and to conform comfortably to the shape of my skull. Then I replaced the earpiece tips with a few layers of heatshrink/Thermalfit out of my electronics kit, and covered those buffer layers with proper silicone replacement earpiece tips.
I was extremely careful to match up the ends of the earpiece tips to my skull, as that’s not only where they caused headaches, but also why they kept slipping down my nose. So as I fit them to my skull and ears, I curled the earpiece tips in much further than you usually see glasses generically made. I adjusted these things to fit me perfectly, no more headaches, no more nose slippage, and crystal clear vision.
Somehow they survive me working on vehicles and such, and still don’t have a single friggin scratch! I guess they just made stuff to actually last back in 1988, they just needed basically minor maintenance and major skull/ear fitting. It’s not about style for me anymore, it’s about what just works.
If you’ve made it this far, I’m always glad to share stories of people’s journeys towards better vision and learn along the way…
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk
That’s awesome that you got some retro glasses that just happened to be your prescription. Fantastic lol. Part of the reason I got surgery was somewhat the same as the issue with your glasses, just there wasn’t anything I could’ve done to fix it. If it’s on my face, I don’t like it. Also I could see all the smudges and tiny hairs on my glasses at any one time, which annoyed the heck out of me.
I still wear ‘sun glasses’ when I go outside though. I was given a new pair of safety glasses when I was setting up a stage for IATSE a long time ago, they’re clear but still protect from UV, so I use those whenever I go out. I get some weird looks sometimes, but yeah, it’s not about the fashion, it’s about health.
Thanks for your second comment too haha.
I didn’t answer about the risks, so I’ll do so here:
Most common issue is having consistently dry eyes afterwards. If you normally have really dry eyes then you might not be able to get surgery because it disrupts the ‘channels’ in the epithelium that keep your eyes moist. As I said in the previous comment, it took a year for mine to get that back fully and I mine were on the edge of not being able to get it done (they look at the thickness of the epithelium beforehand).
Another issue is rubbing your eyes too hard and the flap opens up again… D: It’s happened a lot before because the dryness after the surgery makes your eyes really itchy sometimes, especially if you’ve put in too many eye drops.
Recovery time is really dependent on age too, I was ~30 when I get it done, and they cap it out at 35 or so because after that it might not heal correctly.