Double vision

[craigthornton]

A recap of my predicament first!

In March 2006 I had a hydrops in my right eye. In December 2006 I had a graft. In July 2007 I hit my right eye in a dream, hard enough to split my graft and knock out the lens part of the eye. The graft was restitched without putting in a lens implant.

So really, since May 2006 I have had no use of the right eye!

A week ago I was prescribed a new contact lens for the right eye ( the hospital are not going to proceed with a lens implant and just let a contact lens do all the work )

The lens came today and I have just put it in. Very comfy, and if I just look out of my right eye I can just about read the size of this text. Before it would have been a white page!

However, using both eyes gives cause to a distinct double vision. I presume this is because my brain for almost two years has had the use of just one eye and now doesn't know what to do with the second image!

Does anyone know if this will clear up in a few days? I'm a bit worried!

Also, how long do people recommend to keep a lens in for initial wear after such a long time without one? I was intending 2 hours today then add an hour a day until I get up to the 7-8 hours I usually wear lenses for.

My new lens is the size of my iris. I have a plunger if the old squeeze the eyelids trick of removing the lens doesn't work. Can't say I am looking forward to using a plunger!!

[Andrew MacLean]

One of two things will happen as your brain gets used to the return of binocular vision.

Either it will just adapt and you will go back to seeing one of everything. The other is that it will start switching off one of your eyes, so that it can cope with the single image from the remaining eye. for years I have switched between eyes, depending on what I was doing or how far I was looking.

Every good wish

Andrew

[craigthornton]

How will I know if it goes back to just using one eye? Will there just be black if I try and look out of the unused eye?

I must say since my intitial post, the objects are getting closer together!

[Andrew MacLean]

The wonderful thing about sight is that it involves the eye(s) and the brain. The brain is in charge and makes decisions about which bits of image it will use on a moment-by-moment basis.

You would not see black if you tried to look through the unused eye. You would see whatever that eye was looking at; but as I understand it everybody has a 'dominant eye' so that few people are using proper binocular vision all of the time.

Andrew

[craigthornton]

The images have now joined up so I guess it's panic over and I have relatively good binocular vision. I suppose the brain intially thought "what the...." when it had two images to decode!

It was nice to drive home in the dusk and just see one set of headlights coming the other way! Up until today I had to put up with a triangulated line (nearest way I can describe things!) which started off way to my left the further the car was away, then got closer and closer to the car to the point where it met up with the actual headlight as it passed me.

I wonder if us KCers could draw what we see, could we sell it as modern art?!

[Andrew MacLean]

You know the story about Picasso? He was at an exhibition of his work in Paris. Sipping from a glass of wine he drew alongside a woman who was examining the canvas before her. Unimpressed by the artist's efforts she snorted to the anonymous man at her side "Call this art? I have a twelve year old at home who can do better than this!"

"Oui Madam," replied the artist, "and if your twelve year old can still do as well as this when he reaches the age of twenty, then he will indeed be a genius." ("et si votre douze ans vieux peuvent faire aussi bien que ceci quand il atteint l'âge de vingt, alors il sera en effet un génie")

I think that the woman bought the canvas.

Andrew