What was the trigger for the eye exam back then, were there issues, family history, or was it just a regular checkup thing? For some reason the symptom of “floaters” is burned in my consciousness as something to watch, even before I had my eye injury.
It went through my mind last week when I went for a sight exam in Specsavers. €25 and they inspect the back of the eyes added on. This thread was burning in my mind. Once every 2 years like, will keep getting it.
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I needed new glasses. No family history of this sort of thing, neither of parents were/are short sighted.
When I was in my early 20s I had crystal clear vision, much better than 20/20, when I was at my nearest bus stop I’d be able to make out the number of the bus hundreds of yards away as soon as it came into view around the bend from the N4/M50 junction. The first time I noticed my eyesight was declining slightly was when I was at a Cork v Galway All-Ireland football quarter-final in 2005, I got in about 20 minutes into the match (it was a very attractive double header) and was on the Hill and mistook the scores of the teams and only copped well into the second half that I’d been watching the game up to then on the basis of a false scoreline. I tipped along for the next several years without glasses before finally getting them over the Christmas at the end of 2009/start of 2010. Still only used them for going to matches and stuff, I’d read and watch television without them.
I only had the one pair and was continually trying to patch them up with tape so went for new glasses about February 2015 and it was mentioned to me at that eye exam that I was at risk of retinal detachment. I was asked did I have floaters. I said yes but they were the “normal” stringy type of floaters that I’ve had forever. The new ones I got in August were black dots which I didn’t have before. They appeared after I’d come back from a 12km walk, I sat down and the Kerry county hurling final was on and I noticed them.
I followed up that 2015 eye exam quickly by going to a consultant at the Hermitage but he just blew a load of air into my eyes (I could barely see after it) and said I was fine and didn’t say much more apart from that. 2015 was when I started using glasses to read and watch television.
I got new glasses in 2018 and was told my eyes were quite dry. Been using those glasses since then, I’m wearing them right now. But as it goes I am not particularly myopic, I think these glasses are only minus 1.25 presciption. I see people on these groups who have had retinal detachments and they’re minus 12 or minus 14 and such.
I don’t know was it smoking (though I’ve only been a daily smoker since 2013, more a social one up to that) or excessive computer use or my history of doing ridiculous over physical work like digging up tree stumps and heavy gardening work and drilling holes into masonry etc. (a few days before I went blind I was drilling holes into masonry for new curtain poles which is a cunt of a job) or a combination of all of that that fucked me, or just plain bad luck and gross negligence.
Yes for cosmetic reasons but much more so because it’s quite uncomfortable. Any time I use it I give it about five minutes and say “fuck that”.
There’s different ones out there. I wouldn’t be against it straightaway, especially if you’re wanting to watch TV or go for a walk. It’s hard now, I get that, but fuckin hell pal, be open to even things like that. That 1% to get you going. Killing me reading this, even though I don’t know you personally like.
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The type of floaters is the thing to watch. I’ve had floaters for a long time but they were the “normal” kind, like hairs or cobwebs. That’s the fibres of the vitreous humour, I think they might be collagen fibres or some such. But the vitreous humour can start to disintegrate, it starts separating into fluid and gel I think, usually it happens in your 60s or 70s or even later. This is called a posterior vitreous detachment and for most people it passes off relatively peacefully, you might get the odd flash. But for some people it can happen earlier, and for some people it can cause problems.
The floaters I got on August 7th I reckon were the start of a retinal tear. They were black dots. They’re the ones to get worried about. The floaters themselves were likely tiny pieces of the retina. That tear probably progressed over the following seven weeks. And I think it also happened in the location on the retina where a tear is most likely t develop into a detachment, I think it was a superior temporal tear, temporal means on the side of the eye nearest the temple - as opposed to nasal side.
Then the fluid from the disintegrating vitreous gets into the tear and slowly gets under the retina. The flashes I got on September 25th were likely a sign of the detachment occurring, but I didn’t have any further symptoms the following day. Then bam, the morning of the 27th, my whole central vision in the eye is gone. Despite not being able to drag a firm answer out of my surgeon about this I’m sure it was a macula off detachment which is the most serious kind. Once the macula gets detached you’re almost certain to be left with permanent visual impairment. The macula controls your fine central vision. I think about half of retinal detachments are macula sparing and about half involve the macula. Some people get a “curtain” which might obscure 10-15% of their vision, on the periphery. The prognosis for those is better although counterintuitively the urgency to operate on them quickly is greater as macula on detachments will develop into macula off detachments if not treated.
The weird thing about this is that my surgeon said my macula is “perfect” and two separate optometrists at Specsavers say there’s no evidence the macula has detached and they say there is no disruption to the layers of my macula. But they are not opthalmologists. I have a thing called an epiretinal membrane which may or may not be causing the distortion. It tends to form after posterior vitreous detachments.
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Did you have a retinal detachment too?
I’m sure this isn’t much of a consolation BUT; when i started teaching i also started picture framing- not something i was remotely interested in, but another teacher had a framing business and I was always footering about with furniture and would sometimes take rough timber into the woodwork rooms…just to use their machines etc. Anyhow, the picture framing/woodworking teacher soon sported that that my precocious talents were by no means limited to winning club county and provincial championships by the tender age of fifteen. Before long i was getting sickened with handy framing jobs that paid just enough to justify the tedium. Framing is a simple job for the most part. Sometimes you get a canvas that needs careful handling, other times you might get a print or a lithograph that isn’t quite square, and as a result needs a frame that has to be a little off to make it look not off. It gets a lot more interesting when the frame is ‘of the period’ or consistent with other works by the artist. Then it becomes a little more art than craft…i got very lucky at a few early unimportant attempts at this sort of work, which soon lead to more work-there’s a posh dentist on the lisburn rd in belfast. He has a hape of nice art in his surgery and the centrepiece is a lovely gauguin with a lovely original birds eye maple frame- nicely burnished and almost bronze with age but marred with poorly repaired woodworm tracks and holes on all four sides, one of which was added by yours truly. I finished up doing all his work- my colleague wasn’t too amused, but he should have realised that he lacked the lightness of touch and romantic sensibility necessary for such efforts
But i digress. The point of the story is that the dentist is the absolute best in the country…rich people even fly over from the mainland. I’ve heard it said that he can remove root canal nerves without the patient even realising. He made an absolute fortune, hence the paintings etc.
Oh aye…and he only has one eye…and he was riding like a cat.
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I’m open to it for stuff like watching sport on television if I can get a comfortable patch but I think the brain needs to train itself to obscure the bad image which is causing the double vision so most of the time you need the two eyes open.
The way I had it described to me was that one day I’d wake up and not notice the double vision.
One of the problems is that apart from the waviness and distortion the vision from the bad eye is a very strong image, though not a true one. It no longer has floaters. It may even be a stronger image for some things than the “good” eye. I’m worried it may actually end up becoming the dominant eye for at least some things and the true image from the good eye may end up getting filtered out. Like if I look up at the join line between the vertical wall and the ceiling, the wavy line from the bad eye is the dominant image and the straight line from the good eye is the weaker one.
Have you seen this? It’s mind bending, i watched it ages ago and it hasn’t left me. Not for me to say but i think it might be something like what you’re going through
Sound of Metal Sound of Metal - Google Search
I haven’t I’m afraid. Not sure about a drummer who loses his hearing but I have heard of a drummer with one arm. And I believe there are several people on this forum who work as waiters but only have one arm, so I hear anyway.
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Just watch the effin’ fillum, you twisted bollix.
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Said it a couple of weeks back that happened my old man… Double vision for months and one day it was gone. Wasn’t a retinal tear he had though
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Unreal. Any of ye ever play against him?
I had Coats Disease and my vision in the affected eye pretty much went overnight too. It’s common in young male children apparently.
It happened in the autumn of first year in secondary school. I was finding it hard to see the blackboard in sixth class so there was a bit of short sightedness happening but I was ignoring it. Some people go on about being bit part players on senior panels at the age of 15…but to score all the points in a U12 county final (2 from play, 1 free) as the late summer evenings were drawing in & my vision was deteriorating rapidly…incredible really. I got glasses then for starting secondary school but things went pear-shaped pretty quickly then & it wasn’t solely related to @Appendage being in my class.
It was hard to verbalise it as a 12-year old but I had this distorted or lack of vision overnight. The vision from the right eye was all blurry and the left eye was trying to compensate. It was kinda freaking out, as the left eye was trying to become dominant so it was a weird sensation. For something right in front of my right eye, my left eye would be straining across to see it and my nose would be in the way! It felt like I was able to partly see things through objects or around corners but it was in reality just things straight in front of me I should have been able to see easily with my right eye but my left might have had an awkward angle to see it but was trying to. Hard to explain and not even sure that makes sense in typing.
So it was optician → GP → consultant in Ardkeen. The disease involves vascular haemorrhaging/leaky vessels in the eye that can impact vision. It can also come with retinal detachment and I’m not even sure if I had that. You can be lucky or unlucky on the impact scale and I was pretty unlucky. I needed laser initially to stop the leaking and that causes retinal scarring. I then had to have surgery soon after under general anaesthetic but this was 1994 and I’m not quite sure what was involved here. I was in hospital for 3 or 4 nights, which seems like a long time. I have peripheral vision but normal straight ahead is useless. I’d compare it to when someone’s identity is being hidden in an expose style tv interview and they make their appearance blurry like the graphics on a 1980s computer game. It’s probably not even as good as that. For example, that basic eye test when the first screen is usually one big capital “A”. I wouldn’t be able to recognise what’s on the screen but would know there’s something on it.
My consultant at the time had retired but I went back to see that Dr Stephen Beattie in around 2010. You might be familiar with the name, he had a profile around then in trying to make hurling helmets compulsory as he was dealing with a lot of emergency eye surgeries in Ardkeen. I just wanted to see if there was any advancements in treatment that may allow me to get some sight back but there wasn’t at the time. I was recently in for an eye test and my optician here in D5 gave me a letter for the eye & ear - she reckons enough time has passed for them to have another look at it.
In practical terms, I wear a contact lens in my left eye and nothing in my right. This saves on contact lens expenses - this could be a massive win for you! I rarely wear glasses, just in the evenings at home to give my eye(s) a rest and it’s similar - strong prescription on the left and just a light/non-prescription on the right. I remember in the early days in the 1990s this meant I’d a big jam jar lens on one side and thin lens on the other one and the glasses would be falling down my nose over to the strong side due to the weight. Over time, lenses have advanced and even massively strong ones are quite neat and pared back. I didn’t take to contact lens as a kid and had a slight fear about touching my eyes after surgery etc so it affected my sport. I pretty much drifted away from playing during secondary school and, looking back now, it probably affected me psychologically more than I realised. I definitely withdrew into myself a bit but I adapted after a while and developed new interests such as bullying weaker children in the class. You’re working through all those phases now - it’s like those stages of grief in a way - but it will settle down over time.
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Nothing to do with smoking.
If the image from the healing eye is troubling you so much, try putting some of this on the glasses lens on that eye.
3M Blenderm Surgical Tape 5cm x 4.5m, Hypoallergenic, Transparent, Waterpoof, Pack of 1 Amazon.co.uk
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Apologies to you for making a snide comment peviously about your eye. I didn’t realise the seriousness or reality of it due to it just being a post on the internet. Your writing on it has been incredible, the most open and honest stuff I’ve read on here and fuck, I hope your eye gets better. Had a friend go through a detached retina which ended his boxing career (he was only an amateur but was highly touted). His was very different to yours as it was a trauma injury but remember how tough it was for him. Keep going to the optometrist and doctor as much as possible and asking questions. I find looking up medical issues on the internet awful, best to stick to the docs responses, even if it’s more than one opinion.
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I reckon we were all in better shape when we were younger. Is 20/20 perfect vision? How can you have better than perfect vision?