August 2007

My right eye has been red and irritated for about a week, so I finally went to the eye doctor yesterday. Turns out that I have permanent scar tissue damage to my eyeball, and my contact lens has been rubbing at it and irritating the scarred area, right at the edge of the iris. It also turns out that the damage was caused in the first place by long-time use of contact lenses. Since the scar tissue won’t ever go away, this is probably going to be a periodic problem for the rest of my life. The only big-picture answer is to cut back on the amount of time I wear my contact lenses and to keep my eyes hydrated all the time with Optive eye drops. Short-term, I’m off contacts for a week (thank god I replaced my ugly giant coke-bottle glasses with small cute new ones a year ago), and I have medicinal drops in addition to the Optive. Sooner rather than later, I’ll have to get a new pair of contact lenses as well. I’ve had these for over a decade (waaaaay too long) and most likely they’re not fitting quite as well as they used to, which contributes to the irritation. I just have to figure out how long I have to wait before my insurance will help me out, in its very tiny way, with the cost. I like the way my glasses look, but the problem is that they seem to collect and magnify sunlight, beaming it directly into my eyes. Sunny days are almost too much to bear. I probably need to buy some clip-on shades (that might be an errand for this weekend) or just wear a hat while outside. Also, I’ve been having headaches for a while now (which I try […]