August 13, 2025 • 32 mins
Lizzie Eastham and Sam Rickard present Studio 1 - Vision Australia Radio’s weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view.
On this week’s show
“Eyewear”
Sam talks to four people with a Vision Impairment about their experiences with eyewear, and the choice to either use contact lenses; or in one case nothing.
Carolyn also shares her experience with Lense Implant Surgery.
Studio 1 welcomes any input from our listeners. If you have any experience or thoughts about issues covered in this episode or believe there is something we should be talking about.
EMAIL: studio1@visionaustralia.org or leave comment on the station’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/VARadioNetwork
A special thank you to: Tim; Heidi; Sarnya and Carolyn.
This program was made possible with support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at https://cbf.org.au/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:13):
This is Studio One with Sam Rickard and Lizzie Eastham
on Vision Australia Radio.
S2 (00:24):
Hello, I'm Sam.
S3 (00:25):
And I'm Lizzie.
S2 (00:26):
And this is Studio One, your weekly look at life
from a low vision and blind point of view. Here
on Vision Australia Radio.
S3 (00:32):
This week, if your vision impaired, chances are you've worn
glasses from a very early age.
S2 (00:38):
What would prompt you to move on to contact lenses?
And are there other alternatives? Tim, Sonja, Heidi and Caroline
tell us about their eyewear journey.
S3 (00:48):
As we always say at this point, please do get
in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of
any of the issues covered on this week's episode of
Studio One, or if you think there's something we should
be talking about. You never know. Your story and insight
may help someone who's dealing with something similar.
S2 (01:03):
You can contact us via email Studio one, org. That's
studio number one at Vision Australia.
S3 (01:10):
Or perhaps you can drop us a note on the
station's Facebook page by going to facebook.com.
S2 (01:20):
So to start out, how about you tell us about
your eye conditions.
S4 (01:28):
When my mum got pregnant with me in the first trimester,
my auntie got German measles and my mum had to
have rubella injection to, uh, because it wasn't the thing
that happened when, you know, when you were 13, like
it is now. And I think either as a result
of her getting German measles or rubella, my eyes didn't
form properly. So the retinas aren't formed properly, the irises aren't.
(01:50):
I think basically the easy way to explain it is
not enough. Light gets in. And um, as a result
of that, I can see about what a fully sighted
person can see at 60m. I can see at about one.
S2 (02:03):
Alright, so the old style sporting things, you'd be a B2.
S4 (02:05):
I'm a very low B2 now. Yeah.
S5 (02:07):
So I was born with what they call congenital cataracts.
Most people develop cataracts in a much older age and
have them removed, but I was somehow born with them,
so it wasn't discovered that I had a problem until
I was about eight months old. So Mum and Dad
decided to take me to an eye specialist, and it was.
(02:28):
That's where they discovered the condition and the treatment started
from there.
S6 (02:33):
It's called congenital glaucoma, so it's about the pressure behind
the eye. And I've had that from birth. So born
totally blind and through a series of operations about 14
gained 20% vision, which I'm very grateful for. And it's
all about controlling the pressure behind the eyes to enable
(02:54):
me to keep what vision I have.
S2 (02:57):
Right. And so you have an eye specialist. So this
is just an ongoing condition that has to be sort
of treated and managed as well.
S6 (03:05):
Absolutely. Yeah. Managed. I go to the ophthalmologist once a year,
sometimes more if the pressure is a little higher and
it's controlled through eyedrops. Different types of eyedrops. Okay.
S5 (03:18):
So I'm.
S6 (03:19):
56.
S7 (03:20):
Now. I was born with bilateral congenital cataracts. So basically
it's like being born with full blown cataracts. So covering
the the intraocular lens. Back in those days, we didn't
have surgery till at least a year old. So by
that stage the brain has already known what it's going
(03:41):
to see, which is really not a lot. So it
took many, many surgeries over many years to use what
they called needling to needle out the cataracts and the
lens matter that by doing that, they never really cleaned
it all out, because back then they couldn't get behind
the iron, you know, medical advances.
S2 (04:02):
Do you remember your first glasses?
S4 (04:06):
When I was younger, before I had a say in anything,
the ophthalmologists and my parents got me wearing glasses, but
they were really thick. And the the difference that they
made at the time was so minimal that by the
time I was about 11, I got rid of them
and just, um, because I'm really bad at looking after
things like, uh, sunglasses, I lose and I lose everything basically.
(04:27):
So by the time I was about 11, I gave
up on them.
S5 (04:32):
It's more based on what I've been told. Apparently, uh,
when I was eight months old, I was fitted for
a pair. But of course, being that small, apparently it
was hard to. I've heard the description. It was hard
to find glasses that would fit my button of a nose.
I have seen a photo of me when I was
about two sitting on my grandpa's lap, and I'm wearing
glasses and it actually looks. The glasses look like they
(04:55):
should have belonged to Dame Edna.
S6 (04:57):
They were a really pretty blue frame with absolute Coke
bottle lenses in them.
S2 (05:03):
How were you treated at school with it?
S6 (05:05):
I was very fortunate. In my mainstream school, people didn't
overly bully me or pick on me or wearing glasses.
I didn't like wearing the glasses because nobody else in
my class wore glasses. I guess it's one of those
things I did grow up in a community who knew
all about my lack of vision. So my vision impairment
(05:29):
and I was accepted definitely as one one of any
other normal child, which was great in learning and doing
activities at school and socializing outside of school. But I
didn't like wearing the glasses because I just felt that
it really magnified my disability.
S2 (05:49):
Ah well. There are other inconveniences as well. You can
sort of take them off and leave them places, forget
about them, step on them all, that sort of other stuff.
Did you have any experiences like that where you've sort of, uh,
these lovely, expensive piece of equipment you've broken up?
S6 (06:03):
I guess legally blind people with special lenses. They are
a little bit more expensive than the two for one
deal at Specsavers that you get nowadays. I didn't have any, uh,
incidents like that. I did really look after them as
I did with my and my spec. Well, when I
got that from visiting teachers. So I haven't had any tragedies.
(06:26):
Overly with glasses. I do find in later years they
are easy to scratch, which is annoying. Um, especially when
the scratch is right in the line of vision. But
then it calls for a new pair of glasses, I guess.
S2 (06:40):
What were your experiences at school?
S7 (06:43):
Oh, just that I got teased, like because they made
your eyes look like tennis balls. Because they were so thick.
They were awful. And because I had the nystagmus as well.
And my eyes moved. Yeah. You looked pretty.
S2 (06:59):
They weren't like yep, yep.
S7 (07:00):
And went through many, many years of bullying and just feeling,
you know, different, I suppose, which is what we feel
a lot of the time and make schooling very hard.
My first schooling wasn't too bad because I went to
Townsend School for the vision impaired, but then once getting
out into a mainstream high school, it was a total
(07:22):
different ball game. And that's when the idea of contact
lenses came to the came to the party.
S5 (07:30):
Girl nicknames like Four Eyes and all those other names
that come with it. Yes, I was a target for
not not all the kids. But yeah, there were some
kids who like to tease for the sake of teasing.
S2 (07:42):
So are we talking nice, stylish, cool glasses or big
Coke bottle? Plastic things?
S5 (07:48):
We're talking big Coke bottle things with bifocals.
S6 (07:53):
It was an interesting time because I went to mainstream school,
so reading the blackboard was quite difficult. The fine chalk
on the blackboard and from a distance. And it wasn't
until I was in grade three that I got visiting
teachers from Townsend School, which were a massive help and
a total change in how I learnt at school. I
(08:15):
do remember getting my first pair of glasses in. I
think I was in junior primary and while it didn't, uh,
totally correct my vision, which it does with the average
person in society, glasses gives them 2020 vision. My glasses
just help that little bit that they enabled me to
see things and objects a little bit sharper and still
(08:40):
having the depth perception issue. But yeah, just just I
guess didn't fragment things as much.
S2 (08:49):
All right, Tim, you don't wear glasses. So what now?
S4 (08:54):
For reading. You know, like, I just get really close
and I just do it all that way because the
glasses were really thick and kind of heavy, and that
didn't really make any difference. Or not. Nothing substantial anyway.
S2 (09:10):
Have you since, uh, tried any other form of corrections,
I mean.
S4 (09:13):
Oh, I've always. Yeah. Always looking for ways of improving
what I've got, especially as it gets a bit worse because,
I mean, when I was younger, I had two eyes
that worked and they were both around about four over 60.
So yeah, I'm always looking for that extra yard. So
I have now got a few things. I've got a
pair of reading glasses, which I if I sit in
(09:35):
front of a window on a sunny day with my
book in the right angle, I can read a book.
So it just has to take a little bit of, uh,
takes a little bit of maneuvering. I can't do it
very long, though. About half an hour. And I'm I'm
exhausted from it. But for walking around, I've got a
monocular which I look at signs with, and I've got
(09:56):
a pair of glasses that have got like a wheel
on the side, and they increase the magnification when you're
watching TV. But it's kind of weird. It's not. Not
the way I'm used to seeing it. So, um, I
don't use them very often. I normally watch on my
iPad with about an inch away from my face. So
much easier to see.
S2 (10:15):
What about sporting events? You seem pretty keen.
S4 (10:18):
Oh, yeah. Mate, I've. Yeah, well, when I was about
7 or 8, I reckon my uncle gave me a
pair of binoculars, like a huge. This is about 1973, right?
So 50 something years ago. Uh, huge pair of binoculars.
And I used to take these huge binoculars to the
footy and watch the footy, so I'd watch it, you know, to,
you know, the footy guys for 2.5 hours, I'd had
(10:40):
these things held these and people were amazed that I
could do it like. But I just love watching sport.
So yeah, I did that. Then when I was about
12 or 13, I got myself a little mini telescope
eight times that I use, which is not quite as
good as binoculars, but much easier. And uh, so now
these days I have that and I also listen to
(11:02):
the radio on, uh, I've got an actual radio so
that it's live. Um, and I can follow by watching
and listening to what's going on. So it's been a real, uh,
a real journey. And I'm always, you know, like, I, I,
I want to keep doing it, keep watching sport like that,
even though it's really difficult.
S2 (11:20):
Well, this is what it comes down to, really is
no matter how bad our eyes get, there's still stuff
that we want to do and there's still stuff we
want to, um, contribute to, isn't it?
S4 (11:29):
Absolutely. I mean, the thing is that you could go
I can't see that. So I'm not going to bother
with it. Or you can go, well, the world's out there,
and I want to enjoy as much of it as possible. And,
I mean, I guess you'd have to agree with me here, Sam,
that the world is a very visual place. People use
visual stuff to get people's attention a lot of the time,
(11:50):
and there's visual stuff everywhere that we're probably missing. But
just to know, you know what I mean? Like to
to keep coming up with new ways of getting more
out of that, if you know what I mean. So
by the magnifier, I have a telescope, I have my
phone camera, and any one of those three things will
kick in when I want to see something.
S2 (12:11):
Are you afraid that you might be calling attention to
yourself when you're using, um, things like, uh, like binoculars
or a telescope?
S4 (12:17):
Well, I would have felt like that. Probably up until
I was about 40. When you're young, I mean, when
you're at school, I mean, when I was in school,
I used to have to read the blackboard, my telescope.
But on the first day, all the kids go. What
are you doing? What's that? And then after that, they
don't take any notice of it. But as my life's
gone on, I've cared less and less what people think
of me. Like people mostly will go. They'll. They'll probably
(12:41):
look at you. I can't see him looking at me thinking, oh,
what's this all about? But some of them will ask
a question. And, you know, once you explain it, then that's. Yeah. Oh, no. No.
In a short. No, I don't care. I don't want
any more. I want the experience and I don't care. Yeah.
S1 (13:01):
This is studio one with Lizzie and Sam on Vision
Australia radio.
S2 (13:07):
Okay. Tell us about contact lenses.
S4 (13:13):
So when I was about 18, I was like, I
wanted to see more, like it was the period of
my life where not seeing was annoying, you know what
I mean? And I wanted to see more. So I
wanted to get contact lenses. I went and because my
eyes move around so much, it's really difficult. Anyway, they
seem to make them, but my eyes just couldn't cope
with it. Like I just got red eyes, sore eyes,
(13:36):
I just couldn't I it was a lot of work
to try and get them ready, but I ended up
wearing them for about a month and then giving it
all up because, well, they worked because they obviously work
better than glasses, because they become part of your eye eventually.
But just the work, like when you're vision impaired. I
just found it really hard to get them in and
do it properly. And yeah.
S2 (13:56):
Um, the one thing that probably tempted me with contact
lenses is maybe I could get them in different colours.
So all of a sudden I'd have blue or green eyes.
S4 (14:03):
Yeah, yeah, there is that too. Yeah. There's the tinted
exactly or anything like that. But they were the idea
appealed to me at a time. And then I went, nah, well,
that's obviously not going to work. So because the glass,
you know, like I did, go back and have a
look at glasses when I was a bit older, but
they just don't, you know, it was just it looked ridiculous. So, um,
(14:25):
I'm like, you know, I'm a bit like, you know,
I'm just having a big, thick pair of glasses. Like
ridiculously thick pair of glasses was like too much for
me sort of thing. So. Yeah.
S2 (14:35):
But okay, so contact lenses. You would say then that
the aesthetics don't outweigh the inconvenience?
S4 (14:43):
No they don't. Not for me.
S5 (14:46):
Okay. There's actually two times it was when I was
about seven. My, uh, eye specialist at the time suggested
to my parents that I try them out. So yes,
I did. I did try them out and quite liked
them and wore them for probably about a year, and
then for whatever reason, just decided to go back to
glasses and then, yeah, stayed with glasses until I hit
(15:10):
high school because in the last two years of primary school,
I was at Townsend School. The vision impaired. So I
wasn't the only one wearing glasses, so that was cool.
But yeah, once I hit high school again, you've got
a different set of children, older children who again like
to target those with glasses. So after about term one
(15:31):
I said, mum, during the school holidays, please can we
go see about me getting contact lenses again?
S6 (15:36):
Yeah, contact lenses have been a bit of a journey.
I started wearing contact lenses when I, I guess, went
to uni because I didn't want to look totally odd
in Coke bottle glasses. Although the glasses technology has come
a long way since about 25 years. So I checked
(15:57):
out lenses and first of all, I got the conventional
lenses that you bought one pair and you don't want
to lose them because they're the only pair you have,
and you pop them in a solution at night and
you wear them for a year and then you use
your private health to buy some more. Uh, I found
them very irritable and suffering from dry eyes. I just
(16:20):
found them to be foggy, and they didn't sit well
on my eye. I tolerated them in shoots and lectures
and also cycling. Having taken up cycling, they were great
for outdoors because then you could wear sunglasses over the top.
And you, you felt like your vision wasn't limited on
(16:42):
the sides. But conventional, uh, contact lenses for me were uncomfortable.
I then progressed to monthly ones, which were a sigh
of relief from the conventional ones, but still not fantastic.
It didn't feel like I was wearing nothing. I could
still feel them on my eye. They still did dry to,
(17:03):
especially indoors under air conditioning. However, outside they were a
lot better. Now I wear daily lenses and I mainly
wear them for the gym or if I'm running and
outside activities. If we're going out all day as a family,
I'll pop lenses in, so then I can wear non-prescription
(17:24):
sunglasses and it's quite a good day. But if I'm
inside all day, I tend to opt for the glasses option.
S7 (17:30):
So originally I remember seeing my optometrist and they were saying,
there's this new, um, it's possible that you possibly can
have contact lenses because originally we couldn't because of the
eye movement. And, um, essentially a contact lens just sits
over the pupil of your eye. Yep. My pupils are
the size of a pinprick. Apart from the fact that
I'd never be able to even see the bloody thing
(17:51):
to put it in. The second thing is, it wouldn't
stay there. So my optometrist said, you know, this is
a possibility. I went back to my ophthalmologist and said,
I'm really excited. The optometrist said, I'm going to be
able to get contacts. And he said, rubbish. That's never
going to happen, right? Real old school surgeon. Anyway, it
did happen and oh my goodness. So I would have been.
(18:13):
I was in year nine at high school. And um,
the method of getting these contact lenses, they had to
actually do a mold of your eye. So you had
this little dish that went inside my eyelids, and then
they squirted this. Like I couldn't even tell you what
it's like, but it's like a a fluid that went
(18:35):
into your eye, like, and sat on your eye to
actually take a mold of the shape of your eye. Oh, God. Yeah.
And my first set of contact lenses looked like little
flying saucers. They were like a little dish, and they
sort of had a little where they sat over the
iris and the and the the pupil was like a
little bubble. So they were almost like a little dish
that went in your eye, and they had a little
(18:55):
hole that you had to have to the right hand side.
So they breathed and it was quite a, a thing.
But for me it was a life changing thing because
I didn't have to wear those Coke bottle glasses.
S2 (19:06):
You've had more than one type of contact lens now, though.
So you went from the hard ones to what a
softer variety.
S7 (19:12):
Yeah. So I went through all sorts of lenses. So
those hard ones were for many years. And look, you
used to get a fair bit of eye irritation. They
weren't overly comfortable. But you know, when it comes to
vanity pains really, you know.
S2 (19:26):
Well, that's the question I've sort of been asking people is,
is the discomfort worth the, um, other, you know, the
other things that come with it with, uh, yeah.
S6 (19:35):
Well, I'd probably.
S7 (19:37):
Say at this stage of my life, no, but as a,
you know, as a teenager wanting to fit in and
just be like everybody else. Absolutely. 100%. And also being
able to see, you know, like if you went to
the pool or anything like that, I'd have to take
my glasses off. And then I was just blind with that,
you know? So at least I just had to be
careful swimming. But I could still do it, and I
(19:59):
could actually see a bit better than if I didn't
have glasses on and no other help to see. So yeah. Um,
after that I went to soft lenses. I trialled a lot,
but I suffered a lot of eye infections throughout the
years that I wore contact lenses, which would have been
in excess of 30 years at least. So I then
(20:22):
went to disposable ones as well. You know, that you
could wear for maybe a month, and then you chucked
them away and got another ones. Because the other thing
is too, a lot of these contact lenses companies, they
only go to certain prescriptions as well. So it depends
on and of course, mine was a very high prescription,
as you'd imagine. A lot of them didn't go to
the prescription that I needed. So yeah, it was it
(20:44):
was a journey which continued onto my into my 40s.
S2 (20:47):
So pricing wise, I mean, so you've gone from different things.
I mean, what were the prices like for, um, dealing
with this with especially disposable ones?
S7 (20:55):
Your private.
S6 (20:55):
Health.
S7 (20:55):
Covered them, but they were still pretty expensive. I couldn't
remember to tell you the honest truth. How much now?
But it wasn't a cheap exercise, and probably wearing glasses
would be cheaper because you buy your, you know, you
can get your glasses that might last you 1 or
2 years, you know. But I didn't care because it
was still just I was able to wear normal sunglasses
(21:17):
and just. And it also helped because I had very
limited field vision and peripheral vision. And I found that
the glasses were worse for that because of course, when
you look out the side of the glass, the glasses,
you haven't got any of your corrective technology. Whereas in
the contact lenses, if you're turning your eyes, the lens
is on it, you know, so you got better vision
in all round vision in that world, better as best
(21:40):
it could be for us. But, um, yeah, I found
it much better for that, that as well.
S2 (21:46):
What would you say would be the disadvantages though.
S7 (21:48):
When you bloody drop one and you can't see the finance.
S2 (21:51):
Yeah, yeah. And that's a fairly common thing.
S7 (21:53):
Ah very especially, you know in the sink where it's
clear contact lens on a white sink. And you know
those little disposable lenses, they have a they seem to bounce. Right.
And they go a long way. Nothing more annoying because
especially if they're disposables and you lose one, well, you've
(22:13):
wasted one because you just can't find it. And quite often,
by the time you do find it, it's all curled
up and dried and probably not overly safe to be
putting back in your eye. Even if you did clean it,
you know there could be bits of hair or muck
or anything. And that's the one thing you do have
to be very, very careful with eye infections. I find too,
with with contact lenses.
S2 (22:35):
How would you compare the two.
S5 (22:38):
Glasses over contacts? You can just you just put them
on in the morning. You take them off at night.
Easier to travel with, I guess. Like so like with
contact lenses. You've got to just think about that extra
bit of stuff that you've got to pack when you're
going on holidays and the like.
S2 (22:51):
Um, what would you say the advantages of lenses outweighs
the inconvenience?
S6 (22:58):
Oh, that's a tough question because I agree with you
with the glasses, because I am so short sighted. I
find reading easier, taking my glasses off and just holding
the print up closer to my face with my lenses
because they're so corrected for distance. I've then got to
(23:18):
wear reading glasses if I want to read something like
a menu. Yes, which is a bit annoying because I
don't feel my reading vision with the reading glasses on
and contact lenses in is as good as just taking
my glasses off on a daily basis. I go glasses
all the way. I can get away with being in
(23:40):
fashion enough that they look fine on me, but I
do find contact lenses a good thing to wear when
you actually want to dress up a bit or do sport.
S5 (23:51):
I find that I probably blend into the crowd a
bit more. I do still worry about my parents. I
like to wear, you know, my makeup and things like that.
People with glasses, I don't know, they still tend to
get noticed for the wrong reasons. I don't see them
like that, but just seems to be that extra bit
(24:11):
of part of your appearance that people are curious about
those out there who are perhaps still wearing glasses and
and think that contact lenses are a hassle. They're not.
Once you get used to them, you know, they've just
become part of my my everyday routine. I do remember
the mother of a teenage child came to me and said,
(24:32):
I want you to have a word to her. We'd
like her to wear contact lenses, but she's she's having
trouble with them. She thinks they're too hard. I did
have a word to her, but, um. Yeah, she decided
to go back to glasses anyway. But no, my preference
is contact lenses over glasses. Definitely.
S2 (24:48):
So you would say that the inconvenience is outweighed by
the convenience, I guess.
S5 (24:56):
Yeah. Silly as that sounds.
S2 (25:01):
How long ago were you told that, um, implanted lenses
might be a possibility?
S6 (25:07):
To put.
S7 (25:07):
It.
S6 (25:07):
This.
S7 (25:07):
Way, they wouldn't have just gone. You can have implants.
Let's just do it. Because any surgery for any of us,
really with with eye conditions as we have, is high
risk because they don't want to risk you losing anything
that you already have. So in about 2012, my night
(25:28):
vision and my vision was going like I was struggling
to see at night and actually had to use a
cane everywhere I went. It was terrible. I really just
really bad. And I thought, what's going on? And it
turned out that the surgeries I'd had as a baby,
the little lens matter that I talked about in the
beginning that they didn't get out, had attached itself to
(25:50):
cells and began to grow again. So essentially, almost like
another cataract, but not because I don't have the lens
there anymore, but it was actually covering two thirds of
my pupil. So there was only a third of my
pupil letting light in and remembering my pupils are the
size of a pinprick. So the surgery had to happen
(26:10):
because they needed to clean it out. And this particular
surgeon I was seeing at the time, I changed from
my guy that I've been seeing forever because he was
70 odd and about to retire. And he said, look,
this surgery, I can't do that anymore. And he put
me on to this other guy who was brilliant. And
then he said, well, while we're there, why don't we
(26:31):
put a lens to the front of your eye? And
I nearly fell off the chair. And I said, is
that something we can do? And he said, absolutely. So
that's how it began. And I thought, well, really, what
have I got to lose? And at that stage, too,
I was having really bad eye infections. I got like
severe like pain. And I was getting iritis all the time,
(26:52):
which is actually an infection of the iris, where the
ring of your color goes bright red and the pain,
any light or anything causes extreme pain, which is not
good for the front of your eye. So I took
the risk and in 2012 I had the surgery and
it's fantastic. The only issue I had is that, of course,
I wouldn't do the other one unless the other guy
(27:14):
was in a bad state. So I lived with one
contact lens and one implant for five years. It was
a pain because my eyes don't work together.
S2 (27:23):
Oh yeah.
S7 (27:24):
I found, especially if you were in those, you know,
those purple ultraviolet lights. I was getting two different views,
like a double vision view in one and another different
kind of view in another. And it almost made me
feel ill. It was really weird. And it was a
lot like that. And to have to worry about a
contact lens in one eye and not in the other,
and but then after five years, the other eye did
(27:47):
the same thing with the lens matter growing. And uh,
so I had the other one done five years later.
S2 (27:53):
How would you describe the operation itself from your personal stance?
I mean, was it a general anaesthetic or.
S7 (27:59):
No. You're awake. That's a bit freaky. How would I
describe it? Look, it was fine, because I suppose for
somebody like me, my eyes have been poked and prodded
all my life. I think the scariest part about it
is when they give you, because they give you an
optic nerve block. So essentially you're sitting there and when
they put the optic nerve block in, your vision just
(28:21):
goes bang. So it's actually just like going totally blind.
S2 (28:24):
Oh, okay. Yes.
S7 (28:25):
Yeah. That's a little bit much because if any, if
ever I'm going to have a nightmare. I've had nightmares
of losing my sight and that was that was a
bit traumatizing. But look, the surgeon was great. They taught
you all the way through. They do give you stuff
so you feel relaxed, but they need you awake because
they need to be able to get you to look
(28:46):
in different directions and stuff. Of course, if you're out
to it, but you can't do that. So the recovery
was okay, but it did take quite a long time
for my vision to come, right? I'm probably talking 6
to 8 weeks.
S2 (28:58):
Now that you've gone through it, and now that it's
all settled down, what's the difference? What? What does it
feel like?
S7 (29:02):
You can't even feel them. You don't even know they're there.
I very rarely get irritable eyes anymore. I haven't had
an eye infection since I've had my implants. The only
downside for me is I now have. Oh, what do
they call it? I've got pressure that my eye pressure.
It's not glaucoma. It's more like a it's like a
(29:24):
neurological hypertension. So it's still elevated pressure in the eye.
But my optic nerve is not damaged which the optic
nerve being damaged is when it's glaucoma. Yes. So I
do have to have drops morning and night to keep
the pressure under control. But it's that's worth it anyway.
And I get monitored every six months by the opto.
(29:44):
He keeps an eye on it. He takes photos of everything,
checks my corneas, and I would swear by the surgery,
to be honest.
S2 (29:52):
Has it improved? What you can see? Or is it
basically just taking you back to when you know you.
S7 (29:58):
Well, it was corrected before.
S2 (29:59):
Yes. Okay.
S7 (30:00):
Yeah. Yeah. Probably has improved it in the fact that
I used to get a lot of blurring with contact
lenses because I used to get, you know, hay fever
and irritation. So it's probably more a constant vision. And
my eyes don't tire like they used to. Like with
contact lenses when you wear them for a long period
of time. And I don't know. I know your wife
(30:20):
Heidi wears them. I don't know whether she finds if
she wears them for like 12 to 14 hours. Sometimes
she can get quite gritty and dry eyes. I'm not
sure how she goes with that, but I used to
find I did. Whereas you don't get any of that
so much with these.
S2 (30:35):
So well and truly worth the effort and the recovery.
S7 (30:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
S6 (30:39):
Yeah.
S2 (30:40):
Well, Carolyn Johnson, thank you for telling us your story.
S7 (30:43):
Yeah. No worries. Thanks, Sam. Have a good day.
S8 (30:46):
That's a wrap for this week. A big thank you
to Tim, Heidi, Sonja and Carolyn.
S3 (30:51):
And of course, thanks to you for listening. That includes
our listeners on the Reading Radio Network. You can find
a podcast of this program, including some extra content on Apple, Spotify, Google,
or your favorite podcast platform.
S2 (31:05):
Next week. Once more we look into our relationship with
the NDIS.
S3 (31:10):
Some of our friends talk about their experiences, clients and
in some cases as service providers.
S2 (31:16):
But between now and then, please do get in touch
with the show. Whether you have experience of any of
the issues covered on this week's episode of Studio One,
or if you think there's something we should be talking about.
You never know. Your story and insight may help somebody
who is dealing with something similar.
S3 (31:30):
You can contact us via email at studio One. That's
studio number one at Vision Australia. Or of course, you
can find us on Facebook and Instagram by searching for
VA Radio Network. We want to hear from you.
S1 (31:48):
Studio one was produced in the Adelaide studios of Vision
Australia Radio. This show was made possible with the help
of the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at.
This is Studio One with Sam Rickard and Lizzie Eastham
on Vision Australia Radio.
S2 (00:24):
Hello, I'm Sam.
S3 (00:25):
And I'm Lizzie.
S2 (00:26):
And this is Studio One, your weekly look at life
from a low vision and blind point of view. Here
on Vision Australia Radio.
S3 (00:32):
This week, if your vision impaired, chances are you've worn
glasses from a very early age.
S2 (00:38):
What would prompt you to move on to contact lenses?
And are there other alternatives? Tim, Sonja, Heidi and Caroline
tell us about their eyewear journey.
S3 (00:48):
As we always say at this point, please do get
in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of
any of the issues covered on this week's episode of
Studio One, or if you think there's something we should
be talking about. You never know. Your story and insight
may help someone who's dealing with something similar.
S2 (01:03):
You can contact us via email Studio one, org. That's
studio number one at Vision Australia.
S3 (01:10):
Or perhaps you can drop us a note on the
station's Facebook page by going to facebook.com.
S2 (01:20):
So to start out, how about you tell us about
your eye conditions.
S4 (01:28):
When my mum got pregnant with me in the first trimester,
my auntie got German measles and my mum had to
have rubella injection to, uh, because it wasn't the thing
that happened when, you know, when you were 13, like
it is now. And I think either as a result
of her getting German measles or rubella, my eyes didn't
form properly. So the retinas aren't formed properly, the irises aren't.
(01:50):
I think basically the easy way to explain it is
not enough. Light gets in. And um, as a result
of that, I can see about what a fully sighted
person can see at 60m. I can see at about one.
S2 (02:03):
Alright, so the old style sporting things, you'd be a B2.
S4 (02:05):
I'm a very low B2 now. Yeah.
S5 (02:07):
So I was born with what they call congenital cataracts.
Most people develop cataracts in a much older age and
have them removed, but I was somehow born with them,
so it wasn't discovered that I had a problem until
I was about eight months old. So Mum and Dad
decided to take me to an eye specialist, and it was.
(02:28):
That's where they discovered the condition and the treatment started
from there.
S6 (02:33):
It's called congenital glaucoma, so it's about the pressure behind
the eye. And I've had that from birth. So born
totally blind and through a series of operations about 14
gained 20% vision, which I'm very grateful for. And it's
all about controlling the pressure behind the eyes to enable
(02:54):
me to keep what vision I have.
S2 (02:57):
Right. And so you have an eye specialist. So this
is just an ongoing condition that has to be sort
of treated and managed as well.
S6 (03:05):
Absolutely. Yeah. Managed. I go to the ophthalmologist once a year,
sometimes more if the pressure is a little higher and
it's controlled through eyedrops. Different types of eyedrops. Okay.
S5 (03:18):
So I'm.
S6 (03:19):
56.
S7 (03:20):
Now. I was born with bilateral congenital cataracts. So basically
it's like being born with full blown cataracts. So covering
the the intraocular lens. Back in those days, we didn't
have surgery till at least a year old. So by
that stage the brain has already known what it's going
(03:41):
to see, which is really not a lot. So it
took many, many surgeries over many years to use what
they called needling to needle out the cataracts and the
lens matter that by doing that, they never really cleaned
it all out, because back then they couldn't get behind
the iron, you know, medical advances.
S2 (04:02):
Do you remember your first glasses?
S4 (04:06):
When I was younger, before I had a say in anything,
the ophthalmologists and my parents got me wearing glasses, but
they were really thick. And the the difference that they
made at the time was so minimal that by the
time I was about 11, I got rid of them
and just, um, because I'm really bad at looking after
things like, uh, sunglasses, I lose and I lose everything basically.
(04:27):
So by the time I was about 11, I gave
up on them.
S5 (04:32):
It's more based on what I've been told. Apparently, uh,
when I was eight months old, I was fitted for
a pair. But of course, being that small, apparently it
was hard to. I've heard the description. It was hard
to find glasses that would fit my button of a nose.
I have seen a photo of me when I was
about two sitting on my grandpa's lap, and I'm wearing
glasses and it actually looks. The glasses look like they
(04:55):
should have belonged to Dame Edna.
S6 (04:57):
They were a really pretty blue frame with absolute Coke
bottle lenses in them.
S2 (05:03):
How were you treated at school with it?
S6 (05:05):
I was very fortunate. In my mainstream school, people didn't
overly bully me or pick on me or wearing glasses.
I didn't like wearing the glasses because nobody else in
my class wore glasses. I guess it's one of those
things I did grow up in a community who knew
all about my lack of vision. So my vision impairment
(05:29):
and I was accepted definitely as one one of any
other normal child, which was great in learning and doing
activities at school and socializing outside of school. But I
didn't like wearing the glasses because I just felt that
it really magnified my disability.
S2 (05:49):
Ah well. There are other inconveniences as well. You can
sort of take them off and leave them places, forget
about them, step on them all, that sort of other stuff.
Did you have any experiences like that where you've sort of, uh,
these lovely, expensive piece of equipment you've broken up?
S6 (06:03):
I guess legally blind people with special lenses. They are
a little bit more expensive than the two for one
deal at Specsavers that you get nowadays. I didn't have any, uh,
incidents like that. I did really look after them as
I did with my and my spec. Well, when I
got that from visiting teachers. So I haven't had any tragedies.
(06:26):
Overly with glasses. I do find in later years they
are easy to scratch, which is annoying. Um, especially when
the scratch is right in the line of vision. But
then it calls for a new pair of glasses, I guess.
S2 (06:40):
What were your experiences at school?
S7 (06:43):
Oh, just that I got teased, like because they made
your eyes look like tennis balls. Because they were so thick.
They were awful. And because I had the nystagmus as well.
And my eyes moved. Yeah. You looked pretty.
S2 (06:59):
They weren't like yep, yep.
S7 (07:00):
And went through many, many years of bullying and just feeling,
you know, different, I suppose, which is what we feel
a lot of the time and make schooling very hard.
My first schooling wasn't too bad because I went to
Townsend School for the vision impaired, but then once getting
out into a mainstream high school, it was a total
(07:22):
different ball game. And that's when the idea of contact
lenses came to the came to the party.
S5 (07:30):
Girl nicknames like Four Eyes and all those other names
that come with it. Yes, I was a target for
not not all the kids. But yeah, there were some
kids who like to tease for the sake of teasing.
S2 (07:42):
So are we talking nice, stylish, cool glasses or big
Coke bottle? Plastic things?
S5 (07:48):
We're talking big Coke bottle things with bifocals.
S6 (07:53):
It was an interesting time because I went to mainstream school,
so reading the blackboard was quite difficult. The fine chalk
on the blackboard and from a distance. And it wasn't
until I was in grade three that I got visiting
teachers from Townsend School, which were a massive help and
a total change in how I learnt at school. I
(08:15):
do remember getting my first pair of glasses in. I
think I was in junior primary and while it didn't, uh,
totally correct my vision, which it does with the average
person in society, glasses gives them 2020 vision. My glasses
just help that little bit that they enabled me to
see things and objects a little bit sharper and still
(08:40):
having the depth perception issue. But yeah, just just I
guess didn't fragment things as much.
S2 (08:49):
All right, Tim, you don't wear glasses. So what now?
S4 (08:54):
For reading. You know, like, I just get really close
and I just do it all that way because the
glasses were really thick and kind of heavy, and that
didn't really make any difference. Or not. Nothing substantial anyway.
S2 (09:10):
Have you since, uh, tried any other form of corrections,
I mean.
S4 (09:13):
Oh, I've always. Yeah. Always looking for ways of improving
what I've got, especially as it gets a bit worse because,
I mean, when I was younger, I had two eyes
that worked and they were both around about four over 60.
So yeah, I'm always looking for that extra yard. So
I have now got a few things. I've got a
pair of reading glasses, which I if I sit in
(09:35):
front of a window on a sunny day with my
book in the right angle, I can read a book.
So it just has to take a little bit of, uh,
takes a little bit of maneuvering. I can't do it
very long, though. About half an hour. And I'm I'm
exhausted from it. But for walking around, I've got a
monocular which I look at signs with, and I've got
(09:56):
a pair of glasses that have got like a wheel
on the side, and they increase the magnification when you're
watching TV. But it's kind of weird. It's not. Not
the way I'm used to seeing it. So, um, I
don't use them very often. I normally watch on my
iPad with about an inch away from my face. So
much easier to see.
S2 (10:15):
What about sporting events? You seem pretty keen.
S4 (10:18):
Oh, yeah. Mate, I've. Yeah, well, when I was about
7 or 8, I reckon my uncle gave me a
pair of binoculars, like a huge. This is about 1973, right?
So 50 something years ago. Uh, huge pair of binoculars.
And I used to take these huge binoculars to the
footy and watch the footy, so I'd watch it, you know, to,
you know, the footy guys for 2.5 hours, I'd had
(10:40):
these things held these and people were amazed that I
could do it like. But I just love watching sport.
So yeah, I did that. Then when I was about
12 or 13, I got myself a little mini telescope
eight times that I use, which is not quite as
good as binoculars, but much easier. And uh, so now
these days I have that and I also listen to
(11:02):
the radio on, uh, I've got an actual radio so
that it's live. Um, and I can follow by watching
and listening to what's going on. So it's been a real, uh,
a real journey. And I'm always, you know, like, I, I,
I want to keep doing it, keep watching sport like that,
even though it's really difficult.
S2 (11:20):
Well, this is what it comes down to, really is
no matter how bad our eyes get, there's still stuff
that we want to do and there's still stuff we
want to, um, contribute to, isn't it?
S4 (11:29):
Absolutely. I mean, the thing is that you could go
I can't see that. So I'm not going to bother
with it. Or you can go, well, the world's out there,
and I want to enjoy as much of it as possible. And,
I mean, I guess you'd have to agree with me here, Sam,
that the world is a very visual place. People use
visual stuff to get people's attention a lot of the time,
(11:50):
and there's visual stuff everywhere that we're probably missing. But
just to know, you know what I mean? Like to
to keep coming up with new ways of getting more
out of that, if you know what I mean. So
by the magnifier, I have a telescope, I have my
phone camera, and any one of those three things will
kick in when I want to see something.
S2 (12:11):
Are you afraid that you might be calling attention to
yourself when you're using, um, things like, uh, like binoculars
or a telescope?
S4 (12:17):
Well, I would have felt like that. Probably up until
I was about 40. When you're young, I mean, when
you're at school, I mean, when I was in school,
I used to have to read the blackboard, my telescope.
But on the first day, all the kids go. What
are you doing? What's that? And then after that, they
don't take any notice of it. But as my life's
gone on, I've cared less and less what people think
of me. Like people mostly will go. They'll. They'll probably
(12:41):
look at you. I can't see him looking at me thinking, oh,
what's this all about? But some of them will ask
a question. And, you know, once you explain it, then that's. Yeah. Oh, no. No.
In a short. No, I don't care. I don't want
any more. I want the experience and I don't care. Yeah.
S1 (13:01):
This is studio one with Lizzie and Sam on Vision
Australia radio.
S2 (13:07):
Okay. Tell us about contact lenses.
S4 (13:13):
So when I was about 18, I was like, I
wanted to see more, like it was the period of
my life where not seeing was annoying, you know what
I mean? And I wanted to see more. So I
wanted to get contact lenses. I went and because my
eyes move around so much, it's really difficult. Anyway, they
seem to make them, but my eyes just couldn't cope
with it. Like I just got red eyes, sore eyes,
(13:36):
I just couldn't I it was a lot of work
to try and get them ready, but I ended up
wearing them for about a month and then giving it
all up because, well, they worked because they obviously work
better than glasses, because they become part of your eye eventually.
But just the work, like when you're vision impaired. I
just found it really hard to get them in and
do it properly. And yeah.
S2 (13:56):
Um, the one thing that probably tempted me with contact
lenses is maybe I could get them in different colours.
So all of a sudden I'd have blue or green eyes.
S4 (14:03):
Yeah, yeah, there is that too. Yeah. There's the tinted
exactly or anything like that. But they were the idea
appealed to me at a time. And then I went, nah, well,
that's obviously not going to work. So because the glass,
you know, like I did, go back and have a
look at glasses when I was a bit older, but
they just don't, you know, it was just it looked ridiculous. So, um,
(14:25):
I'm like, you know, I'm a bit like, you know,
I'm just having a big, thick pair of glasses. Like
ridiculously thick pair of glasses was like too much for
me sort of thing. So. Yeah.
S2 (14:35):
But okay, so contact lenses. You would say then that
the aesthetics don't outweigh the inconvenience?
S4 (14:43):
No they don't. Not for me.
S5 (14:46):
Okay. There's actually two times it was when I was
about seven. My, uh, eye specialist at the time suggested
to my parents that I try them out. So yes,
I did. I did try them out and quite liked
them and wore them for probably about a year, and
then for whatever reason, just decided to go back to
glasses and then, yeah, stayed with glasses until I hit
(15:10):
high school because in the last two years of primary school,
I was at Townsend School. The vision impaired. So I
wasn't the only one wearing glasses, so that was cool.
But yeah, once I hit high school again, you've got
a different set of children, older children who again like
to target those with glasses. So after about term one
(15:31):
I said, mum, during the school holidays, please can we
go see about me getting contact lenses again?
S6 (15:36):
Yeah, contact lenses have been a bit of a journey.
I started wearing contact lenses when I, I guess, went
to uni because I didn't want to look totally odd
in Coke bottle glasses. Although the glasses technology has come
a long way since about 25 years. So I checked
(15:57):
out lenses and first of all, I got the conventional
lenses that you bought one pair and you don't want
to lose them because they're the only pair you have,
and you pop them in a solution at night and
you wear them for a year and then you use
your private health to buy some more. Uh, I found
them very irritable and suffering from dry eyes. I just
(16:20):
found them to be foggy, and they didn't sit well
on my eye. I tolerated them in shoots and lectures
and also cycling. Having taken up cycling, they were great
for outdoors because then you could wear sunglasses over the top.
And you, you felt like your vision wasn't limited on
(16:42):
the sides. But conventional, uh, contact lenses for me were uncomfortable.
I then progressed to monthly ones, which were a sigh
of relief from the conventional ones, but still not fantastic.
It didn't feel like I was wearing nothing. I could
still feel them on my eye. They still did dry to,
(17:03):
especially indoors under air conditioning. However, outside they were a
lot better. Now I wear daily lenses and I mainly
wear them for the gym or if I'm running and
outside activities. If we're going out all day as a family,
I'll pop lenses in, so then I can wear non-prescription
(17:24):
sunglasses and it's quite a good day. But if I'm
inside all day, I tend to opt for the glasses option.
S7 (17:30):
So originally I remember seeing my optometrist and they were saying,
there's this new, um, it's possible that you possibly can
have contact lenses because originally we couldn't because of the
eye movement. And, um, essentially a contact lens just sits
over the pupil of your eye. Yep. My pupils are
the size of a pinprick. Apart from the fact that
I'd never be able to even see the bloody thing
(17:51):
to put it in. The second thing is, it wouldn't
stay there. So my optometrist said, you know, this is
a possibility. I went back to my ophthalmologist and said,
I'm really excited. The optometrist said, I'm going to be
able to get contacts. And he said, rubbish. That's never
going to happen, right? Real old school surgeon. Anyway, it
did happen and oh my goodness. So I would have been.
(18:13):
I was in year nine at high school. And um,
the method of getting these contact lenses, they had to
actually do a mold of your eye. So you had
this little dish that went inside my eyelids, and then
they squirted this. Like I couldn't even tell you what
it's like, but it's like a a fluid that went
(18:35):
into your eye, like, and sat on your eye to
actually take a mold of the shape of your eye. Oh, God. Yeah.
And my first set of contact lenses looked like little
flying saucers. They were like a little dish, and they
sort of had a little where they sat over the
iris and the and the the pupil was like a
little bubble. So they were almost like a little dish
that went in your eye, and they had a little
(18:55):
hole that you had to have to the right hand side.
So they breathed and it was quite a, a thing.
But for me it was a life changing thing because
I didn't have to wear those Coke bottle glasses.
S2 (19:06):
You've had more than one type of contact lens now, though.
So you went from the hard ones to what a
softer variety.
S7 (19:12):
Yeah. So I went through all sorts of lenses. So
those hard ones were for many years. And look, you
used to get a fair bit of eye irritation. They
weren't overly comfortable. But you know, when it comes to
vanity pains really, you know.
S2 (19:26):
Well, that's the question I've sort of been asking people is,
is the discomfort worth the, um, other, you know, the
other things that come with it with, uh, yeah.
S6 (19:35):
Well, I'd probably.
S7 (19:37):
Say at this stage of my life, no, but as a,
you know, as a teenager wanting to fit in and
just be like everybody else. Absolutely. 100%. And also being
able to see, you know, like if you went to
the pool or anything like that, I'd have to take
my glasses off. And then I was just blind with that,
you know? So at least I just had to be
careful swimming. But I could still do it, and I
(19:59):
could actually see a bit better than if I didn't
have glasses on and no other help to see. So yeah. Um,
after that I went to soft lenses. I trialled a lot,
but I suffered a lot of eye infections throughout the
years that I wore contact lenses, which would have been
in excess of 30 years at least. So I then
(20:22):
went to disposable ones as well. You know, that you
could wear for maybe a month, and then you chucked
them away and got another ones. Because the other thing
is too, a lot of these contact lenses companies, they
only go to certain prescriptions as well. So it depends
on and of course, mine was a very high prescription,
as you'd imagine. A lot of them didn't go to
the prescription that I needed. So yeah, it was it
(20:44):
was a journey which continued onto my into my 40s.
S2 (20:47):
So pricing wise, I mean, so you've gone from different things.
I mean, what were the prices like for, um, dealing
with this with especially disposable ones?
S7 (20:55):
Your private.
S6 (20:55):
Health.
S7 (20:55):
Covered them, but they were still pretty expensive. I couldn't
remember to tell you the honest truth. How much now?
But it wasn't a cheap exercise, and probably wearing glasses
would be cheaper because you buy your, you know, you
can get your glasses that might last you 1 or
2 years, you know. But I didn't care because it
was still just I was able to wear normal sunglasses
(21:17):
and just. And it also helped because I had very
limited field vision and peripheral vision. And I found that
the glasses were worse for that because of course, when
you look out the side of the glass, the glasses,
you haven't got any of your corrective technology. Whereas in
the contact lenses, if you're turning your eyes, the lens
is on it, you know, so you got better vision
in all round vision in that world, better as best
(21:40):
it could be for us. But, um, yeah, I found
it much better for that, that as well.
S2 (21:46):
What would you say would be the disadvantages though.
S7 (21:48):
When you bloody drop one and you can't see the finance.
S2 (21:51):
Yeah, yeah. And that's a fairly common thing.
S7 (21:53):
Ah very especially, you know in the sink where it's
clear contact lens on a white sink. And you know
those little disposable lenses, they have a they seem to bounce. Right.
And they go a long way. Nothing more annoying because
especially if they're disposables and you lose one, well, you've
(22:13):
wasted one because you just can't find it. And quite often,
by the time you do find it, it's all curled
up and dried and probably not overly safe to be
putting back in your eye. Even if you did clean it,
you know there could be bits of hair or muck
or anything. And that's the one thing you do have
to be very, very careful with eye infections. I find too,
with with contact lenses.
S2 (22:35):
How would you compare the two.
S5 (22:38):
Glasses over contacts? You can just you just put them
on in the morning. You take them off at night.
Easier to travel with, I guess. Like so like with
contact lenses. You've got to just think about that extra
bit of stuff that you've got to pack when you're
going on holidays and the like.
S2 (22:51):
Um, what would you say the advantages of lenses outweighs
the inconvenience?
S6 (22:58):
Oh, that's a tough question because I agree with you
with the glasses, because I am so short sighted. I
find reading easier, taking my glasses off and just holding
the print up closer to my face with my lenses
because they're so corrected for distance. I've then got to
(23:18):
wear reading glasses if I want to read something like
a menu. Yes, which is a bit annoying because I
don't feel my reading vision with the reading glasses on
and contact lenses in is as good as just taking
my glasses off on a daily basis. I go glasses
all the way. I can get away with being in
(23:40):
fashion enough that they look fine on me, but I
do find contact lenses a good thing to wear when
you actually want to dress up a bit or do sport.
S5 (23:51):
I find that I probably blend into the crowd a
bit more. I do still worry about my parents. I
like to wear, you know, my makeup and things like that.
People with glasses, I don't know, they still tend to
get noticed for the wrong reasons. I don't see them
like that, but just seems to be that extra bit
(24:11):
of part of your appearance that people are curious about
those out there who are perhaps still wearing glasses and
and think that contact lenses are a hassle. They're not.
Once you get used to them, you know, they've just
become part of my my everyday routine. I do remember
the mother of a teenage child came to me and said,
(24:32):
I want you to have a word to her. We'd
like her to wear contact lenses, but she's she's having
trouble with them. She thinks they're too hard. I did
have a word to her, but, um. Yeah, she decided
to go back to glasses anyway. But no, my preference
is contact lenses over glasses. Definitely.
S2 (24:48):
So you would say that the inconvenience is outweighed by
the convenience, I guess.
S5 (24:56):
Yeah. Silly as that sounds.
S2 (25:01):
How long ago were you told that, um, implanted lenses
might be a possibility?
S6 (25:07):
To put.
S7 (25:07):
It.
S6 (25:07):
This.
S7 (25:07):
Way, they wouldn't have just gone. You can have implants.
Let's just do it. Because any surgery for any of us,
really with with eye conditions as we have, is high
risk because they don't want to risk you losing anything
that you already have. So in about 2012, my night
(25:28):
vision and my vision was going like I was struggling
to see at night and actually had to use a
cane everywhere I went. It was terrible. I really just
really bad. And I thought, what's going on? And it
turned out that the surgeries I'd had as a baby,
the little lens matter that I talked about in the
beginning that they didn't get out, had attached itself to
(25:50):
cells and began to grow again. So essentially, almost like
another cataract, but not because I don't have the lens
there anymore, but it was actually covering two thirds of
my pupil. So there was only a third of my
pupil letting light in and remembering my pupils are the
size of a pinprick. So the surgery had to happen
(26:10):
because they needed to clean it out. And this particular
surgeon I was seeing at the time, I changed from
my guy that I've been seeing forever because he was
70 odd and about to retire. And he said, look,
this surgery, I can't do that anymore. And he put
me on to this other guy who was brilliant. And
then he said, well, while we're there, why don't we
(26:31):
put a lens to the front of your eye? And
I nearly fell off the chair. And I said, is
that something we can do? And he said, absolutely. So
that's how it began. And I thought, well, really, what
have I got to lose? And at that stage, too,
I was having really bad eye infections. I got like
severe like pain. And I was getting iritis all the time,
(26:52):
which is actually an infection of the iris, where the
ring of your color goes bright red and the pain,
any light or anything causes extreme pain, which is not
good for the front of your eye. So I took
the risk and in 2012 I had the surgery and
it's fantastic. The only issue I had is that, of course,
I wouldn't do the other one unless the other guy
(27:14):
was in a bad state. So I lived with one
contact lens and one implant for five years. It was
a pain because my eyes don't work together.
S2 (27:23):
Oh yeah.
S7 (27:24):
I found, especially if you were in those, you know,
those purple ultraviolet lights. I was getting two different views,
like a double vision view in one and another different
kind of view in another. And it almost made me
feel ill. It was really weird. And it was a
lot like that. And to have to worry about a
contact lens in one eye and not in the other,
and but then after five years, the other eye did
(27:47):
the same thing with the lens matter growing. And uh,
so I had the other one done five years later.
S2 (27:53):
How would you describe the operation itself from your personal stance?
I mean, was it a general anaesthetic or.
S7 (27:59):
No. You're awake. That's a bit freaky. How would I
describe it? Look, it was fine, because I suppose for
somebody like me, my eyes have been poked and prodded
all my life. I think the scariest part about it
is when they give you, because they give you an
optic nerve block. So essentially you're sitting there and when
they put the optic nerve block in, your vision just
(28:21):
goes bang. So it's actually just like going totally blind.
S2 (28:24):
Oh, okay. Yes.
S7 (28:25):
Yeah. That's a little bit much because if any, if
ever I'm going to have a nightmare. I've had nightmares
of losing my sight and that was that was a
bit traumatizing. But look, the surgeon was great. They taught
you all the way through. They do give you stuff
so you feel relaxed, but they need you awake because
they need to be able to get you to look
(28:46):
in different directions and stuff. Of course, if you're out
to it, but you can't do that. So the recovery
was okay, but it did take quite a long time
for my vision to come, right? I'm probably talking 6
to 8 weeks.
S2 (28:58):
Now that you've gone through it, and now that it's
all settled down, what's the difference? What? What does it
feel like?
S7 (29:02):
You can't even feel them. You don't even know they're there.
I very rarely get irritable eyes anymore. I haven't had
an eye infection since I've had my implants. The only
downside for me is I now have. Oh, what do
they call it? I've got pressure that my eye pressure.
It's not glaucoma. It's more like a it's like a
(29:24):
neurological hypertension. So it's still elevated pressure in the eye.
But my optic nerve is not damaged which the optic
nerve being damaged is when it's glaucoma. Yes. So I
do have to have drops morning and night to keep
the pressure under control. But it's that's worth it anyway.
And I get monitored every six months by the opto.
(29:44):
He keeps an eye on it. He takes photos of everything,
checks my corneas, and I would swear by the surgery,
to be honest.
S2 (29:52):
Has it improved? What you can see? Or is it
basically just taking you back to when you know you.
S7 (29:58):
Well, it was corrected before.
S2 (29:59):
Yes. Okay.
S7 (30:00):
Yeah. Yeah. Probably has improved it in the fact that
I used to get a lot of blurring with contact
lenses because I used to get, you know, hay fever
and irritation. So it's probably more a constant vision. And
my eyes don't tire like they used to. Like with
contact lenses when you wear them for a long period
of time. And I don't know. I know your wife
(30:20):
Heidi wears them. I don't know whether she finds if
she wears them for like 12 to 14 hours. Sometimes
she can get quite gritty and dry eyes. I'm not
sure how she goes with that, but I used to
find I did. Whereas you don't get any of that
so much with these.
S2 (30:35):
So well and truly worth the effort and the recovery.
S7 (30:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
S6 (30:39):
Yeah.
S2 (30:40):
Well, Carolyn Johnson, thank you for telling us your story.
S7 (30:43):
Yeah. No worries. Thanks, Sam. Have a good day.
S8 (30:46):
That's a wrap for this week. A big thank you
to Tim, Heidi, Sonja and Carolyn.
S3 (30:51):
And of course, thanks to you for listening. That includes
our listeners on the Reading Radio Network. You can find
a podcast of this program, including some extra content on Apple, Spotify, Google,
or your favorite podcast platform.
S2 (31:05):
Next week. Once more we look into our relationship with
the NDIS.
S3 (31:10):
Some of our friends talk about their experiences, clients and
in some cases as service providers.
S2 (31:16):
But between now and then, please do get in touch
with the show. Whether you have experience of any of
the issues covered on this week's episode of Studio One,
or if you think there's something we should be talking about.
You never know. Your story and insight may help somebody
who is dealing with something similar.
S3 (31:30):
You can contact us via email at studio One. That's
studio number one at Vision Australia. Or of course, you
can find us on Facebook and Instagram by searching for
VA Radio Network. We want to hear from you.
S1 (31:48):
Studio one was produced in the Adelaide studios of Vision
Australia Radio. This show was made possible with the help
of the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at.
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