Going All Magoo

[23daves]

I visited the opticians for the first time in a year today for an eye test. The results were as depressing as expected. My eyesight has deteriorated further still since the last check - I'm now officially hopelessly short-sighted, and unable to read even the top line of any chart without the aid of specs or contact lenses

Comments

[cloggedthought]

Funny. Glasses are one of those strange things that I associate with trust. Ridiculous I know, great guys like Heinrich Himmler wore them, but both of my parents also have them.

Speaking of which, if you hate eyewear that much you why don't you just save up the money and get laser surgery in the States (don't think I'd want to get laser eye surgery from the NHS) next time you go back to visit Canada? My pops was legally blind and wearing coke bottles when he had it, now he needs a light prescription to read.

[23daves]

That's a very good suggestion, actually. I don't think you can get eye surgery on the NHS over here unless you're almost blind anyway (so your father might have qualified, but I wouldn't). It would end up being a private job over here for me, and they're much cheaper in the States and probably Canada as well, so it's a point to ponder.

[prosepina]

Four things:
Firstly, you have my sympathies, even shopping at Specavers 'dubious-uber-cheap-but-never-quite-the-right-prescription' store as I do, I still find it hard to get glasses for much less that £200 quid. I am stupidly blind, and I think it ought to be considered a mild disability because I cannot function *at all* without some visual assistance, and have ended up in scary situations when my last contact lenses died on me.
Secondly, you can't get contact lenses for my prescription, you can get something close, but I suspect I am only barely legal when I drive in them, so I don't.
Thirdly, I have scarred eyes from nearly a decade of contact lens usae, so I am now banned from wearing more than 10 pairs a month, and only the daily disposaable no chemical content variety at that, so generally, I don't even wear them as much as that anymore.
But fourthly, you never see optometrists having laser eye surgery, and that's a fact that I think ought to cause concern, or at least, leave you to pause for thought before you go ahead with

[23daves]

My last opticians, The Eye Clinic, did laser surgery. Mind you, they went bust last year, so that probably tells me everything I need to know