[SOLVED] One eye contact...................

[woodsmoke]

Ok, I have worn glasses since I had "German measles" when I was about in the sixth form ..........I wore "contact lenses" about twenty years ago when I was in kind of "sixes and sevens"....

I was teaching full year of "high school science" .......... biology, chemistry, physics, advanced placement in biology and chemistry and "dumbed down (ELITIST TERM) physical and biological sciences for "the trades"....

and also had............at three different physical institutions.........three sets of "glasses"...................

Well for the last decade or so I have worn the "H" .........as in "Horatio" on CSI Miami............glasses..........the kids think it is tres kewl.........

But............. cut to the chase...........Halloween is coming up and I decided that I would do a third iteration of "the Jester" for the Halloween Art/Pub walk........only..............

"glasses" do not go well with ANY kind of modern ...........Halloween costume..........however, if I decided to go as a Baroque Venetian............ummm maybe.......

But..................I contacted Optometrist and he recommended just giving me a "trial pair" for FREE..........

One of the advantages of being in the DETESTED OF THE ELITE INTELLIGENTSIA..........................

contacts for a month........

We did the optometric thing, testing all that........what do you see on line 452............

And I now am wearing, as I type this ...............ONE CONTACT in my.............Dominant EYE................

The contact is for "distance" but...............since I am hazardous waste certified, dive certified, welding certified..........CUPCAKE certified............I took to it............

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Immediately

left side is "reading" right side is "far off" .............but............really, my eyes .........."just do it"........

MAYBE think about your better half...........sibling.........child.........frien d...........

woodlikingtismoke

[Silent Observer]

I understand Lasik surgery is often done that way for "bifocal age" patients. Side effect from the Lasik is complete and permanent loss of binocular vision. Not for me, thanks...

[jlittle]

I understand Lasik surgery is often done that way for "bifocal age" patients. Side effect from the Lasik is complete and permanent loss of binocular vision. Not for me, thanks...

"complete"? My eyes are naturally like that, my left eye short sighted, the right long sighted (I read unaided despite being of "bifocal age") but their lack of focus outside their zone of acuity is not such that binocular vision is eliminated. Perhaps affected, but I can still judge distances, catch balls, and so on. I thought the surgery just gave people eyes like mine.

[andystmartin]

I had Lasik surgery done on me over the summer. I opted for the "monovision": one eye corrected for distance the other for reading. It works great for me. I had been using this technique with contact lenses for the last 7 years or so -- which means that I knew what I was getting into.

As of almost 3 months after the Lasik procedure no glasses necessary: Left eye: 20/15, Right eye: adjusted for reading. No complaints from me.

Your mileage may vary, though.

[Silent Observer]

Hmm. I could simulate this with my glasses; I have identical frames with distance prescription in one, and reading prescription in the other (optical centers differ slightly in height, however, which would certainly cause eyestrain or require a very strange looking adjustment of the fit). My problem is, at work (where I wear my reading glasses all day), I often need to see with both eyes, close up (close enough, in fact, that I look over my glasses many times a day). Even if I had Lasik, I'd have to have strong reading glasses on the "near sight" eye to see what I see by looking over my glasses (I'm at around -6.75 diopter correction, ignoring cylinder), and a comically strong lens (around +8 diopter -- that's about a 5" focal length, or stronger than a common hand magnifier) on the "distance" eye to get close-up depth perception. I joke at work about my "built-in stereo microscope" but it's really not a joke; I have the equivalent of almost 8x magnifiers just by looking over or removing my glasses, and I take advantage of that "super power" every day. It was even better before my accommodation started to fail; my minimum focal distance in my 30s was equivalent to at least 12x magnifiers.

Even better, continuing to wear glasses won't produce lifelong halos around lights at night, hazy vision, etc.

I'll most likely need cataract surgery in another ten or fifteen years; I'm considering asking for the implant lenses to be selected to let me keep wearing my existing glasses; carrying around equivalent magnification just to see the things I see now would be very impractical.

[andystmartin]

Even better, continuing to wear glasses won't produce lifelong halos around lights at night, hazy vision, etc.

The halos and night vision issue are a by-product that some people experience after Lasik. I currently do not have any such issues.

[GreyGeek]

............. cut to the chase...........

.........cut........to............the............c hase..............

There, fixed that for ya!

[GreyGeek]

I had Lasik surgery done on me over the summer...

For years I wore glasses ground from the bottom of Coke bottles, or at least they were so thick (and prismatic because of strabismus) they felt like it, even with feather-lite lens and titanium frames and silicon nose pads to avoid slipping due to sweat.

I also had them ground with bifocals, which I hated because of the line, and with the line removed the blur, where the line used to be.

Then I had Lasik surgery around ten years ago. My eyes were 20/25 and 20/30. After a few months they got a little better. I still need reading glasses but I pick them up at a local drug store or walmart for $10. Loved it. No problem with sweat, foggy lenses, glasses falling off my head.

About four years ago I noticed that object formerly clear at a distance were a little blurry. I went to an optometrist and found I was 20/40. Good enough to drive without glasses but something I didn't want to do. I needed distance glasses, which I've been wearing every since. Also, I was getting a "yellow wash" syndrome. White objects appeared slightly yellow because the blue component of the light was being filtered. And, there was a slight, permanent cloud in front of my right eye. That turned out to be a cataract.


Here's the bad news. He also said I had the beginnings of cataracts in both eyes and made an appointment with an ophthalmologist (who also does Lasik surgery) to have corrective surgery. In that surgery they measure the correction in each eye and then create plastic lens which will replace the natural lens of the eye, supposedly giving one 20/20 vision for distance. I did research before the scheduled day of the surgery and found out that once one has had Lasik surgery the ophthalmologist cannot guarantee a correct correction for the plastic lens because the eye can change shape once the conjunctiva is cut to remove the natural lens and insert the plastic lens. It would be a trial and error method, with a $1,700 charge for each eye for each try. I also learned that the various vision problems I had were caused by the Lasik surgery. After some research I found that "CAN-C" worked beautifully to alleviate the cloudy vision.

While I never had halo vision at night, I was plagued with dry eyes after the Lasik surgery. One doctor recommended Restasis, an anti-rejection drug, for about $125/mo. I settled for Systane, at $20/mo, and used it constantly, until I found that CAN-C eliminated most of it. If I don't drink enough water before I go to bed I'll have dry eye in the morning. If I drink enough I won't, or it will be minor. CAN-C seemed to have reduced the floating bodies as well.

If you get CAN-C be sure to not blink for one minute after you put a drop into your eye. IF you blink you'll pump it out of your eye before it has had a chance to migrate into the vitreous humor, where it delivers L-Carnotine, which can't pass through the conjunctiva. That's why CAN-C has 1% N-Acetyl-L-Carnotine, which can pass through the lipotissue of the conjunctiva.

Despite the fact that the Dr who once approved Lasik for the FDA is now adamantly opposed to it, would I have Lasik surgery if I knew then what I know now? Hard to say. I don't miss the coke bottle glasses and I was lucky. My son, who had the surgery a few months after I did, wasn't as lucky. He essentially has all the problems I had but didn't get to go very long without having to get a set of prescription glasses.

[Silent Observer]

The halos and night vision issue are a by-product that some people experience after Lasik. I currently do not have any such issues.

Of course, if those were common side effects of the surgery, the FDA wouldn't have approved it (or would have pulled its approval) -- but they happen with the frequency one might expect for side effects of surgeries (though I presume almost no one dies during LASIK because they don't use general anesthesia). Those odds are too long for me, even if I wouldn't be ruining the most useful feature of my "non-normal" vision by getting my eyeballs "fixed".

[Silent Observer]

He also said I had the beginnings of cataracts in both eyes... After some research I found that "CAN-C" worked beautifully to alleviate the cloudy vision.

Please pardon my skepticism regarding the wild claims on the CAN-C page you linked. "This will cure anything wrong with your eyes" doesn't seem like much of an overstatement of their claims, but it does seem much like the kind of thing that falls under the rule that "anything that seems too good to be true probably is." "Approved by Innovative Vision Products" would be much more impressive if I'd ever heard of them, or if they were a regulatory body with actual authority (instead of being, most likely, a subsidiary of the same company that sells CAN-C). I have no objection, in principle, to replacing surgery with eye drops, but as I understand cataracts, I see no likelihood that anything applied to the eye in a drop would have any effect on them. The clouding of the material of the crystalline lens is due to denaturing of protein by lifetime UV exposure, and nothing can reverse denaturing.

[Qqmike]

Yes (S-O), and this:

Can C cataract drops have been used with great success in the fight against retinal diseases

[GreyGeek]

Being skeptical is good. Doing research is better. Fortunately, Google offers a lot of evidence from peer-reviewed journals. Do a google search using
scholar: n-acetyl-l-carnitine
and you will find evidence for most of the claims on that Amazon ad that you suspect are bogus.

Here are some examples. There are more in animal research, where N-Acetyl-L-Carnitine is widely used to treat Cataracts and other animal problems. The reason why is that no one is going to pay thousands of dollars for cataract surgery on their pet, so vets have nothing to lose by treating them with NALC.

If by "denaturing" you mean deregulated proteolysis, then yes, that's how cataracts form.
Cataract formation:
http://Fomicsgroup.org%2Fjournals%2Fin-search-of-a-natural-treatment-of-cataract-2167-0412.1000e144.pdf

Several biochemical mechanisms are involved in the opacification of the lens and they have been thoroughly described:
i) non enzymatic-glycation,
ii) oxidative stress,
iii) polyol pathway and
iv) activation of calpain proteases.

The established feature of cataract is the major structural modifications of the water soluble crystallins. Ageing process, diabetes and oxidants lead to impaired membrane function, which results to pathologically elevated levels of intracellular Ca2+. Under these conditions, calpains (calpain 1 or μ-calpain, Lp85, calpain 2 or m-calpain, calpain 10 and Lp82) are over activated and the resulting deregulated proteolysis of soluble crystallins leads to their insolubilization and aggregation. Over activated calpains also degrade the cytoskeleton proteins, which can further elevate Ca2+.

The above mechanisms compromise lens transparency and induce cataractogenesis. There are numerous models for in vitro and in vivo study of cataractogenesis. At in vitro experiments, cataractogenic agents such as galactose, glucose, naphthalene, selenite, transforming growth factor-β, methylglyoxal are added to the lens culture. The in vivo models include induction of cataractogenesis especially in rodents through streptozotocin-induced diabetes, galactose feeding, ionizing radiation, inhibition of cholesterol synthesis, steroid treatment, and administration of selenite overdose inducing oxidative stress.

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supple...yl-l-carnitine

http://www.webmedcentral.com/article_view/3214

http://www.fasebj.org/content/15/9/1604.full

The government reported tons of research on the affects of N-Acetyl-L-Carnitine:
http://www.science.gov/topicpages/n/...carnitine.html

I've satisfied myself with its efficacy on my own eyes. And, since I am not a fit subject for cataract operation because of my Lasik surgery, the use of NALC is a practical solution. Using a 1% solution of NALC is easier and less expensive than consuming a L-Carnitine supplement. L-Carnitine doesn't transport into the vitreous humor when applied externally to the eye but NALC does. In the humor it breaks down to form L-Carnitine.

[Silent Observer]

Being skeptical is good. [...] Do a google search using
scholar: n-acetyl-l-carnitine
and you will find evidence for most of the claims on that Amazon ad that you suspect are bogus.

Broaden the search a bit, and you'd find considerable evidence for confusion among n-acetyl-l-carnitine, n-acetylcarnosine, n-acetylcisteine relative to their effects on the eye. The journal articles you pointed to do seem primarily concerned with n-acetyl-l-carnitine, however, and there does appear to be genuine evidence that that species can arrest or partially reverse cataract formation in dogs and rats (the latter probably the most common stand-in for humans in drug research).

If by "denaturing" you mean deregulated proteolysis, then yes, that's how cataracts form.

Being neither a biochemist nor opthalmologist (I repair power tools for a living, but I've read a lot about science at a good bit above Sunday supplement level and have a good memory; however, my primary interest has been in physics and space), I used the terminology I'm familiar with.

I've satisfied myself with its efficacy on my own eyes. And, since I am not a fit subject for cataract operation because of my Lasik surgery, the use of NALC is a practical solution. Using a 1% solution of NALC is easier and less expensive than consuming a L-Carnitine supplement. L-Carnitine doesn't transport into the vitreous humor when applied externally to the eye but NALC does. In the humor it breaks down to form L-Carnitine.

Given the cost and seemingly low risk, it may well be worth trying. I've got an appointment with a retinal specialist in November (I've got cotton wool spots, aka localized retinal ischemia, possibly related to partial blockage of one carotid artery discovered when I had my triple bypass last January, as well as early diabetic retinopathy and very early cataract formation -- my vision is still very good, overall, aside from myopia of fifty years' standing, but I'd like to keep it that way). I'll investigate l-carnitine supplements and NALC based drops as a possible means of delaying cataract surgery.

I'm skeptical, but not terminally hard-headed...

[Qqmike]

Silent Observer

cotton wool spots

So THAT is a real term?! My ophthalmologist used it once. I had one such spot following an allergic reaction to a drug, I'm sure just a reaction to the fluctuating blood pressure; it resolved on its own, and that was that.

Cataract surgery carries various risks, not to be taken lightly (e.g., macular edema and other retinal problems).

(S-O, we share an interest in space/physics -- cosmology? I have been working through various popular books on the subject.)

[GreyGeek]

...I'm skeptical, but not terminally hard-headed...

Always the best approach, IMO. Scientists have been known to lie, cheat and steal. Did I say they have been caught cherry-picking data and even making it up out of thin air? About 30 years ago, when people were supposedly more honest, a NOVA show titled "Do Scientists Cheat?" presented evidence that about 48% of all peer-reviewed papers and doctoral dissertations contained falsified data, cherry-picking, etc... The two government scientists who helped generate the data for that report were sent to the boondocks and eventually terminated. Most of those who blew the whistle on the crooked research regret having done so because it damaged their reputation more than it did the crooks. We see the same problem in today's research, even worse, if it is politically correct. The "HARRY_README.TXT" text file that was part of the 2009 FIOA zip file from the CRU in England described the condition of the data which was used for the "Hockey stick", and it was worse than anything in the NOVA program. All you have to do is follow the profanity and you find the evidence. They even threw out the actual surface temperature data for the last 30 years and created "proxy" data made up out of thin air to support the AGW contention.