How are your eyes guys?

[Zbig]

How's my what now?!

I'm sorry, but someone just had to do this

[IanJ]

I mainly wear my glasses all day every day, anbd have been weighing up if laser eye surgery would actually beat the glasses, as through my glasses i have a very wide focal range

You will not need glasses for 10 years, then it will hit with a vengance. As you then will have a very thin cornea after the operation if you have any accident which results in head trauma there is a good chance an eye can burst. Only fix then is to find a matching dead donor and hope you can live with the degradation that that eye already has. As well if you later want to wear contact lenses you are stuck with hard non permeable contact lenses, custom ground to fit your eye. Pop in in the morning, wear for the day and soak in a protease at night. Plus a lovely collection of eye drops.

I have severe dry eyes and belong to a dry eye forum with hundreds of members........a good percentage of them contracted dry eyes from laser surgery........it's a known side effect. Apparently the laser surgery can affect nerve cells and the brain then has trouble dispensing tears and oils via glands.......or something like that. You do NOT want dry eyes......believe me!
Note. I have not had laser surgery.

[cdev]

Would anybody mind if I posted some references from medical journals to back up what i said earlier?

Unfortunately, PubMed.gov 's coverage is spotty before the mid to late 1990s- basically thats when the effort to put papers online really began in earnest.. So it would be missing a lot of the earlier stuff.

The problem with a lot of people's way of looking at medicine is that they don't or arent willing to spend the time to really explore a subject deeply and instead they attempt to generalize but in the wrong way. They may have some opinion and then they try to verify that pinion instead of building up a body of data points over time. In my case I stated investigating this stuff when I was a teenager - long before I had a university library to read papers in. So ive been following it for 40 years..
many people miss a lot. the fact is, the eye is perhaps the organ in the body that has the most parts, and many of them can be impacted by various conditions and exposures and changes related to aging..  But, a lot of things can be helpful. the oxidative stress theory of aging is just one of many models we use to try to understand aging but its still one of the most frequently used, no one is "right" to the exclusion of others..

Does this all make sense to people?

Since the eues are both made up of physical structures as well as CNS related structures/functionality.. (both the eyes and nasal structures stand sort of on the threshold of the brain) that makes their interaction very important and complicated..

To glean information, read up on neurodegeneration/neuroprotection of various kinds, vascular issues, formation of advanced glycation end products, various diseases that impact eyes like diabetes and glaucoma, immune system issues and issues relating to immunosenescence, heavy metal exposures (lead) and strategies to try to ameliorate the effects of same in various ways (glutathione, chelation..- Other issues with eyes are related to the lens, the clarity of the lens. another big area is light exposure (especially blue light) and UV exposure.. (NAC is better for the second than the first) There really are several dozen well known substances that can protect the eyes but a good strategy is more complex than a simple more is better approach, for example, many antioxidants have an effective range and in very large amounts they swing towards being pro-oxidant.. Some well known eye nutrients can actually be toxic in large doses as well.. With all that said, it really pays to do some reading and learn the basics about how these various systems in the body can be protected.. very basic stuff. It is real and the science is extensive and goes back many decades. A lot of people are in denial but they usually are people who have not spent any quality time investigating the issues - often they have a pre-decided point of view and they get angry when confronted with the fact that they might be wrong. .

[cdev]

One nutrient which is extremely good for the eyes is carnosine.. an amino acid based substance which is made from beta-alanine (thats the rate limiting precursor) and histidine.

Topical carnosine can restore the clarity of the lens. The problem is, somebody has to be quite skilled in the exact amount of carnosine, salt, pure distilled water and buffer..(bicarbonate) and to keep it clean is ultra important.

So its not recommended unless you are willing to do more than the average person.

I have to say, it really did miracles for me when I was put in really a horrible situation. If somebody had an older dog who was losing its eyesight, they mght want to ask their vet about it.. lok up carnosine in PubMed, it will give you the important info on concentration. There are commercial eye drops that use a similar compound, but they are wildly expensive. It would probably be cheaper to pay a compounding pharmacist to make a bunch of eye droppers for you and freeze them.

[aargee]

I've been short sighted all my life, the good thing at my age now is that when other people go searching for their reading glasses, I just take mine off. No need for reading glasses as the eyeballs are pre-tuned. 

[Red Squirrel]

I was legally blind for a while, and it just dawned on me, I was sick of wearing glasses.  Always getting dirty, seeing reflections, always getting dirty, specs of dust in them all the time, smuges from accidentally touching them, always getting dirty... did I mention always getting dirty?  It brought me to the point of insanity, I was constantly cleaning them and it was never enough, always something left over.  I decided to get LASIK last summer and it's the best thing I ever done and now I'm 20/20 in both eyes.  I'm super squeamish when it comes to eyes so it took me quite a lot of courage to get it done, and it was not fun to go through but it was so fast I'd do it again if I had to.  Now I can see far without issues, and still see near as well.  I've been told by the time I hit 40 I'll probably need reading glasses though.  I hope not, but at least it will only be for seeing close so not like I'll HAVE to have them on all the time.

[ElectroNub]

I'm 46. I started wearing glasses about 3 years ago because I can't read text on signs until I already passed the street I was supposed to turn on!

I got reading glasses last year for working up close. Was never really a problem before. I also use a lot of magnifiers now too.

It seems I am due for a new set of glasses. These ones don't work as well as they used to.

Cleaning them is a pain...

If I was born blind I would not have to deal with this stupid handicap!

 

[Rerouter]

You will not need glasses for 10 years, then it will hit with a vengance.

Thank you very much sean, its not so much about laziness of not wearing glasses, it was more curiousity why such a procedure was so quiet when they boast such sucess in there advertisements, and its like walking a mine-field the second you try and look at a pro/con of a procedure online, so while it as on topic was nice to hear some feedback from a source i trust,

[SeanB]

I asked, and am not a candidate, even though the one eye would benefit ( but it is close to perfect in any case) the other eye would not, as there they **might** get the script half way to normal without blowing a hole in the cornea, or burning the lens. You will still need glasses so only for those few who will benefit from the slight correction for the present. If you only need 0.5 or less then you are a candidate, otherwise not.

Iqbaul my optometrist also wears glasses, and if LASIK worked he would have it done, but his living depends on him having good vision.

[mtdoc]

Lasik does work and works well to correct Myopia (near sightedness). But like any medical procedure there are risks, possible side effects and not everyone is a candidate.

It does nothing to treat presbyopia - the difficulty with focusing on near objects that comes with age.  If your optometrist is over 40 and wearing glasses at work it may be for this reason.   

Also, when you're over 45 and you're myopic, you can usually still focus on near objects by taking off your glasses. You lose this once you get Lasik.

[ABroodryk]

I can understand why some people will opt for the Lasik and it has its place. I've even looked into it and my dad had it done about 15 years ago but there is the problem with night sight issues and to be honest I prefer something reversible.

If you are tired of cleaning your glasses or wearing contact lenses during the day its worth looking into orthio-k lenses. I've been using them for 5 years now and I will never go back  There is also no dry eye issue like you get when wearing contacts and working on computer screens as we all do these days. The best part is you can't loose a contact while enjoying sports.

I do apologies if it seems I'm  on about it but it was a life changer 

[lapm]

Im 40 and finally got myself one of those magnifier headband thingies.. My eyesight is still perfect but eyes get tired more easily now when looking at small smd stuff. Hence i got magnification to help. Throwhole stuff im still fine without any gadgets..