I posted this to my old blog, but in response to this post by Tanya, I’m reposting it here. I have worn corrective equipment for my eyesight for forty years now, and I know more about it than I should.

First, I learned about Presbyopia:

Presbyopia was invented by Presbyterians in 1904, hoping to disable the predominantly Catholic population of the Americas. No, wait, that’s not right. Presbyopia is the inability of your unaided eye to focus closely- though it can also be thought of as a loss of ability to focus from close to distant points.

When I started wearing contacts at around 27, I had not a touch of presbyopia. My contacts allowed me to see distant objects with perfect clarity, and I could sit and read extremely fine print with no difficulty.

At around 40, I started not to be able to focus on close objects. My distance vision was still OK, but I was having to wear reading glasses to read, or work at the computer, and if I didn’t for a day or two, whanging headaches resulted. It was exactly like having a camera lens that would only focus well between 30 feet and 150 feet. I couldn’t see the close stuff, or the faraway stuff. If I got corrected for the faraway stuff, it just shifted the range of focus; I could now focus from 30 feet to 200 feet, but under 30 feet I was worthless. As I do a lot of work at the computer, and I read a great deal, this was A Bad Thing.
Fortunately my patient and incredible Optometrist, Dr. Wes Molenaar, was there to help me out. He suggested I back off my scrip to a lower diopter- I was around -7, he took me all the way back to -5.5, and it allows me to do all the work of my normal day with no glasses, and also without the accompanying headaches and nastiness. I can still see more than adequately to drive, in fact pass the eye test with ease.

Now for the rub.

I cannot see worth a screaming damn to shoot! Well, that’s not completely true, I can shoot, even with iron sights, and regularly hit a 6″ target with just about anything I own from 50 yards; but I like to keep them in the X ring, and I cannot SEE the x ring, even with a scope!!!

I’ve written in the posts of the previous week about testing some new contacts, and that is what I’m here to talk about now.

I still have a few pair of the old lenses, the +7 diopter, and due to some excellent work on the part of Dr Wes in helping me get good extended wear lenses, my eyes are much healthier than ever before, and the +7’s are way too strong. So I can count the rings on trees being felled in Tunguska.

It makes the shooting a dream. It makes for a very nice day of shooting indeed, and as I noted in previous posts, it improves my accuracy dramatically.

So, lasik?
What is most important to know is that Lasik, while it is a great procedure and very helpful, has its drawbacks, and they are as follows:

Lasik will NOT repair presbyopia. You can get corrected for distance, but you will forever wear reading glasses, and that often makes things worse than before, from an eyestrain perspective. You can get corrected a little, so you can see within a working range, like 2′ to 20′, and that might help for everyday use, and it will still be possible to do some distance work, but you’ll need a contact or a pair of glasses to really sharpen up distant targets. As you SHOULD be wearing glasses at the range anyway, this isn’t usually a problem, and in fact, is a good reason to get a pair of scrip amber glasses.

There are as yet no non-experimental surgical cures for presbyopia, and though there are some claims of improvement through exercise, etc., none seem to really be provable.

So if you want to shoot, if you want to be a good shot, you need to be able to see. If you want to see, get your ass to a qualified optometrist, and leave Wal-Mart for those who want to go cheap on their eyes. (shudder!)

I can personally highly recommend Dr Wes– his father, and now his son, are in the business, he’s also into astronomy, and sells fine optics. His website is here. He shares a building with a relative, a lawyer, but I’ve never held that against him. To my knowledge, he doesn’t talk to the lawyer as often as he talks to me. If you live anywhere in the Chicago area, he’s a great guy to see, even if you have to drive a few hours- when you sit in his consulting room, you get the feeling that you are his one and only patient, and he never takes his job, or your eyesight, lightly. I trust him with my daughter’s eyes.