For a number of years you have likely been reading stories I have written about people who wear glasses. Over the years I have stretched the realms of possibilities as far as induced myopia can go, leading the person who had the myopia induced to have very high, and potentially unrealistic prescriptions. Many of my tales start off with some elements of truth, but soon I find I get carried away and go a little overboard – no, make that a lot overboard. In actual fact, induced myopia is entirely possible – if you start with a child of age 5 or 6 and carry it through until they are not much older than 22. In telling stories about women who have had increases in their myopia during the time they are pregnant I have also stretched this beyond reasonable doubt. In one case I have actually known of one lady who had her prescription increase from -11D up to -20D during pregnancy, but the chance of this happening is so rare it is almost an impossibility. Yes, it is known that childbirth will slightly increase a woman’s myopia, but normally by only -1 or -2D. And for those people who are unfortunate enough to actually experience rapidly increasing myopia during their teenage years, the outcome is not always good. Retinal detachments, very poor visual acuity, and many other problems are associated with very high myopia and that is why it is generally called degenerative progressive myopia. But in the fantasy world of my stories, none of this happens and the heroine ends up with a very high prescription and no problems.
Sometimes I come across a story that is almost unbelievable, but really is the truth. It is the story that my stories are made of, with one difference – it has happened in real life. Such is the following tale.
About 10 years ago I moved to a new home in a different area of the country. I do not post my real name, or where I live on the internet for everyone to see. However, I do not hide behind the internet. If you write to my e mail address, or if you send me a note through Vision and Spex, where many of my stories are to be found, I will generally reply to you within a reasonable amount of time. And sometimes I end up becoming quite friendly with some of the people who do write to me. I have friends all over the world who know me in this manner, and most of these friends know the real me. That is why I was not surprised to get an e mail from a friend of mine who knew where I had moved to suggesting that he had told a friend of his who apparently lived near my new home that he should contact me.
That is how I ended up meeting Ron, his wife Michelle and their two children, Toby and Kyla. At this time Ron was 41, Michelle was 39, and Toby and Kyla were 19 and 17 respectively. Of course I didn’t become bosom buddies with Ron right off the bat but since my friend who suggested he contact me was a reader of my stories and was very much into the girls with glasses scene I figured that Ron likely was as well. He was, but he was also fortunate enough to have his own personal GWG at home. When I actually met Michelle, it was a pleasure to see her wearing glasses that had a prescription of around, or somewhat north of -13D. She wasn’t a really hot looking girl as she was a little shorter than I would have liked, and she was a bit rounder than I thought was attractive. But after I got to know her I was quite enamored by her bubbly friendly personality. And Ron showed me a few pictures of Shel from the early years of their marriage, so I could tell from looking at them that she was pretty darned cute as a younger, much slimmer girl.
From the pictures I had seen of a younger Shel I could tell that she was only slightly shortsighted back when she was around 16. Normally, for someone to end up with a prescription of around -13D by the time they are in their 30’s they generally will have a prescription of between -6D and -8D before they are 20. But Shel appeared to only be around -2.50D at the time she and Ron were married. Fortunately Ron knew I was into girls who wear glasses as much, or even more than he was, so he told me about Shel’s myopic progression.
I had been correct. When they were married 20 years earlier, when Shel was 19, her prescription had actually been -3.00D. When Toby was born she was 21, and her prescription had climbed by about -1D to around -4D. Then a couple of years later, when she was pregnant with Kayla, her eyes requited another diopter added to her prescription, making her slightly more than a -5D myope. By this time her glasses had become a very permanent fixture on her face, although she often still took them off to read.
Once Shel reached the age of 26 her myopia had increased by slightly more than another diopter, and her new glasses were then around -6.50D. She stayed home during the years the children were younger, but by the time Toby was in morning kindergarten she knew that once Kayla started school being home alone would be very boring. She realized that with her high school education she would not be able to get much more than a low paying job in the service industry and when she saw an ad saying that a company that specialized in doing income tax would train people Shel decided she would go for it, and took the course. Starting at the end of January the year she was 27 Shel did tax preparation for a number of clients and a couple of small businesses. The money was helpful, and the main benefit of doing this was that she didn’t have to travel, but could work from home.
While the kids were in school Shel was outside a lot during the school year. Both children enjoyed playing various sports, and Shel drove them to games, and sat in the stands watching them. And in the summer both kids swam a lot, so quite a bit of time was spent at the local pool, or at the beach, outside in the bright sunlight. Ron felt that all this outdoor activity pretty much offset much of the time Shel spent indoors. Shel had always been quite a reader, and coupled with the bookkeeping work she was now doing along with her income tax work, Shel was spending a lot of time doing near point work. Her prescription increased to around -7D when she was 28, and then by the time she was 30 it had gone up to somewhere in the neighborhood of -8D. This was nothing unusual, or exceptional. Very few myopes experience any increases in their myopia after the age of 25, but once in a while some people would continue to require a few tune ups in their prescription, even into their 40’s.
By the time Shel was 33 she had developed a sizeable client base for her accounting business, and her yearly income tax services really put a lot of stress on her to get all the work done on time. She managed, but now Ron was the one taking Toby to the hockey rink in the evenings, and Kayla to her basketball games and tournaments. Shel had to stay at home and work on her client’s paperwork. It was around this time that Shel began to put on a bit of weight, and it was no wonder. She was always in front of the computer, or else hunched over a desk working on tax forms and other paperwork. Whenever Shel got a few minutes to herself she chose to either read a novel, or watch a bit of television. Shel was surprised when she went for her eye exam in the spring of the year she turned 34 to find that her new glasses were going to have a prescription of -9.50D and now the fronts of the lenses were completely flat.
I spent a bit of time at Ron and Shel’s home after I met them. Ron did a lot of the cooking for the family, and Kayla was a big help in this department as well. Shel was even busier than usual with her clients and she was working long hours every day. Ron kept trying to get her to drop some of her clients, but Shel kept telling him that she didn’t want to do that. I noticed a few times when I was at their house that in the evening, even sitting at the table, Shel would scrunch up her eyes behind the strong lenses of her glasses to see people at the other end of the table, and I mentioned this to Ron. He told me that the same thing had happened the year before, and that was when she had a pretty decent increase from -12.00D up to the -13.50D she was now wearing. And now, only a year later, it appeared that her -13.50D glasses were already too weak.
I suggested to Ron that he should try to get Shel in to see her eye doctor, but he told me that there was no sense in him saying a word to Shel. Apparently, Shel could still see fairly well in the morning, but by the end of the day her visual acuity had dropped off considerably, and Shel was just stubborn enough that she would wait until the blur in the morning was noticeable and did not clear up during the day. Ron seemed to feel that her eyesight would bounce back slightly after tax season was over, but Shel wanted to have her eyes tested again.
In a younger person, to have their prescription increase by -4 diopters between the ages of 15 and 18 it would be considered fairly normal progression. For a 39 year old to have gone from -9.50D at age 34 up to -13.50D by the time they were 38 they should be a little bit concerned about it. But Shel’s doctor didn’t say anything to Shel about this so Shel wasn’t worried.
I had a funny feeling that Ron did not care if Shel needed stronger glasses – even if they were a lot thicker. We had often discussed the subject of myopia and I had found that Ron was a lot like me. We had both married girls with fairly low prescriptions as our only requirement had been that our girl had to need glasses. We had both thought that their eyes would continue to require stronger glasses over the years, and while this was true to an extent, we later both discovered that a low myope would generally never reach a very high prescription. This had disappointed me as far as my wife went, but in Ron’s case his wife was continuing to increase her prescription far beyond conventional thinking.
It had been about 5 years since I met Ron and Shel when I retired. I was a little bored, and Shel suggested that I should take the same course she had taken to become an income tax preparer. Instead of doing taxes for the company though Shel thought that I could work with her out of their house and relieve her of some of her workload. I thought that was a pretty good idea. I did not want to be tied down to working every day in some office and Shel offered me more freedom than an office would.
Shel had experienced a couple more increases during the 5 years I had known her and now she was wearing glasses that had a prescription of -15.50D. I quite enjoyed working with her, looking at her front view as the light flashed across the plano fronts of her lenses. And, while she had chosen a fairly small frame size she had not gotten the expensive highest index lenses, so there was a decent amount of edge thickness to view from the side. She bemoaned the fact that her eyes were still getting worse and worse, but seemed to accept the increases as inevitable.
As I worked with Shel I could see exactly why her vision got worse and worse. When she did a tax return it took her about an hour to finish each one after I had done all the preliminary work. For the entire hour she sat reading the paperwork and filling in the forms with her eyes only about 10” away from her work. And I had read that reading at this close a distance was just like adding about 13 more diopters of minus to a person’s prescription. From what I observed, she never raised her head to change her focus even once during the hour. And sometimes she went directly from one set of forms to another. I had occasionally seen her go almost 4 hours in a row without focusing her eyes on anything further away than about 10”. Shel now hardly ever spent any time outside. Both Toby and Kayla had finished university and had moved out of the house to live closer to where they now worked. This meant that Shel no longer had any reason to go outside anywhere. She had previously driven over to the office to pick up the forms to fill out for the company that provided us the clients we did the taxes for, but now she didn’t even do that and sent me instead.
Shel had started the year wearing her new -15.50D glasses. As the year came to a close I felt that she was going to need a rather sizeable increase in her strong prescription. She was complaining that her eyesight was getting worse and it was harder and harder for her to make out anything at the other side of the room. I mentioned to Ron what I thought was the reason for Shel requiring more minus in her glasses and I told him that as her prescription climbed higher and higher her natural focal point was getting shorter and shorter, which would call for stronger and stronger glasses. He indicated that he certainly understood this and he told me that he had told Michelle time after time that she should take more breaks from her near point work. He also told me that he had been after her for a number of years now to get away from doing as much close work as she had been doing, and that she needed to spend more time outdoors. But he realized that talking to Michelle was like talking to a fencepost. Unless it was her idea, she just wouldn’t listen to anything she didn’t want to hear.
When Ron finally got Michelle to make an appointment for another eye exam he asked if I could go with her, because her vision was bad enough that she shouldn’t be driving. She didn’t like this suggestion, but Ron was adamant that he wasn’t going to let her drive. It shocked Shel when she asked her doctor if her eyesight with her old glasses was still good enough for her to be driving and he told her that there was no way she should have been operating a motor vehicle. And this time her increase was the largest increase she had ever had. She had jumped a full -2D in only one year. Her doctor told her that he had never before had a 45 year old lady have such a large increase in their myopia unless there was a problem with cataracts or some other problem like keratoconus. With keratoconus there is often a large increase in nearsightedness, but most of the time it is accompanied by high irregular astigmatism, which apparently Shel didn’t have. With Shel it seemed to be just a big jump in her myopia.
Shel was a little taken aback by the cost of her new glasses. Her optician had suggested that she should get a high index plastic lens and that she should use a frame with a smaller than fashionable eye size. I wondered if all this might just make her realize that her poor near point focusing was contributing to her increased myopia. Ron and I both thought she looked very nice with her new -17.50D glasses on her face, but I noticed that Shel kept looking in the mirror and making a bit of a face.
I had listened to what the doctor had been saying. The doctor knew that Shel was a bookkeeper for a number of small businesses around town and that she did income tax for a number of clients. That was easily determined by the way people all knew Shel whenever she went anywhere, and her trip to the doctor’s office had seen her talking to 3 clients in the waiting room, and 2 others had come in before Shel had her appointment. I wasn’t sure if Shel had even listened to what her eye doctor had said, but I wasn’t going to say anything to her if Ron didn’t want me to. When Ron got home that evening he and I talked about Shel’s eyesight and the rather large jump she had in her myopia.
“You know, we are both surprised that Shel keeps getting more and more nearsighted. Everything we have learned about myopia over the years has told us that most people have their increases slow down, or even stop by the time they are in their mid 20’s.” I said.
“Hers has been getting worse and worse. And like you I don’t understand why she is going against the rule.” Ron replied.
“I think you do know if you think about it Ron. We have talked about this before. Most people have their myopia increase while they are in school. That is why it is so often called “Schoolyard Myopia.” I said.
“But Shel has been out of school for 25 years.” Ron said.
“That may be so, but for the last 25 years she has been doing bookkeeping for people. And I mentioned to you that I watched Shel one day a while back, and from the time we started in the morning until the time we broke for lunch she did not look up more than once, and that was only to look at the clock, which she had to ask me to read for her. That was a solid 4 hours of her peering at things that were held no more than about 10” away from the tip of her nose.” I answered.
“Yes, I remember you mentioning that. But what can we do about it?” Ron asked.
“I think we can talk to Shel and explain what she is doing to herself. I didn’t want to do that until I discussed it with you though. I know you like it when Shel gets new, stronger glasses.” I answered.
“You are right, I really do like to see her lenses get stronger and stronger. But I don’t want her to reach a point where she can’t see very well.” Ron said.
“This is my suggestion and you are free to suggest any other idea’s you might have. Her eye doctor suggested that she should continue wearing her old distance glasses when she is doing her bookkeeping. The only downside to that is that she might lose the ability to focus on close work through her new distance glasses and would then need bifocals so that she could avoid carrying 2 pairs of glasses everywhere.” I said.
“I wouldn’t mind if she needed bifocals. Is there anything else?” Ron asked.
“The big thing is that she needs to get out of the office more. And she should do it during daylight hours. I think that you mentioned to me that as Shel got busier and busier she stopped going to the kid’s baseball games and other outdoor activities and stayed home working on other people’s books. After that she started putting on a bit more weight and her eyes started to get worse and worse.” I replied.
“How are we going to tell her all this? We are not supposed to know anything about this stuff, and I know Shel – she won’t believe a thing we say.” Ron responded.
“I know what you mean. It is sort of like that old joke; “You can always tell an Englishman, you just can’t tell him much.” I said.
“Yes, just like that.” Ron laughed.
“Seriously though, we have to help her kill her bad vison habits. She saw me talking to her eye doctor, who by the way is a very nice lady. I think that maybe I can coach my words in such a way that I can let her believe that what we are suggesting came directly from her doctor. And if I feel that Shel doesn’t believe me and wants to ask the doctor directly I can likely give the doctor a call and hopefully she will back me up.” I said.
“Let’s go for it then. I don’t want my wife to be so very shortsighted that she can no longer see much of anything, even with her strong glasses.” Ron replied.
I waited for the right opportunity and it didn’t come until a few days after Shel got her new glasses. She had continued holding her nose as close to her work as she had with her old, weaker glasses and it did not surprise me at all when she looked up at the clock one day around noon and said: “Shit, my new glasses are already too weak. I can barely read the clock from here.”
As I had told Ron I would do, I told her everything that we had discussed. I made it all sound as if what I was saying had come from what her eye doctor had told me while we were talking in the office.
“Your doctor said that you should really be wearing your old glasses when you are doing all the close work that you are doing. And you need to take a break every 30 minutes or less and get up and walk around. The only downside to doing that might be that you will then loose the little bit of accommodation you still have in your eyes and you might need bifocals.”
‘Bifocals? I am too young for bifocals.” Shel replied.
“Not really. Many people need bifocals before they turn 40. People who are nearsighted can generally avoid them for a few more years, but because you are doing so much close up work you are losing your distance vison.” I answered.
“Because I am wearing my glasses when I read I am making my eyes worse? I don’t believe that. I can see fine up close.” Shel told me exactly what I thought she would say.
“Don’t believe me then. Wait another month or so until you really can’t see anything at a distance and then we will go back to your eye doctor so she can give you stronger lenses again. She might even supply them for free if we go back in less than 3 months. But if you do that, you will need even stronger lenses in another 3 months.” I advised her.
I didn’t say anything more. I knew that Shel was not a stupid lady, and I knew that the realization that her eyes already could not see clearly at a distance through the stronger lenses of her new glasses would worry her. I had to wait until the next morning to see if what I had said sank in, and when I came in to the office I was very pleased to see her sitting at her desk already wearing her old glasses. She looked at me and said, “There, are you happy?”
“I am not the one who is losing my eyesight. Wear your old glasses all day and then switch to your new ones after we are finished work. Then tell me if I was right, especially if you can see the clock clearly at the end of the day with your new glasses on.” I responded.
Around 3 o’clock I saw her put her new glasses on. She looked at the clock, but all she told me was that she was going to the kitchen for a cup of tea. She did ask me if I wanted one, but I told her no. She returned with her tea, and I was pleased to see that she put her old glasses back on before she went back to her work. She did not say anything to me, but she didn’t need to, as her actions spoke for themselves.
Shel’s big prescription increase had come right at the end of tax season. Normally in other years after tax season ended she cut my hours back, but for some reason she didn’t do that this year and she was letting me do more and more of the preliminary work for her business clients. I decided it was time to say something more, as she was doing very well about wearing her old glasses for her close work. But she still was bringing all of her work right up to the same old 10” from the tip of her nose. I mentioned that she really needed to push her nose back a little further from her work.
“But I need to bring it up close. I can’t see clearly any further back. The printing is too small.” Shel said.
“The proper distance for reading is said to be between 15” and 25” from your eyes. You are holding everything at a distance of no more than 10”, and at this distance it is said to increase your focusing power by around -13D. And when you are looking at a computer monitor you really need to be back about 30”. If you bring everything too close it is just like looking through stronger glasses.” I replied.
“Where did you read that stuff?” Shel asked.
“I was searching through the internet the other night and I came across that.” I answered.
“How am I supposed to move my head back when I can’t see properly then?” Shel asked.
“I think that maybe if you try to move you head back a little further every day that you might be able to see at a further distance in a couple of weeks.” I replied.
“I will try, but I can’t promise you anything. What else should I do to help my eyes?” Shel questioned.
“Will you listen to my suggestions?’ I asked her.
“All I can say is that I will try to follow them as well as I can.” Shel said.
“You need to give your eyes a break every 20 minutes or so. Put your other glasses on, get up from your desk and walk around for a few minutes. Go to the washroom, go to the kitchen and get a glass of water or even take a walk outside into the fresh air. Keeping your focus fixed on such a short reading distance is what is making your eyesight get worse and worse.” I said.
Michelle did try her best to follow my suggestions. And every evening when Ron came home they would have supper and then Shel and Ron would go for a walk around the block. It took a few months, but finally as fall rolled around I was able to notice that Shel was losing a little bit of weight. She wasn’t producing quite as much work every day, but she actually seemed to be putting out the work a bit faster than before. I had picked up a little more of her workload as well, so we were getting the same amount of work out the door. I wasn’t as happy, because I had no intention of working 40 hour weeks all year round, but I did feel pretty good about the fact that Shel had listened to me and she was finding it easier and easier to maintain a better distance between her glasses and what she was doing.
We were one of the last holdouts to go to a fully computerized bookkeeping system for our clients. We knew all about these systems, however our clients still wanted to have everything done with a pen, paper and a calculator. But finally we had to make the change and computerize everything. I helped Shel with the changeover and when it was finished, and our operations were completely computerized I told Shel that I had enough of this working for a paycheck. She understood, and apologized for working me for so many hours over the past year and asked me if I would stay on until she found at least one replacement to do the work I had been doing. As a friend I could do nothing else.
I was proud of Michelle. Since she and Ron had started walking she had dropped about 30 pounds and she looked far more attractive than she had for years. She even appeared taller when I looked at her, but I suppose that was only because she didn’t look quite as wide. Her biggest complaint now was that she could no longer see to read with her distance glasses on, and she had to pull out her old glasses look at anything up close. I had been suggesting that she should get herself a pair of invisible multifocals to alleviate that problem, and finally one day she told me that she had made an appointment with her eye doctor to get a prescription for multifocals. I asked her if she wanted me to once again drive her to her appointment, and she told me that it might be a good idea if I did because her eyes were going to have to be dilated.
Shel’s eye doctor was, as usual, very thorough in her examination. When she handed Shel her new prescription she told Shel that, while she had increased her spherical power to -18D, there really had been no change. At the last examination she was afraid to give Shel the maximum power that Shel really needed because in the past Shel had required continuous increases, and she had suspected that this was due to the amount of near point work that Shel did. Shel now ordered a pair of -18.00D 1.9 index glass lenses in a contemporary frame that had a slight cat’s eye look. The lens size was large enough that the + 2.50 invisible multifocal portion was a good fit, and the 1.9 hi index glass would not look like the lenses were obviously powerful.
With my urging Shel also ordered another pair of bifocal glasses. This pair had the upper portion as a -16.75D and the executive bifocal portion was -15.50D. These glasses, as I explained to her, would be perfect for her to wear at work. The upper portion would be easier on her eyes for reading the computer monitor, and the lower portion would be exactly the same as the reading portion of her invisible multifocal lenses. Then I suggested that she might like to have a pair of bifocal sunglasses to make it easier for her to read the speedometer when she was driving. Shel considered my suggestions and she did order both the computer and reading bifocals as well as the bifocal sunglasses with a +1.75D add instead of the +2.50D add in her multifocal glasses.
Shel has been very pleased with her new glasses. There has been no sign of her needing any further increase in her strong prescription, and Ron is very happy that his wife now wears glasses that have a substantial amount of power in the lenses. I still see Ron and Shelly frequently, and often Ron and I will sit out on the deck discussing our love of ladies who wear glasses. Inevitably the topic comes around to his wife Shel, who we both agree has had the worst case of what I call environmental myopia that we had ever run across.
Specs4ever Jan 2016