In search of my eyes

(Photo credit Getty embedded)

 

It isn’t that wearing glasses isn’t sexy.  It isn’t that getting them is freakishly expensive. It’s just that having had 20:20 vision pretty much all my life needing them is a shocker.

I’m not alone in this, it seems. 

When folk hit their early to mid-forties natural eye changes occur.  We struggle with the ability to see at close distances; this condition is called presbyopia. It affects all middle aged people!  It occurs because the eye’s lens has become less flexible, so focusing is tricky.

But trickier still is finding a pair of bins with a prescription that can replicate the eyes I’ve taken for granted for so long.

Having flirted with the idea of Specsavers and Vision Express I plumped for an independent optician.  It’s always good to build a relationship with your doctor, dentist and optician.  Not so much to do with them going the extra mile if you are in crisis, more to do with having a jolly good laugh at life when you’re having an internal or the dentist asks you a question mid-drilling.

My new lifestyle needs my eyes to work well. They’re having to do things they’ve never done before and my focus is all over the place. For now peering through a JVC lens, staring at lecture theatre whiteboards, scrutinizing video footage replaces get up, drive to work, look at laptop, look at world.

I know presbyopia can’t be prevented or cured – it is what it is – but reading glasses, bifocals, varifocals or contact lenses are the solutions.

I started my journey with Victoria, my optician, in January. The varifocals made me feel seasick.  So we’re giving bifocals a go, at the moment, to give my brain a chance to train my eyes.  I feel like a nodding dog most of the time and steam up alarmingly too; but I’m back next week for more tweaking.  She’ll get me there, because at Actons, much like ‘the one-eyed man’ … the customer is king.

And as for the frames … selected in seconds!

(Photo credit Kate Silverton)

Move over Kate  …  just saying!