Time to go to specsavers

Haych

I can see quite well and have never needed glasses or contacts.  But as I write this I have yet another ocular migraine and I figure something must be up.  I used to get them once every few months, normally there would be a trigger - as flash of light from some source, but I've had about four in the last two weeks and it's becoming a bit of a pain now.

Luckily I'm not driving anywhere today, when you have bits of your vision missing it makes things a bit hairy, I can't even see the keys on my keyboard properly, hard to describe bit it's like I have a shadow of light across parts of my vision creating blind spots I can't see through.  Despite it being a migraine I experience no pain at all, my vision just goes a bit haywire for a while - it usually clears up in about an hour.

I think I've hit middle age now so about time things started to show signs of malfunction.  Ho hum

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

octatonic

I've been wearing glasses for the last 5 years.
May I suggest looking at varifocals?
I don't need them for distance so my prescription is clear glass at the top and my reading glass prescription at the bottom and a transition in the middle.

It means I don't have to constantly take off and put on my glasses- I put them on in the morning and take them off at night- much better.

Paul_C

Sadly, the same is true for me (55, so not young any more ). I've already got reading glasses (3-4 years ago) but I've begun to notice that some things over a distance aren't as clear as they should be, so I'll be looking to get tested etc. in the new year, when I've got some money to pay for it all.

BRISTOL86

Do you have regular eye tests even though you don’t wear specs/lenses? It’s amazing how many people think they can see well until they do (and as a side note quite scary to think how many people must be on the roads who’s vision is way below the standard required for driving!) 

Philly_Q

BRISTOL86 said:

Do you have regular eye tests even though you don’t wear specs/lenses? It’s amazing how many people think they can see well until they do (and as a side note quite scary to think how many people must be on the roads who’s vision is way below the standard required for driving!) 

Not long after my brother passed his driving test - at 17, well over 30 years ago - we were driving down a road with a central barrier on a little raised kerb and he was getting really close to it.  I was sitting in the passenger seat thinking fucking hell, he's going to hit that kerb in a minute..... BLAM.

No serious damage done, as far as I can remember.  But he's been wearing glasses ever since.

Haych

BRISTOL86 said:

Do you have regular eye tests even though you don’t wear specs/lenses? It’s amazing how many people think they can see well until they do (and as a side note quite scary to think how many people must be on the roads who’s vision is way below the standard required for driving!) 

I don't have regular eye tests to be fair.  My son has an ulcerated cornea and has been seeing a specialist for a couple of years and attends the eye clinic for regular checks.  I kinda self test when I'm stood behind him while he's reading the charts and I can usually read the last but bottom row quite accurately.  I'm also aware of the police rule on eyesight for drivers so I do tent to test myself on how far away I can read a number plate - I'm confident I'm better than I need to be.

Anyway, I've booked myself in for an eye test tomorrow afternoon.  Should help me escape work for half hour too

EricTheWeary

Slightly on the glum side but if nothing else an eye test will eliminate that it's a problem with your vision and you need to see a doctor ( and if you saw a doctor first they'd ask why haven't you seen an optician). And they can pick up on a range of issues, it's not all about needing glasses or not. Quite fun to look at a photo of the inside of your eyeballs. 

theimageofall

You are having the exact symptoms that I had (ocular migraines - usually triggered by a bright light/flash) that prompted me to go and get my eyes tested and I’ve been wearing glasses ever since.

I’ve only had one migraine since, which happened when moving my dad out of his house on completion day...I’m blaming that one on stress though!

Hopefully you’ll be able to get your eyes tested soon and if you do end up with glasses, that will be the end of those migraines and missing parts of your vision...boy, I don’t miss those!

Skipped

I called into specsavers at the weekend (thinking about a spare pair of glasses) and was amazed at the quality of the £25 range.

That is......£25 including the (single vision) lenses.

The metal frames were lightweight. The plastic frames were very light. I had a note of my bridge width and arm length, and there was a choice of maybe 10 styles in my size.

I think I will stick with a small (independant) optician for my eye tests. I think it is good (when possible) to see the same optician every 2 years as I think there is some benefit  in the optician reading his own previous notes about you when assessing the change in prescription. But I have to say that the attention given to me by the young woman in specsavers - to process my £25 glasses - was second to none.

She transposed my prescription into another format (some opticians work in negative measures, some positive) and then took some time checking the fit, which was already perfect, because there were several examples of each style. Just like buying an R8 Paul, you pick up all them, all 30 of them, and one of them will be just right.

Rocker

@Haych, it may be better if you attend your doctor first before getting knitted out with glasses. Just in case there is a problem. Better safe than sorry...

Paul_C

BRISTOL86 said:

Do you have regular eye tests even though you don’t wear specs/lenses? It’s amazing how many people think they can see well until they do (and as a side note quite scary to think how many people must be on the roads who’s vision is way below the standard required for driving!) 

If that question was aimed at me, then no, I've never had regular tests. I had a full test at Vision Express when I got my reading glasses and was told my eyesight (at the time) was absolutely fine.

I am a realist though, and as I said, I recognise that my eyesight now is not as good as it was, so I'm going to do something about it before it becomes a serious issue.

monquixote

Starting to get migraines more frequently is usually the time when I change my glasses.

Nitefly

Regular eye tests are a must if there is any history of glaucoma in your family, once you hit 40.  My maternal grandmother had it, and my brother has it, so this meant I got free annual eye tests.  (I'm over 65 now, so they're free anyway now).

About 6 years ago they spotted that I was starting to develop cataracts.  "No need to worry just yet, they take a few years to develop to the point of needing surgery", they said. 

I went again the next year, and the cataracts had got to the point where they needed immediate attention.  Fortunately the NHS did me proud, both eyes done within 3 months of that diagnosis. (They won't do both eyes at the same time - you have to wait a few weeks after one is done before they do the second one).

Your eyesight is too important to take any chances!

Haych

There's no glaucoma in the family, although cataracts seem to run down my mother's side of the family.  

I wonder if stress, tiredness, caffeine and alcohol might be contributing to the more frequent ocular migraines?  Sheesh, that makes me seem like a washed up lush on the edge of sanity - it's not at all like that lol.  Not quite anyway  

Philly_Q

A couple of months ago I suddenly got a "floater" in my left eye.  It's like having a small feather or bit of cobweb constantly floating around in your field of vision.  I looked it up and it said that floaters are common when you're 50+ but a sudden appearance of them can be a warning sign of a detaching retina, so I went to the optician.  No detached retina, but I am stuck with this bloody thing - and probably more to come - for the foreseeable future.

Isn't getting older great? 

thecolourbox

Buying glasses was one of the most infuriating and exasperating experiences I've encountered in recent years. It took me two months of having to be rude to shop staff because they wouldn't leave me alone and kept trying to convince me I was wrong about which glasses were too tight, or about which I liked. I was getting migraines daily because of the glasses I had so it was maybe too high stakes but it's taken 3 months so far, 38 shop visits, and I still don't have any ones that are ok, I just have the largest width NHS ones I could get

WezV

I have recently started ordering glasses online.

As long as you have a prescription and measurement s from another pair it's fairly hassle free.  You just need to know what styles suit your face.

I got 2 pairs for under £20.  The quality and customer service is awesome.


Other than that, I currently have chronic central serous retinopathy, which was picked up on a regular eye check a while back... A leaky hole in the middle of my retina.  This means I have had every eye scan going so far and am usually the youngest in the eye clinic by at least 20 years.  

Phil_aka_Pip

I used to get letters from Specsavers: Dear Phil it's yonks since you last had your eyes tested, did you know that you could have diabetes and not know it?

yes and you lot failed to spot it even after I'd been to your opticians with eye trouble, you sent me to the hospital and it took them 6 months to diagnose me!

Plus all your frames are those squared off slitty eyed things - what happened to the round ones you could read through without having to hold the book in front of your face otherwise you'd be looking under the lenses??

And your lenses are all plastic so they scratch unlike proper glass ones

FFS!

scrumhalf

Philly_Q said:

A couple of months ago I suddenly got a "floater" in my left eye.  It's like having a small feather or bit of cobweb constantly floating around in your field of vision.  I looked it up and it said that floaters are common when you're 50+ but a sudden appearance of them can be a warning sign of a detaching retina, so I went to the optician.  No detached retina, but I am stuck with this bloody thing - and probably more to come - for the foreseeable future.

Isn't getting older great? 

Your brain should be able to adjust your vision around it after a while. I discovered I had this when I was out walking one day and thought "ooh, it's snowing", followed by "why can I only see snow out of my right eye?".

I went to Moorfields Eye Hospital and they checked me out, all ok. The only problem I have is that I have a small round floater in one eye and when watching cricket I'll often follow the floater rather than the ball.

But get it checked out.

Philly_Q

scrumhalf said:

Philly_Q said:

A couple of months ago I suddenly got a "floater" in my left eye.  It's like having a small feather or bit of cobweb constantly floating around in your field of vision.  I looked it up and it said that floaters are common when you're 50+ but a sudden appearance of them can be a warning sign of a detaching retina, so I went to the optician.  No detached retina, but I am stuck with this bloody thing - and probably more to come - for the foreseeable future.

Isn't getting older great? 

Your brain should be able to adjust your vision around it after a while. I discovered I had this when I was out walking one day and thought "ooh, it's snowing", followed by "why can I only see snow out of my right eye?".

I went to Moorfields Eye Hospital and they checked me out, all ok. The only problem I have is that I have a small round floater in one eye and when watching cricket I'll often follow the floater rather than the ball.

But get it checked out.

My optician checked it out quite thoroughly - they took it seriously, gave me an appointment straight away and said I might need to go to hospital immediately!  But all OK... apparently there's only a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting a detached retina, unless you're a boxer or something.  He told me warning signs to watch out for and recommended Moorfields and another London hospital (I forget which one) with a specialist eye casualty department.

I'm not as aware of it as I was the first couple of days, but it's always there - I can see it right now!

I also get diabetic retinopathy scans every year, so hopefully that would pick up any serious issues, although I realise they're looking for different things.

Haych

Had my eyes tested this afternoon, in the words of the optician "there's nothing wrong with your eyes, your vision is perfect and your eyes are very healthy"!

To be honest I was surprised he said that - during the test when he did the old, "better with 1 or with 2" thing, my sight sharpened up a lot.  Still, I never had a problem seeing stuff, just that these ocular episodes stuff up my sight every now and again.

He recommended I visit my GP to ascertain the trigger of the ocular migraines but that I also acquire some migraine medication from the chemist to block them when they do happen.

While I was there I had the hearing screening test too.  That was laughable - I passed with flying colours when I know my hearing is shot.  I live with permanent tinnitus which ranges from high pitched screaming to a low drone.  Normally I can ignore it and never notice it, but put me in a situation with normal background din and I struggle to hear the person next to me clearly.

Still, good to know I'll be able to lip read no problem should my hearing get worse, lol.