I have just opened my birthday present from my sister. As usual it proved to be spectacularly disappointing. Not to sound ungrateful but a magic-eye book is more suitable for a 12-year old than someone who has just turned 24. Not only that, but i have a rather bad astigmatism in my left eye and people with such a condition are unable to make these puzzles work. With birthday presents like this, you can guarantee I am dreading Christmas.

Without fail, every single sodding year, I get pyjamas for Christmas. Pyjamas that I have no intention, ever, of wearing. At least not in this lifetime. Pyjamas made of foul, cheap, synthetic, silky material in garish colours or pyjamas with prints more suited to the night attire of a, somewhat psychotic, eight-year old (Red Reindeer that even Pablo Picasso wouldn’t admit to drawing) and the very worst type; pyjamas in the colours I detest the most, pink and purple (frequently I get those from my mother). This means that every year, at the first opportunity, I have the pleasure of visiting my local Oxfam shop. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ungrateful. I’d just rather that the money was given to charity, and helped to benefit those less fortunate than myself, than spent on something that I will never use in a million years. That’s why I donate it, often still in its packaging, to the local Charity shop.

Looking through my own selection of carefully considered Yule-tide gifts (Dad – signed Vettriano book, Gran – brooch, Grandad – goat, no I’m not throwing insults about: it’s an ethical gift.), I contemplate the potentially hideous presents that will lie under the tree for me this year, I started to wonder; what is the worst present anybody has ever received for Christmas? I was set on a quest to find the worst.

First stop was a visit to one of the message boards I frequent – my most trusted source for the, sometimes ridiculous, views and opinions of the general public. Signing in - “What is the worst Christmas present you’ve ever received?” I typed. I took the precaution of disallowing any novelty clothing, selection boxes and anything else with a Christmas theme, as everybody has received at least one such offending item in their life. The whole exercise proved disastrous as it just provoked a debate over the true meaning of Christmas and the ethics of donating Christmas presents to charity. Should a well-intentioned gift be given away? Is it caring or callous to do so? Should it become a “boomerang” gift, to be forever passed between members of the same family only to end up back where it started?

After trawling through hundreds of posts without finding anything of use, I decided to give up on that idea but where else could I find some truly horrendous gift ideas? Got it! Internet shopping sites – home to the weird and wonderful. A quick google brought up www.prezzybox.com where, if you so wish, you can buy a Ducti Wallet, a wallet made entirely from silver Duct tape! The offerings at alt-gifts.com included some, rather rude, cat and dog towel holders (use your imagination) and a water powered calculator, no batteries, no electricity, just add water! If none of those ideas were to your taste, then a candy bra and thong set, vibrating soap (don’t ask!) and an Easter Island tissue dispenser (tissues are pulled through the nasal orifice) were available at iwantoneofthose.com. I wondered how many people, if any, would be pleased to unwrap any of these gifts, especially in front of Granny; and how much of a death wish the person who bought them had.

After several hours on endless home shopping sites, I started to get a bit bored and started randomly typing friends’ nicknames into Google. One in particular, Anti-Barbie, yielded the ultimate bad taste, but not the most crap, gift: Barbie poo. Bright pink and sitting in all its glory, it was a bizarre sight to behold. Some how I also came across a survey, organized through Tickbox.net, it asked respondents to name the worst Christmas present they’d received. Answers included: a bag of Bombay Mix, a hole punch, a tape of line dancing music, a packet of condoms, a bottle of Tipp-ex, a tartan wig, a worm farm, a bag of onions, an Easter egg and garden gnome.

Despite all this searching, I still had not found my ultimate crap gift. It was time to bite the bullet; I would have to ask actual people. Scary prospect, so I decided to ask friends in the first instance. Christine, an Aries, was given a pair of god-awful pants with a star sign print on them. Unfortunately the print was Taurus. Blair, the ultimate hell raising second cousin of the devil himself, aged 15 received a Power Ranger toy, much to his unamusement. Donna was the not so proud recipient of some Dolce and Gabanna perfume, which I know from experience smells like something your grandmother would wear. “Except my grandmother wouldn’t as I offered mine to her and even she said it was rank”.

Bad as all these presents were, I still had not found anything I felt was a truly thoughtless gift. Still I had still to talk to people at work. In the event I actually only got to ask one colleague (Christmas time is a bit hectic in the hotel trade) but with that one answer I struck gold. This gentleman used to be a soldier in Her Majesty’s Army during which time he passed an Army driving test. This was unfortunately forgotten by his father who later bought him a set of driving lessons as a Christmas present.

People say that it’s the thought that counts when giving presents; and I totally agree – the thought should count. If people put more thought into what they bought others for Christmas, then fewer people would dread the ritual of pretending to look pleased after receiving the heinous abomination that is their gift. Wish it was Christmas every day? Not with gifts like those I don’t.

How to Take Care of Your Soft Contact Lenses

Soft contact lenses are a wonderful thing to have in this day and age. When contacts first came out, they were hard, uncomfortable, expensive, and difficult to take care of. Advances in eye wear technology have brought contact lenses a long way.

There are now brands that offer lenses in a wide array of colours. There are lenses available for those with astigmatism, and there are even contacts with bifocals for those who need them to read.

No matter what kind of contact lenses you might wear, there are a few things you need to know about how to properly care for them. Doing so will keep you seeing well and protect the health of your eyes.

How to Clean Contact Lenses

There are many cleaning solutions on the market today. Your eye doctor will most likely recommend a certain brand depending on which contacts you wear. It’s important to follow the recommendations and directions of your eye care professional. They are trained to know how to prevent eye infections and diseases, which can be easily acquired through the wear of contact lenses.

Most contact lens cleansers are a ‘no rub’ solution. In the old days, you would need to thoroughly rub your lenses on the palm of your hand, rinse them, and soak them in solution for at least 6 hours overnight. Now, you can pop them into the storage case with some solution and rinse them off thoroughly before putting them on the next day.

Try not to rinse your contact lenses with plain tap water. In a pinch it will do. For instance, you may get a speck of dirt in your eye while out of the house. If you need to remove your contacts in this situation, water will work. However, regular water can harbour bacteria that can cause infection and irritation in your eyes.

Wearing Your Lenses for the Right Length of Time

Your eye care professional will let you know the proper length of time to wear your particular brand of contacts. Some are designed for daily use, meaning they are disposed of at the end of the day. Others can last up to a month if they are not worn overnight while sleeping. It is never recommended to wear contact lenses all night as they should spend at least 6 hours a day soaking in cleaning solution to remove protein buildup.

Typically, contact lenses are worn for two weeks at a time. By then, they have lost their ability to retain the proper shape and stay fitted against your eye. In addition, they lose their comfort after so many days of buildup and cleaning. You also need to change out the lenses often so that you don’t expose your eyes to certain bacteria. The cleaning solutions may not remove everything from your lenses, and the longer you wear them, the more you put your eyes at risk for disease.

Besides wearing your lenses for the proper length of time, you need to be concerned with just plain wearing them properly. Never wear someone else’s lenses, even if they come from an unopened package. Your prescription is unique to you. Also, most lenses now come with a “marker” on them, which when held up to the light will help you determine if your contacts are inside out. Hold your lens up to the light before inserting them to ensure you are putting them in correctly.

Taking Care of Yourself to Avoid Eye Problems

There is more to wearing contacts than taking care of the lenses themselves. It is also very important that you take care of yourself in order to protect your eyes and their health. Eye care professionals can give you tips and ideas on how to maintain proper eye health, but if you are wearing contacts there are a couple basics to know.

If you have worn contacts for some time, you may have noticed that when your eyes are dry it is harder to see. Vision is blurry and the contacts become uncomfortable. Chronic dry eyes is a problem for many people, and ideally you should be wearing glasses instead of contacts. However, if you are having this problem and are wearing contacts, the number one thing to remember is to stay hydrated. Drink more water than usual, especially in the warmer months.

Keeping moisturising drops with you at all times also helps when your eyes get dry. However, if you are dehydrated, those drops will only work for so long. For very chronic cases, some doctors will recommend a daily supplement of flax seed oil or fish oil. A small amount will go a long way in keeping your bodily fluids replenished, including the tears in your eyes. Proper hydration will protect your eye health, protect the life of your contact lenses, and make your vision through them clearer than you imagined.

Astigmatism is a vision condition that causes blurred vision due either to the irregular shape of the cornea, the clear front cover of the eye, or sometimes the curvature of the lens inside the eye. An irregular shaped cornea or lens prevents light from focusing properly on the retina, the light sensitive surface at the back of the eye. As a result, vision becomes blurred at any distance.

Astigmatism is a very common vision condition. Most people have some degree of astigmatism. Slight amounts of astigmatism usually don’t affect vision and don’t require treatment. However, larger amounts cause distorted or blurred vision, eye discomfort and headaches.

Astigmatism frequently occurs with other vision conditions like nearsightedness (myopia) and farsightedness (hyperopia). Together these vision conditions are referred to as refractive errors because they affect how the eyes bend or “refract” light.

The specific cause of astigmatism is unknown. It can be hereditary and is usually present from birth. It can change as a child grows and may decrease or worsen over time.

A comprehensive optometric examination will include testing for astigmatism. Depending on the amount present, your optometrist can provide eyeglasses or contact lenses that correct the astigmatism by altering the way light enters your eyes.

For questions, or to schedule a comprehensive eye exam, contact:
Premier Eyecare, Julie Moore, OD – #405.513.8150

Mother nature saw fit to give me beautiful brown almond shaped eyes…I think they are almond…and I think they are beautiful…my thinking may be skewed, but anyhoo…that’s what I think….

The shape of my beautiful eyes

I am blind, not legally blind, not seeing- eye- dog -white -cane- blind- but- you- look- beautiful- blind.

Thankfully I am not there yet

So every year I go and get my eyes gouged…I mean checked…my wallet gets gouged…and every year I’m a wee bit blinder…distance vision is my problem, if you are in my face I see you just fine, but if you want me to see how beautiful you are just stand back….it works for me…I stand in front of a mirror, mind you…not too close…and I say to myself….self…you look awesome….

I am awesome!

So anyway…every year I have a choice to make, being that I also have astigmatism my choices are small, 4 color choices is all I have, blue, grey, green and brown…and of course clear.

I'll show you fresh

I have been criticized for trying to pull off the Mexican with blue eyes thing before…duh…like Mexicans can’t have blue eyes, both of my grandfathers had blue eyes. I have cousins with green eyes, blue eyes, grey, hazel…but not clear….anyway, this year I was going to go with brown….but when I tried the samples I decided I’d go for the pop of grey….whatever I’m paying for them so I get to pick whatever….but here’s the funny thing….I don’t do color because I’m trying to pull off any specific look….this is what happens, and it can only happen to someone as brilliant as myself….when I am wearing clear contacts and I’m either doped up, drunk, asleep, or half awake I can’t tell if I have contacts on….so I end up either putting on a second set of contacts over the ones already on my eyeballs or scratching my corneas off trying to pull out my clear contact lenses….

So there you have it….I’m just trying to keep my eyeballs scratch free.

Save the eyeballs, stay pretty and blind free

Oh and look beautiful with my blue, green, grey or brown eyes….

I was using Soflens 66  toric from B and L. I thought I would try out acuvue advanced for astigmatism. Boy do these stink. My vision isnt good at all. Though they are extremely comfortable to wear and I dont feel like I have something in my eyes, the vision isnt good, no sir. Its like wearing extremely comfortable shoes that are meant to protect you from cold or whatever but they dont. Even though soflens 66 were not as comfortable as these, they were comfy enough. Plus the vision was great with them. I would take them any day over these rotten ones.

An Online Video

An online testimonial on treating the eye condition known as Astigmatism:

I am impressed with my new Baush and Laumb contact lenses(Soflens toric). Not only it has corrected my astigmatism(which the normal sperical ones never could) I am able to wear them comfortably for 9 hours. After that it is I admit a little bit of a bitch because I am major protien depositor. They just tend to become foggier towards the end. The one thing I do everyday is clean them properly with tons of solution. It really makes a major difference. Clean them half assed way and they are sure to to fuck up your vision the next day. Otherwise they are pretty well behaved babies. I am 75% happy with them. I think they could be better. especilly if they could let in more oxygen and resist protien deposits, they would be perfect. Well I am soon gonna be trying Acuvue Advanced for astigmatism which are the latest Silicon Hydrogel types. Let me see if they are any better.

Diagnosing Astigmatism

We know that astigmatism can be treated with laser eye surgery, but how do we initially diagnose the condition? The ophthalmologist or optometrist may use the following tools to examine the eyes:

Visual acuity test – this involves reading letters on a chart. The letters become progressively smaller on each line.

Astigmatic dial – this is a chart showing a series of lines which make up a semi-circle. People with perfect vision will see the lines clearly, while those with astigmatism will see some more clearly than others.

Keratometer – also known as an ophthalmometer. This device measures the reflected light from the surface of the cornea. It measures the radius of the curvature of the cornea and can assess the degree of abnormal curvature of the cornea.

Keratoscope – also known as Placido’s disk – this device is marked with lines or circles and observes corneal reflex. It uses light to project rings on the cornea. By measuring the spacing between the rings it calculates the variations of curvature, which in turn calculates the degree of astigmatism. A videokeratoscope is a keratoscope fitted with a video.

The importance of regular eye tests

Astigmatism is very common – experts say most of us are born with a degree of astigmatism. Most children who are born with astigmatism will not realize they have it until they have an eye test. Reading and concentrating at school may be affected if a child has undiagnosed astigmatism. Therefore, regular eye tests are important.

In the UK babies have an eye test soon after they are born. They have a follow-up test about six weeks later. Doctors recommend that children receive a comprehensive eye test when they are four years old; and then every year up to the age of 16. Adults should have an eye test every couple of years.

A Definition of This Eye Condition

You’ve heard the word “astigmatism” mentioned at dinner parties and in the media, but what exactly is it? Well, astigmatism is a common eye condition which is usually present from birth already. Statistically, two-thirds of UK residents with short-sightedness also suffer from significant astigmatism.

It usually occurs when cornea, the front part of the eye, is not a regular symmetrical spherical shape, but is rather shaped like the back of a spoon(ie: longer in one direction than the other. This then means that the cornea is an irregular shape, and because of it, the eye can’t focus light passing through it correctly on to the retina (the back of the eye). What this all means is that your vision is then blurred from all distances.

Several factors determine the shape of the eye as it develops in the womb, including inherited genetic factors as well as the surrounding environment. Researchers claim that these factors can lead to an irregular curvature of the cornea, although the exact cause isn’t yet known or fully understood.

A Look At This Eye Condition

There are two types of astigmatism, namely – Corneal astigmatism, and Lenticular astigmatism. These can be of course be treated through laser eye treatment. However, let’s firstly look at the root causes of these conditions.

Corneal Astigmatism – The cornea is a clear (transparent) layer of tissue that covers the front of the eye. As well as transmitting and focusing light into the eye, it protects the eye from infection and damage. The cornea needs to have a perfect curve in order to bend (refract) light properly as it goes into the eye.

If the cornea does not curve perfectly – if one half is flatter or steeper than the other – the light that hits it will not refract properly and the retina at the back of the eye will receive an imperfect image. The person will have blurred vision from that eye – astigmatism.

Experts are not sure why some people are born with a cornea that does not curve properly. Some studies indicate a baby has a higher risk of having astigmatism if one or both of the parents have it.

A higher percentage of babies born prematurely, as well as those born with a low bodyweight have astigmatism, compared to other babies.

Certain types of surgery or eye injuries that cause scarring of the cornea may cause astigmatism.

Keratoconus, a degenerative disorder of the eye where the cornea gradually thins and changes to a more conical shape, can also cause astigmatism.

Lenticular astigmatism – The problem is similar to corneal astigmatism, but exists in the lens rather than the cornea. The lens has variations in its curvature, rather than having a perfect curve, causing images to reach the back of the eye (retina) imperfectly. Most patients with lenticular astigmatism have a normally shaped cornea – the defect is only in the curvature of the lens.

People with diabetes commonly develop lenticular astigmatism because high blood sugar levels can cause the lens to change shape. The process usually develops slowly and is generally detected when the patient starts receiving treatment for the diabetes. When diabetes is controlled through treatment and blood sugar returns to more normal levels the lens’ shape will also return to normal – many patients will notice the return as hypermetropia (long-sightedness). It is advisable for patients who start diabetes treatment to wait at least one month for the lens to settle down before being measured for glasses.

Yes, the rain is gone, but that’s not where I was going with this. When I got rolled over the hood of a car and slammed into the pavement, it did a number on my glasses. Or, really, what’s left of my glasses. Thin metal frames really show their maleability under that kind of duress. We are debating whether it is possible to straighten them enough to act as a back up pair, but last week I ordered up new glasses and today I picked them up.

Heavier plastic frames are a new look for me, but I have a good feeling about these. Particularly, I think the shape will reduce troubles caused by my peripheral vision. My first pair of glasses kept freaking me out because I was “seeing things” coming up beside me. It took a couple years to adjust to that without going paranoid.

Study and reading are favorite activities of mine, so the last five weeks have been tough. My vision is good enough that I can still read without the glasses; however astigmatism causes a lot of eye strain, making it hard to concentrate for long periods. (I think getting your head smacked against concrete might effect concentration as well.)

Next, I need to send the information off to the insurance company for their approval. I hope they don’t try any funny stuff like suggesting my old glasses should be depreciated for compensation. The fact that my vision has made no appreciable change in the last six years should help mitigate any nonsense like that. (“I didn’t need new glasses until your client ran me down.”)

Here’s to all the new things to see!

What is LASIK?

The eye and vision errors

The cornea is a part of the eye that helps focus light to create an image on the retina. It works in much the same way that the lens of a camera focuses light to create an image on film. The bending and focusing of light is also known as refraction. Usually the shape of the cornea and the eye are not perfect and the image on the retina is out-of-focus (blurred) or distorted. These imperfections in the focusing power of the eye are called refractive errors. There are three primary types of refractive errors: myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. Persons with myopia, or nearsightedness, have more difficulty seeing distant objects as clearly as near objects.  Persons with hyperopia, or farsightedness,  have more difficulty seeing near objects as clearly as distant objects.  Astigmatism is a distortion of the image on the retina caused by irregularities in the cornea or lens of the eye. Combinations of myopia and astigmatism or hyperopia and astigmatism are common. Glasses or contact lenses are designed to compensate for the eye’s imperfections. Surgical procedures aimed at improving the focusing power of the eye are called refractive surgery. In LASIK surgery, precise and controlled removal of corneal tissue by a special laser reshapes the cornea changing its focusing power.

(See the animation of the LASIK procedure and what should I expect before, during, and after surgery.)

Other types of refractive surgery

Radial Keratotomy or RK and Photorefractive Keratectomy or PRK are other refractive surgeries used to reshape the cornea. In RK, a very sharp knife is used to cut slits in the cornea changing its shape. PRK was the first surgical procedure developed to reshape the cornea, by sculpting, using a laser. Later, LASIK was developed. The same type of laser is used for LASIK and PRK. Often the exact same laser is used for the two types of surgery. The major difference between the two surgeries is the way that the stroma, the middle layer of the cornea, is exposed before it is vaporized with the laser. In PRK, the top layer of the cornea, called the epithelium, is scraped away to expose the stromal layer underneath. In LASIK, a flap is cut in the stromal layer and the flap is folded back.

Another type of refractive surgery is thermokeratoplasty in which heat is used to reshape the cornea. The source of the heat can be a laser, but it is a different kind of laser than is used for LASIK and PRK. Other refractive devices include corneal ring segments that are inserted into the stroma and special contact lenses that temporarily reshape the cornea (orthokeratology).

via : fda.gov

Video on Treating Astigmatism

Here with a recent video showing the effective treatment of astigmatism using laser eye surgery.

How Is Astigmatism Diagnosed?

We know that astigmatism can be treated with laser eye surgery, but how do we initially diagnose the condition? The ophthalmologist, optometrist, or orthoptist may use the following tools to examine the eyes:

Visual acuity test - this involves reading letters on a chart. The letters become progressively smaller on each line.

Astigmatic dial – this is a chart showing a series of lines which make up a semi-circle. People with perfect vision will see the lines clearly, while those with astigmatism will see some more clearly than others.

Keratometer – also known as an ophthalmometer. This device measures the reflected light from the surface of the cornea. It measures the radius of the curvature of the cornea and can assess the degree of abnormal curvature of the cornea.

Keratoscope – also known as Placido’s disk – this device is marked with lines or circles and observes corneal reflex. It uses light to project rings on the cornea. By measuring the spacing between the rings it calculates the variations of curvature, which in turn calculates the degree of astigmatism. A videokeratoscope is a keratoscope fitted with a video.

The importance of regular eye tests

Astigmatism is very common – experts say most of us are born with a degree of astigmatism. Most children who are born with astigmatism will not realize they have it until they have an eye test. Reading and concentrating at school may be affected if a child has undiagnosed astigmatism. Therefore, regular eye tests are important.

In the UK babies have an eye test soon after they are born. They have a follow-up test about six weeks later. Doctors recommend that children receive a comprehensive eye test when they are four years old; and then every year up to the age of 16. Adults should have an eye test every couple of years.

And What Are The Primary Types?

Many people are unsure what refractive errors actually mean. Let’s explain – in the human eye, the cornea (which is the layer in front of the eye), together with the lens situated inside the eye, form what we call the eye’s “focusing system”. This focusing system is primarily responsible for managing incoming light rays onto the retina’s surface, in much the same way that a camera lens focuses light onto a film. In an ideal and flawless optical system, the cornea and lens would be perfectly matched with both the length of the eye as well as the images being in focus; if this is not the case in the system, we then call it a refractive error, and as a result we are then left with a blurred images at some point.

There are three primary types of refractive errors which we will now look at:

Myopia: Also known as near-sightedness. With people suffering from myopia, there is a mismatch in both focusing power as well as eye length, which basically then leads to objects at a distance being blurry whilst nearer objects appear to be clearer.

Hyperopia : Also referred to as far-sightedness. Patients suffering from hyperopia also sees a mismatch in focusing power and eye length. In this case, it causes near objects to be blurry whilst objects from a distance comes across as significantly clearer.

Astigmatism: People with astigmatism either have a distorted corneal or lens shape, which can cause multiple images on the retina. Because of this condition, objects at all distances can appear blurry. In many cases, people tend to have a combination of either myopia or hyperopia with astigmatism.

More info on eye conditions.

How Does One Get Astigmatism?

There are two types of astigmatism, namely – Corneal astigmatism, and Lenticular astigmatism. Let’s look at the root causes of these conditions.

Corneal Astigmatism

The cornea is a clear (transparent) layer of tissue that covers the front of the eye. As well as transmitting and focusing light into the eye, it protects the eye from infection and damage. The cornea needs to have a perfect curve in order to bend (refract) light properly as it goes into the eye.

If the cornea does not curve perfectly – if one half is flatter or steeper than the other – the light that hits it will not refract properly and the retina at the back of the eye will receive an imperfect image. The person will have blurred vision from that eye – astigmatism.

Experts are not sure why some people are born with a cornea that does not curve properly. Some studies indicate a baby has a higher risk of having astigmatism if one or both of the parents have it.

A higher percentage of babies born prematurely, as well as those born with a low bodyweight have astigmatism, compared to other babies.

Certain types of surgery or eye injuries that cause scarring of the cornea may cause astigmatism.

Keratoconus, a degenerative disorder of the eye where the cornea gradually thins and changes to a more conical shape, can also cause astigmatism.

Lenticular astigmatism

The problem is similar to corneal astigmatism, but exists in the lens rather than the cornea. The lens has variations in its curvature, rather than having a perfect curve, causing images to reach the back of the eye (retina) imperfectly. Most patients with lenticular astigmatism have a normally shaped cornea – the defect is only in the curvature of the lens.

People with diabetes commonly develop lenticular astigmatism because high blood sugar levels can cause the lens to change shape. The process usually develops slowly and is generally detected when the patient starts receiving treatment for the diabetes. When diabetes is controlled through treatment and blood sugar returns to more normal levels the lens’ shape will also return to normal – many patients will notice the return as hypermetropia (long-sightedness). It is advisable for patients who start diabetes treatment to wait at least one month for the lens to settle down before being measured for glasses.

Some eye facts for you to look at

The sense of sight is so valuable yet many people usually neglect caring for the eyes. Eye problems result from many things. Nutritional deficiency, medical conditions, injury, and age-related problems are some. There are simple ways to maintain the strength and health of your eyes. Eating foods rich in certain vitamins, avoiding physical eye injury, and getting eye check-ups regularly, do well for eye health.

Watch out for eye diseases like cataract or the clouding of the eye’s lens. Having dry eye syndrome (DES) or decreased tear production is not good either. There is also glaucoma or the group of eye conditions, which damage the optic nerve, and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Both can lead to severe vision impairment and blindness in its advanced stage. Being visually impaired is having 20/40 or worse vision, while being legally blind is having 20/200 vision. Both states already aided by corrective eye-wear or contact lenses.

Other conditions include refractive errors, such as myopia or nearsightedness, and hyperopia or farsightedness. Another is astigmatism or blurred vision due to the less than perfectly rounded cornea. There is also presbyopia, which translates to a less flexible eye’s lens due to aging.

Look at some alarming facts from the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s May 2009 compilation. Cataracts affect nearly 22 million Americans aged 40 and older. There are 2.3 million affected by glaucoma and another 2 million do not even know that they have the disease. Some 3.6 million are visually impaired, and more than one million are legally blind. About 10 million have AMD, and 4.3 million have dry eye. Color blindness occurs at about 8 percent in men and 0.5 percent in women.

Aside from diseases, look out for eye injuries as well. Around 50% of these occur inside the house while 15% happen while playing sports. More than 2.5 million eye-related injuries occur annually. Along with this, 50,000 people permanently lose part or all of their vision. Caring for your eyes by simply using protective eye-wear prevents 90% of these mishaps.

Nutritious eye food is readily available in your community. Items such as squash, carrot, and mango are rich in vitamin A. This eye vitamin prevents night blindness or the inability to see in dim light. You get vitamin C from broccoli, bell pepper, papaya, and orange. This ascorbic acid is an antioxidant that prevents and alleviates glaucoma and prevents cancer. Another antioxidant is vitamin E found in sunflower seeds, almonds, and mustard greens. All the three vitamins act to prevent macular degeneration and the formation of cataracts.

In this age of medical advances, many options are available to correct imperfect vision. People with damaged or deceased parts of the eye can opt for transplant. Even so, it is important to be conscious in protecting your eyes against injuries, disorders, and all the expensive treatments in between. Enjoy great eyesight! You can truly relish life’s beauty with your eyes peeled.

“Chapter one. He adored New York City. He idolised it all out of proportion. Uh, no. Make that, “He romanticised it all out of proportion. To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.”

Uh… no. Let me start this over.

Woody Allen, Manhattan

Comrades –

New York is my kind of town. I know, I know, this is in all likelihood not the first time you’ve heard that said. I know, I know, it’s your kind of town too. I know, I know, that it’s safe to say that if you have any kind of town at all, if the oxygen carried through your blood doesn’t feel quite right without a certain sooty residue, if the sound of silence at night less soothes you and more creeps you the fuck out, if the placid grandeur of nature at its most fundamentally natural leaves you feeling even the tiniest bit guilty as you wonder where the hell you’re going to get wi-fi access from, if in fact towns are your thing on any level at all, then it’s probably true that New York is your kind of town. Sure, there are prettier places, there are crazier places, there are busier places and god knows there are friendlier places, but none of those places are New York, and without wanting to get overly tautological about it, only New York has the New Yorkness, the New Yorkitude, the New Yorkacity, that makes it New York.  It is, I trust I’ve made clear without in any way labouring the point, New York, and that is my kind of town.

Quite why New York is my kind of town is somewhat harder to fathom. Or it was until I chanced upon the hurlyburly and hullaballoo that comprises the peculiar facade parade charade that will hereafter be referred to as New York Fashion Week (because that is its name). After ambling through the city on my way to MOMA (closed on Mondays, it may save you some shoe leather to be informed) — and ambling being the appropriate word, clad as my size 11’s were in some newfangled footwear that replaces the sole with something that looks like an overturned fruit bowl affording me both increased comfort (style be damned, if I’m walking for 7 hours a day I’d rather not be crippled by it) and a valuable 2 inches to my height (and as you can imagine anything that increases my stature to something approaching that which my Over-Complimentary Internal Monologuist feels I deserve is welcome, although the harbour at Rhodes as yet remains un-Jemmed, so to speak) — I was forced from the paveme- er, sidewalk by a morass of black-clad, sunglasses-shod, heavily accessorized crows jostling and heaving and squawking  into cellphones as a tiny man in a nice suit was escorted to a waiting limousine. I have no idea who the tiny man was. It wasn’t Alexander McQueen or Jean-Paul Gaultier or that weird German guy with the pony tail and the little dog, and I think Yves Saint Laurent is dead, so it likely wasn’t him, or if it was, well, it rather becomes him. As you can tell from this incisive insider insight and a quick glance through my wardrobe, I am something of a doyen, and so it was with no small umbrage that I realised that NYFW had started and simply no-one had thought to inform me.

As anyone who has had the terrible misfortune to attempt to have a conversation with me while Kylie Minogue is in the room will attest, I am perhaps-not-quite-as-secretly-as-I-would-like a terribly distracted fame whore. Entirely coincidentally, therefore, I decided that perhaps a nice coffee in the park overlooking the backstage entrance might be just the cup of tea, so to speak. ‘This’, I thought to myself as I kicked a small child from its pram and poured 12 fluid ounces of scalding hot soy latte into the lap of a pensioner in order to occupy what I quickly perceived to be the prime vantage point, ‘is my kind of town.’

And almost immediately, birthed from the distended folds of the backstage tent, blinking dewy-eyed into the sunlight and tottering on emaciated legs like sticky foals, came the models, surrounded by a phalanx of old men (with — to a man — really terribly badly styled and dyed hair) holding cameras inches from their faces. Querulous cadaverous children with blank lost eyes and the quick birdlike movements of the recently unmedicated gingerly made their way through the flashes and shouts and calling of names and over here’s, faces frozen in an blank internalised expression that I can only imagine otherwise occurs when (for instance) a previously amusing intimate night with a rugby league player becomes something other, something horrifically off-the-menu. Frozen, angular and clearly ill-at-ease despite their learned postures and poses and poise, they played the game, attempting — I’m guessing — to transcend the situation. Striving to become. To become Christy, or Naomi, or Kate or Tyra or whoever, something beyond simply being a tall skinny kid with great cheekbones and a simply fantastic bob. The effort was distastefully apparent. And then another model appeared. And then the photographers moved on with a roar. And then the suddenly solitary model changed. For a few brief moments, freed from their prisons of poise — at least until they made their way through the park (where one can only imagine their captors were waiting to lock them away from sunlight, food and education until Terry Richardson next called for a grope) — they fit. They fit New York. They fit New York perfectly. Why, will — inevitably — take a new paragraph to explain. (footnote¹)

In one of his terrible books (I think it was You Know What? Mad People are Funny and Also Sad and For Some Reason They Never Sign Confidentiality Waivers) Oliver Sacks talked about a client who couldn’t go shopping on 5th Avenue (or similar) because she had a fear of heights. Not that she was shopping on the top floor of Macy’s, but the sheer vertiginous verticality of the place, the forward momentum of the people and the traffic burrowing along the concrete trench carving its beeline towards Greenwich Village led to a terrible all-consuming fear of falling. I find it hard to accept that she was in any way mad. The walls of the canyon bounce bristling static from all directions, it’s so busy, we’re too small, it’s too narrow, there’s no sky, there’s no purchase and if we stop for a moment goddammit we will leave the earth and drift rootlessly. And there are no handholds, no footholds. There is no vista. Or rather, there IS a vista, but it’s not a widescreen landscape one, it’s a portrait one. Everything flows upwards, and when you’re at the bottom it feels like a long way to fall before you hit the tiny patch of blue above. Which is why the models, suddenly freed and relaxed, made perfect sense. Only they could negotiate this beggar’s canyon and make it through amongst the womprats (apologies for the Obvious and Stilted Popular Culture Reference, it’s really late). Maybe you do have to be six foot six and willowy of frame to just make it down the street safely. Maybe, further from the ground, it feels safer. It certainly looks safer. It looks correctly proportioned and oriented with these stretched and angular beings sashaying through it. This was my theory and I was going to put to the test with my new bouncy shoe contraptions. Noise and excitement and people and The World Is All Right Here aside, it occurred to me that it’s this perpendicularly skewed vista that makes New York my kind of town.

I mean, look what I do for a living, sort-of embarrassingly: it’s all portrait format. Look at any photo I’ve taken with your camera at a party:  Portrait. Virtually every photo from my current trip: Portrait. Magazine and book design: Portrait. Every painting I have ever painted ever ever ever: Portrait. Even my still-not-even-finished-the-script difficult art film: Portrait format. This is how I see the world. And, although it’s kind of hard to accurately gauge in any way, my optometrist suggested recently that it actually might be the way I see the world. Or at least, I might not see the same kind of widescreen vistas that you do. No-one’s really sure what happens with an astigmatism that comes and goes to a medium strength, as mine is, but with extreme fixed astigmatisms, the brain simply ignores the ‘lazy’ eye and processes the 2D image from the healthy eye, so it’s likely that something similar is happening to me, particularly as I get tired. And I have been so tired. As you may be able to attest if you’ve found yourself in a sweaty nightclub with me at 5.30 in the morning, it can be distressingly obvious to all that my brain has given up controlling my left eye and has sent it to bed for the night. So it’s not unlikely that I am generally only seeing  70% of the width of the world that you are (and probably only infrequently in 3D), resulting in a visual range that, while it might not be portrait, certainly isn’t going to be able to appreciate the widescreen desolation of the Yorkshire Moors or the rooftops of Florence on quite a fundamental visual-processing level.

You may not be entirely surprised to hear that #1 on my 101 Things list (see last week’s bout of unintelligibility) is

1) get your eyes fucking sorted out

so I will be getting that ‘fucking’ sorted out when I get back, despite my being emboldened and empowered (and not tripping up over nothing quite so often) by my current jaunt through a city that feels like it was built especially for me, and for all the other cripples like me.

So, to sum up, finally: unless you have a similar disability, then frankly you can take a fast flick at a flying fuck if you think New York is your kind of town. Me and New York, we see things the same way, and you can tell that to the judge. We’ve got the same outlook, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, buster.  We have the same perspective on things, buddy, so stick that up your big fat ass. New York actually is my kind of town.

JEM OUT

*    *    *

Footnote ¹ Purely to be uncharacteristically clear at this point:Just in case this sounds in any way like I’m being catty, I have nothing but sympathy, admiration and a whole bucketful of you-go-girl for these symmetrical young things who I couldn’t help but suddenly feel immense fear for, along with — I’d be remiss not to mention it — a vague and honestly rather unhealthy-feeling attraction. Given a hypothetical and entirely unlikely buffet-style line-up I would generally plump (an entirely inappropriate choice of phrase)  for the skinny tall cigarette-shaped girls every time. Don’t blame me, I’m a caucasian male conditioned from a tender age by advertising and something paradigm something ‘beauty myth’. (footnote ²). I think Lucy Mclure put it most confrontationally when she recently asked during a rather precise discussion about nipples, “If, what you’re looking for, Jezzle*, are the hips of a young boy, and the nipples of a young boy, then there might be an obvious alternative [to women my own age] that you have overlooked.” And then she laughed cruelly and I kind of felt a bit exposed, and quite rightly too. Anyway, let’s move on.

Footnote ² Hey, footnotes within footnotes. Either this is a pretty coarse David Foster Wallace pastiche or I’m kind of wriggling around a bit under my self-administered microscope. Just to acknowledge that, for those of you flicking through your mental rolodex of my previous partners and kind of failing to come up with anyone who matches the description just proffered, well, there’s a whole lot of stuff I could mention about appeal vs. instinct vs. a-finely-honed-personality but I can’t be arsed and you don’t care.

* Don’t even think about it.

Identifying the Signs

In severe cases of astigmatism, vision can be blurred or distorted depending on whether the person is reading close up or looking further into the distance at a far away object.

In milder cases, the patient may complain their vision is blurred at certain distances, that they’ve tired or dry eyes, that it’s a struggle to focus or read, or that they’ve headaches, especially when trying to focus.

A qualified optometrist or ophthalmic surgeon should be able to diagnose the condition timeously. A full eye examination is usually then carried out to assess the degree and extent of the eye problem.

Small children, who may not be able to answer the optometrist’s questions about what they can see, can be assessed using a test called retinoscopy. This test involves reflected light and is an effective method of screening astigmatism.

What is it?

Astigmatism occurs when the front part of the eye, the cornea, is not a regular symmetrical spherical shape. It  is more oval shaped (like a rugby ball) than a sphere. The result of this refractive error is that light is focused at two different planes inside your eye.

What causes it?

As the eye develops in the womb, several factors determine the shape of it, including inherited genetic factors and environment. It would seem that these factors can lead to an irregular curvature of the cornea, although the exact cause isn’t known.
What are the symptoms?

Images appear blurred or ghost images can result. Approximately half of all people with myopia or hyperopia have astigmatism as well. Refractive surgery, or astigmatism laser treatment, can correct astigmatism, whether it is accompanied with myopia, hyperopia or presents alone. This is normally done with Lasik eye surgery.

In milder cases the person may complain their vision is blurred at certain distances, that they’ve tired or dry eyes, that it’s a struggle to focus or read, or that they’ve headaches, especially when trying to focus.

Astigmatism surgery has to be suggested by a specialised eye doctor

Different Astigmatism Types

Irregular astigmatism is very difficult to correct and some techniques and technology cannot fully correct an irregular astigmatism at this time. Every person with irregular astigmatism is unique and needs to be individually evaluated.

Lenticular astigmatism is when the irregularity is in the natural crystalline lens, rather than in the cornea.  Wavefront Lasik, All-Laser Lasik, PRK, LASEK, and Epi-Lasik can correct lenticular astigmatism’s effects, but making a reverse of the lenticular astigmatism in the cornea. While this can be a successful technique of  astigmatism surgery, there is a significant concern:

As we age the natural lens of the eye becomes clouded. This is called a cataract. The process to resolve a cataract is to remove the natural lens and replace it with an artificial lens. The problem is that the artificial lens will not have the pre-existing astigmatism and if the cornea has been reshaped to accommodate the lenticular astigmatism, the cornea will now cause an irregular astigmatism. This is not as easily fixed with astigmatism laser treatment.

You do not have to get laser astimatism treatment. There are non laser eye surgery alternatives to getting your astigmatism correction:

K (Conductive Keratoplasty) is ideal for people who are over 40 and have hyperopia, astigmatism, or presbyopia (long-sightedness due to ageing). CK uses the heat from radio frequency waves to shrink collagen fibres, which steepens the cornea.

AK (Astigmatic Keratoplasty) reduces the extent of astigmatism by restoring the cornea back to its original spherical shape. Best suited to people who have mild astigmatism, it’s also sometimes needed after traditional LASIK or PRK laser eye surgery. However, its use has declined a great deal since LASIK proved successful at correcting astigmatisms

Orthokeratoplasty uses special rigid gas permeable (RGP) contact lenses to reshape the cornea while you sleep. After taking a ‘digital map’ of your eye, a tailored set of contact lenses will be made for you to wear for a minimum period of time each day. The exact schedule will depend on the severity of your case. Ortho-K is ideal for people with mild astigmatism or myopia, and youngsters whose eyes have not yet finished growing.