OT: As the Vision Fades, the Indignities Grow
Matthew Kruk
As the Vision Fades, the Indignities Grow
By KATIE HAFNER
Robert Masello used to laugh at his parents when he went out to eat with them.
If the restaurant had a menu with pictures, his father would point to any
vaguely appealing image. For his farsighted mother, Mr. Masello, in his teens at
the time, would hold the menu up from across the table.
Oh, how the tables have turned. Now when Mr. Masello, 54, goes out to
restaurants with friends, especially places with lighting that is easy on
wrinkles but hard on vision, "it looks like an all-night study group," said Mr.
Masello, a novelist in Santa Monica, Calif. "We're taking off our glasses and
rubbing our eyes, hunching over the menus with puzzled expressions, signaling
the waiter for flashlights and candles."
As baby boomers grope their way through middle age, they are encountering the
daily indignities that accompany a downward slide in visual acuity: trying to
read a road map in a car at night; cellphones designed for 20-year-old eyes; the
minuscule letters on a bottle of aspirin; nutrition information squeezed onto a
bag of peanuts.
And unlike their parents and grandparents, they are not shy about expressing
their displeasure, in some cases, taking matters into their own hands or
prompting some companies to pay attention.
"Everything is so much more eye-oriented than it used to be," said Phil Taunton,
a 62-year-old optometrist in San Diego.
By their early 40s, many people are noticing the first symptoms of presbyopia,
or "old man's eyes." As the eye ages, it is less able to take in light. At the
same time, the lens inside the eye loses its flexibility. The result is blurred
vision.
Every day thousands of the nation's 77 million baby boomers turn 50, an age when
reading glasses are perched with some permanence on middle-age noses.
Cellphones can be a particular problem. On most mobile phones, the text on the
screen is not merely small; it is set against a busy background with a dull
contrast.
"My guess is they're thinking about teenagers who buy these things and use them
a lot more than we do," said Paul Nini, a professor of visual communication
design at Ohio State University who studies typefaces. "Marketing considerations
tend to outweigh user considerations."
This week, the American Foundation for the Blind filed complaints with the
Federal Communications Commission against Motorola, LG, Samsung, Sanyo and
Sprint, asserting among other things that their phones lacked screens that could
be read easily by people with vision loss.
Notwithstanding the group's complaint, Samsung does sell several phones with
changeable fonts and a wide selection of color-contrast options.
Motorola, whose phones some people find particularly difficult to see, defends
the readability of its phones.
"We take the usability of our products very seriously," said Tracey Thiele, a
Motorola spokeswoman. "We are always looking for ways to improve the user
experience." Ms. Thiele pointed out that a feature on the company's Moto Q9
allows users to change the font size on the phone.
Not surprisingly, the nation's deteriorating eyes have been a boon for makers of
reading glasses. Jack Burns, the owner of Cheaters Reading Glasses, a retail
store that carries reading glasses and accessories (and magnifying glasses), in
Corte Madera, Calif., sells about 800 pairs each month.
Often, Mr. Burns said, a precipitating incident drives people into his store. He
told of one customer in her 40s who finally resigned herself to needing glasses
when she set a restaurant menu on fire after holding it next to a candle.
Corinne McCormack, 53, started her own eyewear and accessory company in
Manhattan in 1993 when she noticed that people were walking around with Rolex
watches, Jimmy Choo shoes and $10 drugstore glasses. Hers average $50 a pair,
and business, she said, is great.
Craig Roessler, 60, a school superintendent in Silverton, Ore., said he prefers
not to have to worry about losing his reading glasses and has devised a loose
strategy. In addition to one pair of prescription reading glasses that he
carries to work, he keeps eight or so pairs of inexpensive glasses scattered
throughout his daily surroundings: two in his car, one in his golf bag, one in
his desk drawer at the office and several around the house. He has also noticed
that at the clubhouse of his golf club, a pair of reading glasses is tied to the
computer terminal.
At Romano's Macaroni Grill, a nationwide chain of Italian restaurants, reading
glasses are provided upon request, as are large-print menus.
The glasses are often kept at the hostess station, and they often disappear.
"We used to have two to five pairs to give out, but they're all gone," said
Kelsey Betzelberger, the hostess at a Macaroni Grill in Hillsboro, Ore. "People
just forget to return them. We got replacements, but those are gone, too."
Sometimes, said Ms. Betzelberger, customers show up weeks after a meal to return
a pair they took by mistake.
And when reading glasses are not enough, out come the magnifying glasses and
flashlights.
Such tools are of little help in the shower. Deborah Yager, 53, a science
teacher in Castro Valley, Calif., counts the number of letters to figure out
whether she is reaching for the shampoo or conditioner. Jill Lamar, 55, an
acupuncturist in Charlottesville, Va., goes by color. Brian Lewis, 64, a retired
doctor in San Anselmo, Calif., takes a thick black Sharpie and writes a big "S"
or "C" on each.
But Dr. Lewis has no such solution for the washing instructions on clothing
labels. "You need an electron microscope to read them," he said.
Prescription and over-the-counter drugs can be more problematic.
The type size on a bottle of Aleve, for instance, is 4.5 point, with around 50
to 55 characters an inch - smaller than the fine print in the stock listings of
newspapers, and much smaller than the average newspaper text typeface.
"There's a fight between bureaucracy's desire to put more information on the
container and the size of type required to get it on," said Charles Bigelow, a
professor of typography at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
One conspicuous exception has been Target's Clear RX packaging for its
prescription bottles. Each bottle has the patient's name displayed at the very
top. Below, in boldface capital letters, is the name of the medication. Below
that are the dosage instructions.
"There are efforts afoot to shift into next-generation technology, to produce
more readable information, but it certainly isn't happening overnight," said Ray
Bullman, executive vice president of the National Council on Patient Information
and Education, a nonprofit organization based in Bethesda, Md.
Small print is not a new problem, Professor Bigelow, 62, pointed out. "The
shapes of the letters in fonts such as Times Roman all derive from a set of
complaints lodged by 14th-century scholars who wanted to read late in life," he
said.
"It is reasonable to say the failing vision of the great Renaissance writers
Petrarch and Boccaccio, and their followers, are what led to the shapes of our
modern typefaces," said Professor Bigelow, who designed a font family called
Lucida, the standard interface fonts for Apple's OS X operating system and
Safari for Windows.
Pockets of niche marketing dot the consumer products landscape. One company,
Hy-Tek Manufacturing in Sugar Grove, Ill., makes a remote control device with
oversize buttons. And a cellphone called Jitterbug comes in only one
configuration: large buttons and text.
In an examination of his own wardrobe, Professor Bigelow noticed an interesting
pattern. He saw that the smallest print on clothing labels, 3.5 point, was on
T-shirts, sweatshirts and other "fairly cheap goods purchased by young people
with good eyesight," he said.
In contrast, he found, the largest-type-size labels "were on more expensive
shirts and trousers that would be purchased by more mature people whose eyesight
would be diminished."
With the aging population in mind, Microsoft has worked at giving users the
option of enlarging what they see on a computer screen.
The latest version of Internet Explorer allows the enlargement of text in any
browser window. And a magnification program built into the Vista operating
system allows a user to choose magnification levels from two to 16 times the
original size. Apple Macintosh computers have long had an easy, if not
well-advertised, way to increase text size.
Ms. Lamar in Charlottesville acknowledges some hubris when it comes to being a
boomer. "We still buy things, and as long as we keep buying things, they'll pay
attention," she said, referring to the manufacturers of consumer products. "When
we all go on pensions they'll drop us. We have to use our power now."
And never underestimate a boomer's vanity. For years, large-print books, usually
set in 16-point (one-quarter inch) type, were consigned to the elderly. "Many of
the boomers resist them, even though they can't see," said Marian Haugh, the
owner of the Large Print Bookstore in Denver.
But there are some signs that the stigma is starting to disappear, partly
because the books have come to resemble regular books. "They used to be big and
ugly and they didn't appeal to anybody," said Jamie Knobloch, publisher of
Thorndike Press, a large-print publisher in Waterville, Me.
In the late 1980s, Ms. Knobloch said, Thorndike and others started paying more
attention to cover design, and worked to make the books look more like regular
books, with ultrathin pages that retain their opacity.
"Now we're publishing titles the sweet little old ladies probably wouldn't have
wanted to read in 1983 when they were our primary audience," Ms. Knobloch said.
Regular titles, she said, range in type size from eight- to 12-point.
Mr. Masello read large-print books clandestinely for a while, but no longer
feels the need to hide them. With a minimum of eyestrain, he has read Zadie
Smith's "On Beauty," Michael Cunningham's "The Hours" and "Wuthering Heights."
He has only one suggestion: drop the laminated covers. "I know they do that in
case we spill our porridge on it with our shaking hand and it's easy to wipe
off," he said. "But knock it off. Make it a regular cover. I'm not that bad
off." Yet.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
MGW
<Matthe...@Telus.net> scrawled:
> Oh, how the tables have turned. Now when Mr. Masello, 54, goes out to
> restaurants with friends, especially places with lighting that is easy on
> wrinkles but hard on vision, "it looks like an all-night study group," said Mr.
> Masello, a novelist in Santa Monica, Calif. "We're taking off our glasses and
> rubbing our eyes, hunching over the menus with puzzled expressions, signaling
> the waiter for flashlights and candles."
On my last business trip, I managed to leave my reading glasses behind
when we went to a very dimly lit restuarant for dinner that had very
small type on their menus. Fortunately, I have a very kind boss who
let me use his glasses when he was done reading the menu!
> The latest version of Internet Explorer allows the enlargement of text in any
> browser window. And a magnification program built into the Vista operating
> system allows a user to choose magnification levels from two to 16 times the
> original size. Apple Macintosh computers have long had an easy, if not
> well-advertised, way to increase text size.
As is often discussed over in alt.www.webmaster, it is very easy to
create a website that follows the user's default font size. For some
reason, web designers/programmers are stubborn about insisting on
setting the absolute font size (often to ridiculously small sizes)
rather than use relative sizes (100%, 80%, 200%) so that you still
have variations in size but they stay within the comfort area of the
reader. VERY frustrating!
--
MGW
I have yet to see a problem, however complicated, which when you looked at
it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. ~ Poul Anderson
Hyfler/Rosner
"MGW" <mgw...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:kg59b31jpcu709ia8...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 07:32:05 GMT, "Matthew Kruk"
> <Matthe...@Telus.net> scrawled:
>
>> Oh, how the tables have turned. Now when Mr. Masello, 54,
>> goes out to
>> restaurants with friends, especially places with lighting
>> that is easy on
>> wrinkles but hard on vision, "it looks like an all-night
>> study group," said Mr.
>> Masello, a novelist in Santa Monica, Calif. "We're taking
>> off our glasses and
>> rubbing our eyes, hunching over the menus with puzzled
>> expressions, signaling
>> the waiter for flashlights and candles."
>
> On my last business trip, I managed to leave my reading
> glasses behind
> when we went to a very dimly lit restuarant for dinner
> that had very
> small type on their menus. Fortunately, I have a very kind
> boss who
> let me use his glasses when he was done reading the menu!
In Vancouver, where I have just been, is my favorite store.
It's called Readerwear and it only sells reading glasses. I
bought two more designer pair for my collection. If you
only have one pair, you're young yet. Once you add
age-appropriate forgetfulness and chemo brain to the mix,
you need them in all purses and on all tabletops. You don't
want to be thinking about where they are, so they're
everywhere.
As for the article, if you don't have the actual NY Times to
read or if you're not reading it on the website, you may not
know that they printed the article in a much larger font.
It looks hilarious.
MGW
scrawled:
>
> In Vancouver, where I have just been, is my favorite store.
> It's called Readerwear and it only sells reading glasses. I
> bought two more designer pair for my collection. If you
> only have one pair, you're young yet. Once you add
> age-appropriate forgetfulness and chemo brain to the mix,
> you need them in all purses and on all tabletops. You don't
> want to be thinking about where they are, so they're
> everywhere.
I have multiple pairs, one of which I keep in my purse. On the
business trip, I didn't bring any others since I was always going to
have my purse with me. In this case, I forgot to put my glasses back
in my purse after reading email when I rushed to meet my party.
Unfortunately, I need to use prescription glasses because my eyes vary
greatly in the amount of magnification they need. There's a limit to
how many prescription pairs I can afford :-(
Brigid Nelson
> On Sat, 4 Aug 2007 11:28:44 -0400, "Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com>
> scrawled:
>
>
>>In Vancouver, where I have just been, is my favorite store.
>>It's called Readerwear and it only sells reading glasses. I
>>bought two more designer pair for my collection. If you
>>only have one pair, you're young yet. Once you add
>>age-appropriate forgetfulness and chemo brain to the mix,
>>you need them in all purses and on all tabletops. You don't
>>want to be thinking about where they are, so they're
>>everywhere.
>
>
> I have multiple pairs, one of which I keep in my purse. On the
> business trip, I didn't bring any others since I was always going to
> have my purse with me. In this case, I forgot to put my glasses back
> in my purse after reading email when I rushed to meet my party.
>
> Unfortunately, I need to use prescription glasses because my eyes vary
> greatly in the amount of magnification they need. There's a limit to
> how many prescription pairs I can afford :-(
>
near-sighted. It was only a few years ago that I began to notice that I
could no longer focus on the teeny tiny engraving on the backs of my
grandmother's earrings. What used to be writ plain 'STERLING' now looks
like indistinct scratches. I've always done a lot of close work, but in
the last few years I have acquired a vast array of lighted and unlighted
magnifying devices - and no-line bifocals. Sometimes it's a study in
zen to line it all up - my eyeball, the bifocals, the magnifier - just
to complete a simple task I had once been able to do with only the aid
of my eye glasses.
My husband, on the other hand, has always been just the tiniest bit
far-sighted. Lately he's been doing the grandma thing of having to hold
printed matter farther and farther away from his face so he can focus on
it. He needs reading glasses in the worst way, but for some unknown
reason he's pathologically afraid of the eye doctor. Actually he has
this thing about eyeballs in general. He can't touch them or look at
them too closely. Forget about asking him for help if you've got
something in your eye. Want to see him turn green? All you need do is
touch your eyeball with your own finger - works every time.
brigid
teleflora
"Brigid Nelson" <irja...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:lZqdnWcjJeNQJCnb...@comcast.com...
> My husband, on the other hand, has always been just the tiniest bit
> far-sighted. Lately he's been doing the grandma thing of having to hold
> printed matter farther and farther away from his face so he can focus on
> it. He needs reading glasses in the worst way, but for some unknown
> reason he's pathologically afraid of the eye doctor. Actually he has this
> thing about eyeballs in general. He can't touch them or look at them too
> closely. Forget about asking him for help if you've got something in your
> eye. Want to see him turn green? All you need do is touch your eyeball
> with your own finger - works every time.
>
> brigid
Hahhahahahah! My DH has always had better than perfect vision. He has been
a shooter of both rifles and shotguns his whole life and he swears that when
he was very young, he could see the bullet moving through the air.
He has always been very proud of his visual acuity and he always equated
losing your vision with losing your teeth. It must have been something you
did or didn't do to cause it. So it was quite a surprise to him several
years ago when he could no longer read anything at a comfortable distance.
His arms got too short and he was convinced I had changed all the regular
light bulbs for low wattage models.
I finally convinced him that reading glasses would make his life lots more
comfortable and he finally gave in. He doesn't like it, it pisses him off,
but he has collected tons of reading glasses. Like everybody else, he has
glasses in the truck and his office and the kitchen and beside the bed and
in his briefcase.
Once in a while he will be in a store like WalMart without glasses. He goes
to the pharmacy and "borrows" a pair from the rack so he can read the labels
of whatever he is buying. I keep warning him that he will be arrested when
he forgets to put them back one day.
Cindy
Charlene
> Small print is not a new problem, Professor Bigelow, 62, pointed out. "The
> shapes of the letters in fonts such as Times Roman all derive from a set of
> complaints lodged by 14th-century scholars who wanted to read late in life," he
> said.
Which is ironic, because the Georgia group of fonts was devised
because Times Roman was too difficult to read in smaller sizes.
wd43
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, teleflora <tele...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hahhahahahah! My DH has always had better than perfect vision. He
> has been a shooter of both rifles and shotguns his whole life and he
> swears that when he was very young, he could see the bullet moving
> through the air.
I could watch the bullet go downrange when I competed in rifle
competitions in my 20s and early 30s. My distance vision was most
recently measured (a few years ago) at 20/15 and 20/13 in separate
eyes (I forget which was which), 20/10 binocular.
> He has always been very proud of his visual acuity and he always
> equated losing your vision with losing your teeth. It must have
> been something you did or didn't do to cause it. So it was quite a
> surprise to him [...]
I got a little lucky on the near vision thing -- I didn't pick up a
pair of reading glasses for any purpose until I was 45 and now -- two
years later -- I only use them to read really small print city maps,
or because it is just more comfortable to read with them, not because
I *need* them to read. I can still do the NYT crossword without them;
the day that stops being true, I'm going to be a little bummed.
Not that I thought much of it at the time, but in my mid-20s, I read
an article in "Esquire" while waiting for a haircut that discussed
presbyopia and highlighted the fact that no amount of carrot-eating,
no exercise, no strength of will or character -- *nothing* will
prevent the degeneration of your focusing ability in your 40s. So
I've kind of been waiting for it, expecting it to be worse than it now
is, observing my parents and in-laws struggling with it, and somehow
that article did me a real service because, psychologically, this has
been little more than an irritant.
I do keep three pairs of El Cheapo Walgreens reading glasses (the
weakest they sell on the rack) lying about: one on the bed, one in
the car (for those city maps) and one in the computer bag that goes
with me on every trip.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron
> My husband, on the other hand, has always been just the tiniest bit
> far-sighted. Lately he's been doing the grandma thing of having to
> hold printed matter farther and farther away from his face so he can
> focus on it. He needs reading glasses in the worst way, but for some
> unknown reason he's pathologically afraid of the eye doctor.
The least fearsome doctor that I see every few months. Even dialating eyes
is no big deal now. They give me some disposable sun shades to drop behind
my glasses and I can easily see to drive home. Otherwise all they do is
*look* into my eyes with their various contraptions. I can't imagine why
your husband would be "afraid". Tell him to get to the eye doctor so he
will be able to see better. The younger doctors are up on all the latest
and newest equipment. If lasik surgery is recommended, he doesn't have to
do it!
--
R.E.Gentry
MGW
He can call around and try to find one that is understanding of his
phobia and promises to skip any part of the exam that requires
touching his eyes. It may take calling a few places, but he should be
able to find one. I've never used the optometrists at places like
Lenscrafters, but he might be able to get away with it more easily
someplace like that.
Brigid Nelson
My optometrist doesn't even dialate my pupils or do the pressure test
with the puff of air. He says there are other, better indicators of the
pressure.
As to my husband and his irrational fear, we may be on the brink.
Yesterday he confessed that he couldn't find a position in which he
could read his TapeOp in bed. He wants to wimp out and get a pair of
reading glasses at the drug store, but I'm so indoctrinated in the
culture of professional opinions that I'm pushing for the doctor's visit.
brigid
Brigid Nelson
> On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 14:09:42 GMT, "Ron" <re...@newguy.com> scrawled:
>
>
>>Brigid Nelson <irja...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>My husband, on the other hand, has always been just the tiniest bit
>>>far-sighted. Lately he's been doing the grandma thing of having to
>>>hold printed matter farther and farther away from his face so he can
>>>focus on it. He needs reading glasses in the worst way, but for some
>>>unknown reason he's pathologically afraid of the eye doctor.
>>
>>The least fearsome doctor that I see every few months. Even dialating eyes
>>is no big deal now. They give me some disposable sun shades to drop behind
>>my glasses and I can easily see to drive home. Otherwise all they do is
>>*look* into my eyes with their various contraptions. I can't imagine why
>>your husband would be "afraid". Tell him to get to the eye doctor so he
>>will be able to see better. The younger doctors are up on all the latest
>>and newest equipment. If lasik surgery is recommended, he doesn't have to
>>do it!
>
>
> He can call around and try to find one that is understanding of his
> phobia and promises to skip any part of the exam that requires
> touching his eyes. It may take calling a few places, but he should be
> able to find one. I've never used the optometrists at places like
> Lenscrafters, but he might be able to get away with it more easily
> someplace like that.
>
The eyedoctor I've been seeing for the last few years is the least
invasive ever. No drops, no puffs of air. Since I started
homeschooling my youngest, I took him to have his vision tested after I
had my last check up. I was hoping that hearing from an 8 year old that
the optometrist was no big deal would help. No such luck. It doesn't
help that he's cheap either - he knows what I spend on eyeglasses every
couple of years (and that amount's more than doubled since I started
wearing bifocals) he will look for any way not to spend the money.
I will admit that I'm a little paranoid about eye health since my
paternal grandmother had glaucoma. I just can't believe that anyone
would want to take chances with their eyes, especially since many
problems can be helped if you know they're there in time.
brigid
MGW
<irja...@comcast.net> scrawled:
> The eyedoctor I've been seeing for the last few years is the least
> invasive ever. No drops, no puffs of air. Since I started
> homeschooling my youngest, I took him to have his vision tested after I
> had my last check up. I was hoping that hearing from an 8 year old that
> the optometrist was no big deal would help. No such luck. It doesn't
> help that he's cheap either - he knows what I spend on eyeglasses every
> couple of years (and that amount's more than doubled since I started
> wearing bifocals) he will look for any way not to spend the money.
>
> I will admit that I'm a little paranoid about eye health since my
> paternal grandmother had glaucoma. I just can't believe that anyone
> would want to take chances with their eyes, especially since many
> problems can be helped if you know they're there in time.
Phobias aren't rational and they're very powerful.
Hyfler/Rosner
>> I will admit that I'm a little paranoid about eye health
>> since my
>> paternal grandmother had glaucoma. I just can't believe
>> that anyone
>> would want to take chances with their eyes, especially
>> since many
>> problems can be helped if you know they're there in time.
>
> Phobias aren't rational and they're very powerful.
So is unchecked glaucoma. Everyone, get your pressure
checked. There are loads of ways to treat it, and
detecting it early minimizes damage.
Yes, someone in the family has glaucoma, who was diagnosed
at 40.
Ron
> Ron wrote:
>> Brigid Nelson <irja...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> My husband, on the other hand, has always been just the tiniest bit
>>> far-sighted. Lately he's been doing the grandma thing of having to
>>> hold printed matter farther and farther away from his face so he can
>>> focus on it. He needs reading glasses in the worst way, but for
>>> some unknown reason he's pathologically afraid of the eye doctor.
>>
>>
>> The least fearsome doctor that I see every few months. Even
>> dialating eyes is no big deal now. They give me some disposable sun
>> shades to drop behind my glasses and I can easily see to drive home.
>> Otherwise all they do is *look* into my eyes with their various
>> contraptions. I can't imagine why your husband would be "afraid". Tell
>> him to get to the eye doctor so he will be able to see better. The
>> younger doctors are up on all the latest and newest equipment. If lasik
>> surgery is recommended, he doesn't have to do it!
>
> My optometrist doesn't even dialate my pupils or do the pressure test
> with the puff of air. He says there are other, better indicators of
> the pressure.
I get dialated every time I go in because I have diabetes and some optic
nerve damage. One drop in each eye and then sit awhile in a darkened room.
But there is no *touching* of my eyeballs for anything I have done there. I
have to do a "field of vision" test, too. No "puffs of air" either, tho
I've had that done in the past at places like Lenscrafters. I was just told
I have no signs of glaucoma and I think the technician just looked in my
eyes while I stared at a blue light.
>
> As to my husband and his irrational fear, we may be on the brink.
> Yesterday he confessed that he couldn't find a position in which he
> could read his TapeOp in bed. He wants to wimp out and get a pair of
> reading glasses at the drug store,
I think eye doctors will tell you those kind of cheap glasses aren't very
good for eyes and we should get a specific RX for our individual vision
problems. Not everybody has identical lenses when they have an RX. I
don't.
but I'm so indoctrinated in the
> culture of professional opinions that I'm pushing for the doctor's
> visit.
You are RIGHT, of course. His fear does seem very irrational, but I'm like
that about MRIs. I had one long ago and it was a horrible experience for
me. I was supposed to have one a few months ago and spent days getting
myself psyched up and hoping to overcome my ridiculous panic. As they were
pushing me in, I freaked out and had to be immediately pulled back out. I
had no control of the overwhelming panic I experienced. The technician
understood and confided SHE couldn't go in there herself.
Anyway, regardless of your husband's irrational fear, doctors/dentists
realize people have them and can't control them. They can work around the
problems and explain more of what they are going to do and why. And stop if
the patient gets panicky. He really should go for his visual health as well
as being able to see better.
Perhaps you can be in the room with your husband during the entire
examination and that will give him a bit of reassurance?
I've had my eyes looked into and checked out and tested a lot, but never the
tiniest bit of physical discomfort. I can't imagine why your husband would
have any, either, for just a routine eye exam and RX for glasses. I might
think twice before submitting to the old-fashioned cataract surgery, but now
that has become so simple and recovery time is speedy, so even the word
cataract doesn't seem so fearsome anymore.
Good Luck,
--
R.E.Gentry
Brigid Nelson
>
> You are RIGHT, of course. His fear does seem very irrational, but I'm like
> that about MRIs. I had one long ago and it was a horrible experience for
> me. I was supposed to have one a few months ago and spent days getting
> myself psyched up and hoping to overcome my ridiculous panic. As they were
> pushing me in, I freaked out and had to be immediately pulled back out. I
> had no control of the overwhelming panic I experienced. The technician
> understood and confided SHE couldn't go in there herself.
>
I'm pretty sympathetic about irrational fears - you should have seen me
cry when they told me I would have to have the gestational diabetes
test, the long version. Needles are a big problem for me, but at the
end of the day I have to man up and do it anyway. I guess that's what
irritates me about this the most, as long as he can stay in denial about
his eyes he doesn't have to do anything hard. Must be nice.
As to MRIs, I had one a couple of months ago - piece of cake. I'm an
agoraphobe, the most terrified I've ever been was when I visited the
weaving room at Pendleton Woolen Mills. It was a room so vast that you
really and truly could not see the walls, never mind the doors. If the
MRI hadn't been so darn noisy I could have had a nap. When it was done,
the hospital gave me the cd to give to my doctor. My husband and I had a
lot of fun looking at my brane.
It's always somthing,
brigid
MGW
<irja...@comcast.net> scrawled:
> I'm pretty sympathetic about irrational fears - you should have seen me
> cry when they told me I would have to have the gestational diabetes
> test, the long version. Needles are a big problem for me, but at the
> end of the day I have to man up and do it anyway.
Actually, you have to woman up. Probably why your dh has so much
trouble - he's not woman enough to face his fears and just do it. ;-)
teleflora
"Ron" <re...@newguy.com> wrote in message
news:GSkti.400097$p47.3...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> The least fearsome doctor that I see every few months. Even dialating
> eyes is no big deal now. They give me some disposable sun shades to drop
> behind my glasses and I can easily see to drive home.
Just about the sickest I've ever been. I was in New Mexico in the winter.
Went and had my eyes checked by a weird doctor. He dilated my eyes (I'd
never had that done before). I don't know if any of you have ever been in
NM in the winter, but the sun shines. A lot. They gave me the strange
glasses, but by the time I drove the mile home I had such a headache and was
sick to my stomach. I guess it was a combination of the eye dilation and
the sun reflecting off the snow, but it was horrible. I was sick the rest
of the day and when I woke up the next morning, my eyes were STILL dilated.
I looked scary. I have light blue eyes and you could barely see any blue at
all. They looked like dolls eyes.
It took me years to work up the nerve to go back to the optometrist. And I
tell them up front - do NOT dilate my eyes.
I was so sick.
Cindy
Kent
> pair of reading glasses for any purpose until I was 45 and now -- two
> years later -- I only use them to read really small print city maps,
> or because it is just more comfortable to read with them, not because
> I *need* them to read. I can still do the NYT crossword without them;
> the day that stops being true, I'm going to be a little bummed.
I'm at that exact spot right now regarding near vision. I turned 45 a few
months ago and just had an eye appointment on Friday. I got my first ever
prescription for bifocals. I'm not in a huge hurry to get it filled because
at this point my very near vision is just a slight irritant and I can see
most anything I need to with my current regular glasses (which aren't all
that old). In a pinch, I can just look over the top of them and see small
stuff that I can't see through them. I still do the New York Times
crossword puzzle with no great difficulty (although I do see some difference
from the old days).
> and somehow that article did me a real service because, psychologically,
> this has been little more than an irritant.
My sister, who is two years older than me, did me that service when she
warned me it was coming. I don't know if I would have expected it otherwise
and it might have been somewhat dispiriting under those circumstances. In
any event, I think it hit me later than it hit her age-wise, so I had a
two-year-and-then-some warning.
Life is a journey with some interesting twists and turns. But what are you
gonna do?
Kent
J.D. Baldwin
> > eyes is no big deal now. They give me some disposable sun shades to drop
> > behind my glasses and I can easily see to drive home.
>
> Just about the sickest I've ever been.
The last time I had my eyes dilated was 2001. (I really should
schedule another appointment pretty soon.) My eye doctor suggested
that it would be fun to put the tropicamide in just one eye, and then
run into the nearest emergency room holding the side of my head and
screaming at the top of my lungs. I love that guy.
teleflora
"J.D. Baldwin" <INVALID...@example.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:f964at$7ig$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> The last time I had my eyes dilated was 2001. (I really should
> schedule another appointment pretty soon.) My eye doctor suggested
> that it would be fun to put the tropicamide in just one eye, and then
> run into the nearest emergency room holding the side of my head and
> screaming at the top of my lungs. I love that guy.
Hahahahhahahaha!
Thanks for the chucks!
Cindy
teleflora
"Kent" <ke...@ixnayonthesamspay-deadoraliveinfo.com> wrote in message
news:ncCdncRd1NswFCvb...@comcast.com...
> My sister, who is two years older than me, did me that service when she
> warned me it was coming. I don't know if I would have expected it
> otherwise and it might have been somewhat dispiriting under those
> circumstances. In any event, I think it hit me later than it hit her
> age-wise, so I had a two-year-and-then-some warning.
My mom never did need reading glasses. Funny how that works. OTOH, I
probably started using them sooner than I should have because I just thought
they were so damn cool looking.
Drat!
Cindy
Hyfler/Rosner
"Brigid Nelson" <irja...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>
> As to MRIs, I had one a couple of months ago - piece of
> cake. I'm an agoraphobe, the most terrified I've ever
> been was when I visited the weaving room at Pendleton
> Woolen Mills. It was a room so vast that you really and
> truly could not see the walls, never mind the doors. If
> the MRI hadn't been so darn noisy I could have had a nap.
> When it was done, the hospital gave me the cd to give to
> my doctor. My husband and I had a lot of fun looking at my
> brane.
>
> It's always somthing,
> brigid
It certainly is. I didn't mind the two MRI's I had. I
thought the sounds were fascinating a sort of industrial
music. The worst part was when they put some earphones on my
head and I was forced to listen to Rod Stewart. Gak.
MGW
scrawled:
Whereas I find MRIs intolerably claustrophobic! The first time I had
one, I couldn't make it through the test - I felt like I was in a
coffin. The 2nd one was at a facility that had MRIs with a little more
space (moved from coffin to 2-person size coffin) and I was able to
make it through that time, but just barely. I've never had earphones,
just earplugs. Good music would probably have helped. Rod Stewart
would have had me outa there in 2 seconds - that's cruel and unusual
punishment!
Brigid Nelson
>
> It certainly is. I didn't mind the two MRI's I had. I
> thought the sounds were fascinating a sort of industrial
> music. The worst part was when they put some earphones on my
> head and I was forced to listen to Rod Stewart. Gak.
>
I got earplugs, I could still hear the sounds the machine made, but they
were at less than lethal volume. The fun part was when the tech would
give me directions and I'd be like 'WHAT?!' I think she was probably
just telling me to hold still, or that the next pictures would take 12
minutes, or something?
brigid
Matthew Kruk
news:qo-dnaiDl57iACvb...@rcn.net...
> ...
> It certainly is. I didn't mind the two MRI's I had. I thought the sounds
> were fascinating a sort of industrial music. The worst part was when they put
> some earphones on my head and I was forced to listen to Rod Stewart. Gak.
Could have been worse ... Donna Summer and the 17 minute disco version of Love
To Love You Baby.