| Did you have the chance to read the article on the 9 Worst Habits for Your Eyes we featured in the last Your Health
newsletter? We asked readers to tell us about their vision health. Here are two of their stories.
Unfortunately, I have had eye problems for my entire life. In second grade, a visiting health nurse checked our vision with a large eye chart. I went in and memorized the first page of letters so I could pass the exam. I think she realized my eyes weren't moving as I recited the letters. She flipped to the second page, and I couldn’t even read the foot-tall letter at the top. She called my parents and said, "Your child is blind!" In second grade, I received my Coke bottle lens glasses and was astounded. Trees had tops! Planes in the sky could be seen, and their contrails followed. My Impressionist world became brutalist in its harsh focus. Fast forward to my 60s. Again, I failed an eye
exam; this time, my weak eye couldn’t read any letters. Turns out I have a retinal problem in both eyes. After multiple surgeries, lens replacements and shots, I have one blurry eye and one still functioning but weak nearsighted eye. The retinal specialists try to cheer me up by saying I only have a 10 percent chance of functional blindness. This could come on at any time and has no cure. They don't understand that I find this number and the prospect of blindness terrifying. Yet I know there are many people with much worse eye problems than mine. —Brian Arnzen
I've been told forever that I have dry eye syndrome. I never did anything about it, because I had no symptoms. Looking back, I did have itchy eyes, but I thought everyone did. One day, after 40 years of being told I had dry eyes, I woke up essentially blind. A grey veil had fallen over my eyes, and I could see very little. My husband had to guide me everywhere. I saw an optometrist who prescribed drops, but they didn't work. I then received other prescriptions for my dry eye, and my vision returned. I was also diagnosed with neurotrophic keratitis, which required an extremely expensive medicine. —Carolyn Franz |
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