Contact lenses: Like tampons for your eyes
I recently joined the full-time optical club. I was wearing
glasses for reading and computer work for seven years until one day an
optometrist figured out the reason I was so clumsy (well one of) is that my
long distance vision is minimal (but my short distance vision is fine; those
other glasses were completely unnecessary). Six months later with the complete
opposite glasses I can actually see and am much more coordinated. Long story
short I now know that I need glasses for activities that aren’t exactly
glasses-friendly (e.g. dancing, boxing, backflips*). Glasses wearers will
appreciate the struggle that is wearing glasses as outlined here.
After getting used to my glasses and finally coming around to
the idea that contacts (and therefore regularly poking myself in my eye) were
necessary for sport I went to see my friendly local Specsavers**. To be honest
the fear of having glasses smashed into my eyeballs during boxing largely
contributed to this development.
I felt rather nervous before attending the appointment. Eyes
just aren’t meant to have pieces of plastic slapped onto them. It’s weird. I
couldn’t help but think that this reminded me a lot of what my friends and I
went through in adolescence with tampons. So
for years society has told me not to touch myself (completely different
story to what boys get told about their bodies) and now you’re telling me I need to put this pointy cotton thing in my
vagina? And it stays there? Ew! (For a hilarious take on learning to use tampons read this)
I told this to my male friend who said, ‘Are tampons always all over the place
when you don’t need them and then never around when you do need them? Because
contact lenses do that.” Yes! That’s exactly what they do. And bobby pins; they
do that too.
It turns out I was extremely comfortable with touching my
eye (which I am oddly proud of). What I don’t like doing is holding my eyelids
apart. A lovely optical assistant held my hand through the whole ordeal where I
successfully learnt to put contact lenses in and out of my eyes in under thirty
minutes (he had mentioned that some people take up to an hour and half – I did not
want to be poking my eyes for this long). By the end I felt like we had been
through a serious emotional journey and was a little disappointed that he
didn’t ask for my contact details so we could be life-long friends.
Ballet and boxing are now much more enjoyable without the
fear of my glasses flinging off my face or being smashed into my face. I do
find the lenses get a bit dry on my eyes after a couple of hours but it’s
perfectly bearable and a small sacrifice to avoid the aforementioned smashing of glasses into face.
This might seem like an odd thing to write about but before
I went to the appointment I did a quick Google search to see if anyone else had and I didn't find anything useful.
Often when I’m about to do something that I’m not familiar with I will read
about other people having done it or will talk to those who have (I also asked
my partner many questions about his experience of using contact lenses).
Research has shown that many people consider the experiences of others to be important when making decisions about their healthcare; sometimes
even more so than medical information (for better or for worse). Perhaps it’s a human thing to want to
know that you are not alone in your experience; you’re just like everyone else
and that’s OK (comforting even).
Kate xx
*I cannot backflip (outside of a pool) and have never
attempted to. I just like having three examples and couldn’t think of another
one.
**Please note that this post is not sponsored by Specsavers. I am in no way important enough to have people want to pay me for my opinion of their services and products. In fact the service was somewhat less than satisfactory at first with all staff members having little idea about the appointment time required for a client to be fitted for lenses and taught about how best to use them. But aside from this they were all friendly and helpful, particularly the assistant who taught me how to use insert and remove the lenses.
**Please note that this post is not sponsored by Specsavers. I am in no way important enough to have people want to pay me for my opinion of their services and products. In fact the service was somewhat less than satisfactory at first with all staff members having little idea about the appointment time required for a client to be fitted for lenses and taught about how best to use them. But aside from this they were all friendly and helpful, particularly the assistant who taught me how to use insert and remove the lenses.
Image via Death to the Stock Photo