Body 12 Mar 2007 05:25 pm
cataraction
Today I found out that I’ve got cataracts. They’re of the posterior subcapsular variety. Just a bit of cloudiness, but there it is. So that’s why I hate the sun. It did seem, more and more, that I was cringing and hissing at glare that other people didn’t even see.
<RJL20> You mean, I _didn’t_ marry a vampire? Nuts.
<cameron>That thing where I cringe from crosses? Purely coincidental.
Yep, I am unusually young for this. Not much to do about it except stay healthy and get myself a good pair of sunglasses. Maybe take another look at my salt intake and my birth control methods. Lutein and zeaxanthin might possibly help slow it down; I should probably be eating more dark leafy greens anyway.
Weird.
on 12 Mar 2007 at 8:03 pm 1.Sarah said …
Sorry to hear about this, Cam. I am paranoid of losing my sight, and hence own a book called Take Off Your Glasses and See, about repairing your vision through eye exercises, etc.
Haven’t gotten around to reading/doing it yet, though.
Um, here’s hoping your eating leafy greens goes further than my version….what was that about emotion and opposite action, again? heh.
And I truly recommend the vasectomy as birth control, if that’s an option. James gives it a thumbs up. So to speak
on 13 Mar 2007 at 12:12 am 2.Cam Sculpin said …
The key to eating leafy greens is gumbo, I’m pretty sure. Mmmm.
I’m a woo-woo herb-takin’ yoga-practicin’ alt-med kind of girl, but I still figure you might be better off ignoring the book anyway, if it’s anything like the Bates Method. Bates recommended staring at the sun, among other things, which seems like a pretty bad idea to me. I’d recommend checking out the recommendations of the National Eye Institute.
Unpleasant as cataracts sound, I’m glad to have some kind of diagnosis, at least. My light sensitivity started in at least 2001, and for years I thought that I was probably just crazy, or that my light sensitivity was due to being a computer-addicted mole person. Nope. (That’s what I get for not going to the eye doctor in seven years.)
on 13 Mar 2007 at 1:52 am 3.Joy said …
Sorry to hear that! But yeah, at least now you know. I seem to recall reading somewhere (references? we don’t need no stinking references!) that those of us with green eyes are prone to light sensitivity and/or cataracts… not really a helpful factoid, except maybe in the sense that you’re not alone?
I will also aver that every time I put them on, I am reminded that buying my prescription sunglasses was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Love love love them.
“Posterior subscapular” makes it sound like they aren’t the type you could eventually have surgically removed?
on 13 Mar 2007 at 6:59 am 4.Karen said …
For Christmas in 1995 I was given one of those books of eyesight exercises — I think it might even have been the very one that Sarah has.
The prose was execrable. 80% of the text was a personal vendetta against the Great Ophthalmological Conspiracy. Had I picked up the book on my own, I would never have finished it, and certainly never have tried the exercises.
Instead I swallowed my rhetorical outrage, laughed at the silly persecuted author, and started exercising — and stopped wearing glasses six months later. Now, I didn’t have cataracts, or astigmatism, or really anything more than a relatively mild myopia with a genetic predisposition to early-onset glaucoma … but after keeping up the exercises, I haven’t worn glasses for more than ten years, and my eyes have returned to their original hazel colour.
(When I was twenty, my eyes turned green. Twice that year they learned a new trick: turning blue for a couple of hours accompanied by a crushing headache. My ophthalmologist told me that this was an early symptom of glaucoma, that I needed more sleep, and that I should pay close attention to colour changes. Green was low-alert, blue high-alert, and if they ever turned pale purple, even for a moment, I’d probably need surgery. I wonder how this connects to Joy’s readings on green eyes?)
So yeah, go read the book, but trust the exercises more than you trust the author, for he’s a whiner. The most useful one was where you cover one eye, then hold a finger really close to your open eye and focus on it until you feel the muscles hurt — then suddenly take it away and relax into looking at something which used to be fuzzy. It’ll be less fuzzy, every time. The second-most useful exercise was one where you close both eyes, and get a friend to name colours at you, in a random order, every three or four seconds. Your job is to visualize the colour as intensely as possible, filling your entire field of vision. Around the time your friend gets to “burnt umber” or “puce,” your vision will actually be improving.
But I’m sceptical that even exercises can help cataracts.