At a point of time in my life that was between 18 months and my second birthday it was determined that I was an extremely nearsighted child. I am shown in a picture that was taken on my second birthday wearing a pair of glasses. My parents cannot remember exactly when I got my first glasses, and they have told me that during the period of time between when my vision problems were first noticed and when I was prescribed my first pair of glasses they spent a lot of time dragging me from doctor to doctor so that the extent of my problems could be determined. Neither my mom nor my dad could remember exactly what the prescription in my first pair of glasses was but they both seem to remember that my prescription was something like -19D. They did remember that after I got glasses once a year I had to go back to the eye, nose, ear and throat department at our local hospital. By the time I was aged 5 I was wearing glasses that were biconcave myodiscs with a prescription of exactly -28.00D.
During my early school years I was the only child in my class that had to wear glasses. There was some curiosity amongst the other kids about my vision, but a lot of my fellow students had parents, or older siblings who wore glasses and the stigma against wearing glasses had pretty much disappeared. When I was 8, and was in third grade my parents and my eye doctor at the time wanted me to try contact lenses. It was suggested to me that I would be able to see a lot better with contacts. I really didn’t want to wear contacts. Sure, I knew that my eyesight was not nearly as good as most of the other kids, but I had never had what I considered any real problems in seeing what I needed to see. My teachers knew I had poor distance vision and had always done their utmost to place me in a position where I was fairly close to what I had to see. For movies or anything that was shown on the classroom television they let me sit as close to the screen as I felt I needed to. For anything that was done in a structured classroom environment I always had a front row seat. And all of my teachers so far had taken a bit of extra effort to be sure that I had gotten anything I had to write down from the whiteboard copied correctly. Contact lenses did not seem like a high priority to me.
I bowed to the pressure and I did get contacts. I tried to wear them for a couple of days but I didn’t like the feel of them on my eyeball. It felt like there was something foreign in my eye that I wanted to get out. And I hated being without my glasses. At the time they had only been part of me for 6 years, but when my eyes were behind the strong lenses that I required to see past the end of my nose I just felt that everything exactly the way it should be. After the second day I told my parents that I didn’t want them to put the contacts in my eyes anymore. I couldn’t see well enough to do it myself and I hadn’t gotten accustomed to doing it blind – at least blind until I got the first lens in. They tried to reason with me, but I adamantly refused to wear them anymore.
Ten years ago, in 2006 when I was 14, I had a slight increase in my prescription. This was the first time my prescription had really climbed higher on its own. Yes, my first glasses were only -19D, and when I was 5 and in school my glasses were -28D. There had been a couple of changes between the -19D and the -28D and when I talked about this with my doctor he told me that the first prescription I had been given was just a guess because I did not know any of my letters and they could not get an accurate reading. By the time they gave me the second prescription they were able to get a closer reading on what I needed, but they wanted to keep my vision under corrected – or at least corrected to the minimum point that I required to be able to see well enough to learn. Then the third prescription brought me a little closer to my final prescription, which I had gotten at age 5.
My prescription had increased by a whole diopter to -29D. My doctor then told me that this might be the first of many increases because until this time my myopia had been caused by my cornea, which apparently was thicker than normal, and my inner lens, which was quite a bit thicker than what most other people had. I didn’t know very much about this and my recollection of what he told me is that the light enters through the cornea, which is sort of like a lens. Then it passes through the inner lens and it is focused on the macula, much like a movie projector shows a picture on a screen. Then the retina moves the image to the brain where the brain processes it. My lens system had a lot more plus power than anyone else’s had. Because I was growing now my eyeball had started to grow slightly longer,
My eye doctor was a very nice man and he explained to me that many young girls my age often started to become a little bit nearsighted because they were growing and the eyeball sometimes grew slightly out of round as well. He suggested to me that his theory for the eyeball growing longer was because, at my age, we were doing a lot of near point work. With all the extra near point work the ciliary muscle was unable to relax and was leaving the inner lens focused for close work. Then the person would complain that they couldn’t see very well and they were then prescribed their first pair of minus lensed glasses. They would continue their poor reading habits and eventually the eyeball would start to elongate. This would then require stronger glasses and from that point on it often became a vicious circle. I didn’t completely understand what he was saying, but I did understand him when he suggested that I should take more frequent breaks from all the reading I was doing, and that I should wear my old glasses anytime I was doing a lot of close work. He did tell me that he could not be completely sure that this would help keep my prescription from climbing even higher, but that he felt that I could not afford to take any chances. I agreed with him, and decided that I would follow his advice.
After I got my new -29D glasses I made an effort to wear my old -28D ones when I was reading. I needed no further change when I was 15, but I did need another diopter added to my prescription when I was 16. Now my new distance glasses were going to be -30D. My doctor was very happy that I had managed to keep my increase to only a diopter and he felt that I had taken his advice to heart. I explained to him that I had actually worn my old glasses a lot more than I had my new ones. As long as I had not needed to see things off in the distance clearly I had chosen to wear my old glasses, but whenever I had gone outside I always wore my new ones. He suggested that it might be a good idea if I kept that up, and then he suggested that I should still wear my old -28D glasses for prolonged reading and should switch to my -29D glasses for those times when I felt that I didn’t need the best possible distance vision. Whenever I was outdoors, or out in public and I felt I needed the best possible vision I should then wear my new -30D glasses. He did caution me that I should not strain my eyes by trying to see anything off in the distance and that I should wear the glasses that felt right to me for the task I was doing.
By this time I knew that everything was subjective. When the doctor had suggested that I should wear my lower powered glasses for those times when I felt that I didn’t need the best possible distance vision he was not talking about your best distance vision, he was talking about mine. With the -30D glasses giving me my best distance vision I probably was somewhere in between 20/40 and 20/50 for my BCVA. On a bright sunny day if my glasses were pushed up to the most perfect position on my nose I could likely be tested right at 20/40.or maybe a little better. But on a dull day when my glasses had slipped slightly my acuity was probably around 20/50. And that is why I say it is subjective. I have never known 20/20 vision so to me 20/40 is great. But anyone who is used to 20/20 would hate to have my 20/40 eyesight. If a person came along who had 20/100 as their best acuity though my 20/40 would be considered wonderful to them. As I say, it is all subjective.
My parents and my doctor tried once again when I was around 16 to convince me that I should wear contact lenses. I just told them I liked wearing my glasses and I didn’t want to try contacts again, so this time they backed off immediately. I wondered if the reason my parents wanted me to wear contacts was because they were a little embarrassed that their oldest child needed such strong and unusual looking glasses. We could not figure out why I had such poor vision because neither of my parents wore glasses, and I am sure that my parents had been very relieved when neither my younger brother nor my sister needed glasses as early in life as I had.
During the couple of years I was between 16 and 18 I spent a lot of time on the internet. I found a number of stories there about girls who wore strong glasses, and although I knew these stories were mostly fiction I could tell that the different writers had used a lot of true to life experiences for their stories of high myopes. What I found the most fascinating was that there seemed to be quite a lot of men who professed their admiration for those girls who were highly myopic. I had not ever worried that my chances of finding a boyfriend would be lessened because of my poor eyesight and my thick glasses. My mom was a very pretty lady, and I had taken after her in the looks and the figure department. With my glasses off I was almost a spitting image of her and so far none of the guys I had dated had ever seemed to have a problem with me wearing glasses.
The year I was 18 I headed off to University. I was taking my general B.A. with a course in Economics more or less on the side. Because of my obviously poor eyesight there were a number of jobs I would never be hired for and to be quite truthful I didn’t really want a job that tied me to a desk day after day. Even a teaching job would not really suit me. The courses that I was taking would give me a degree, and it would be up to me to take it from there.
Also when I was 18 I required another slight increase and now my glasses had to be right at -31D. I went another couple of years until I was 20, and by then my prescription had increased a bit more to -32D. I had gained -4D of myopia during this time, and my doctor felt that I would not have my myopia go much higher. That was fine with me. I loved my glasses, and I was completely comfortable with the vision I had through the strong myodisc lenses I had worn for the last 18 years.
My dating life was almost unbelievable. I had guys stop me on the street to tell me that I was absolutely gorgeous and they would ask me for my name and phone number. If I liked what I saw I would give them my first name and my number but if I didn’t I would simply tell them that I was engaged. When I was around campus the story was the same. It seemed that most of the time I had an entourage of men that were vying for my attention. I was booked at least 30 days ahead and I had to be careful to write everything down on my notepad on my smart phone so that I didn’t forget a date.
I graduated with my degree in Economics when I was 22. Before I went out into the work force I flew to Europe with some friends and we travelled around England, Holland, France, Spain and Italy. A couple of my girlfriends had to go home after a month so 4 of us continued on to see Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Finally two months had gone by and I had to come home as the money had run out. Now it was time to go to work.
Once I was back at home I looked over some of the responses I had gotten from the resumes I sent out before I graduated. A couple of the replies sounded promising and I followed up on them. I ended up being hired by a fairly well known investment firm. They provided me with some of my initial clients and I have been gradually adding clients of my own to my roster for almost 2 years now.
One of my new clients is a very well-known Ophthalmologist and we have had some discussions about my eyesight. He understands that my axial myopia is very low – maybe only -4D and that most of my myopia is because of my cornea and my inner lens being a stronger plus power than it should be. He has offered to remove my inner lens and replace it with a lens of the correct power to eliminate my myopia. Apparently my inner lens is likely somewhere around +40D, and it should only be around +20D give or take a bit. Then once the proper lens power is established he would like to do laser surgery to eliminate the balance of my myopia. He feels that except for me needing bifocal reading glasses for any and all near point work I should be able to have perfect distance vision and will even be able to drive if I should so desire.
I have to say that it was a very tempting offer. But I told him I will save that option if my eyes ever reach a point where I can no longer see as well as I can. I still love my glasses and I am sure that my bevy of boyfriends would disappear slowly into the night if I were to ever have the surgery. I know they love me for my myopia as much as I love being severely myopic. Call me crazy if you wish.
Specs4ever Oct 2014