Whoa.

[tereshkova2001]

I wore my glasses to work today, which is a pretty rare occurrence, and noted that my new prescription is exceptionally strong. Such that, if I turn my head just right, and look out of the very edge of my left lens, I see a yellow and a red-orange band at the leading edge of objects, and an aqua and a purple band at the trailing edge. That lens is at a -11 diopter; I've heard that -10 is legally blind.

Comments

[ursula]

I thought legally blind was when your vision can't be corrected to something reasonable?

[tereshkova2001.livejournal.com]

I don't actually know; I had heard that figure from somewhere-or-other and thus have no basis for stating anything.
Hence the handwaving.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

My ophthalmic assistant henchman says "if you can be corrected to the point where you can drive, you're not legally blind." FWIW.
(your definition sounded reasonable to ME.)

[chemicallace]

I have the opposite problem. My contacts seem to be much stronger than I need. Since contacts are only available in increments, my eye doctor went with a slightly stronger one instead of a slightly weaker one so I could see better while driving at night. It made going between contacts and glasses in the same day difficult (I usually had to take a nap to have my brain adjust, especially if I went from contacts to glasses). Recently I've been feeling like I'm in a fun (or not so fun) house when wearing my contacts, so I'm thinking I need a new contacts prescription.

[tereshkova2001.livejournal.com]

Oh, the prescription is correct for my eyes. I was just amused by the optical effects.
I had a good experience with Dr. Tom, at Davis Optical on the Ave. (I don't know if you're looking for a new eye doctor or just new contacts, but there it is.)

[chemicallace]

Weird. I've never had that happen before.

I was going to see someone out here, but my insurance has all these perks for seeing doctors back in Boston since it's based in Boston -- cheap exams, reduced price frames, etc. I'm going back to Boston for a long weekend in March and am hoping to get an appointment then.

[tereshkova2001.livejournal.com]

You should see these lenses: they're about 6 mm thick at the edges, and that's after the super high index, extra narrow effects are added.

Cost over convenience I can certainly understand. Although if you were going back to Boston _just_ for the glasses, it might get expensive. :)