I’ve worn glasses since I was in the first grade. I’ve had contacts since the 7th. My mom bribed once with Lasik surgery but my mother in-law works in an optometrists office and has seen too many horror training videos to recommend it. What I wear now that in my opinion is the next best thing to surgery are these night & day contacts that I can wear for months at a time. Seriously, I’ve been doing my own tests to see how long I go without changing my lenses and I’m sitting at three months right now. I actually forget I have them in. If you can believe it, I see the eye doctor regularly and my eyesight has actually gotten better.
All that aside, when I read about this new technology scientists were testing in contact lenses, I got excited about the future of silicon eye-wear. They’re saying these little beauties have the potential to give the viewer super vision or even act as a display for a portable device. Think about that for a second. A computer screen image in your contact lens. Night Vision? Complete immersion into video games? The ability to zoom? Xray vision…okay we won’t go there. Not sure when they’ll start doing human testing, but I bet my super strength eyeballs might be just what they are looking for.
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January 21st, 2008 at 8:29 am
careful with the contacts.. when i was in high school (admittedly a long time ago) i wore the extended wear contacts for close to 9 months without taking them out (dumb mistake), and began getting serious eye infections.. i looked quite lovely with a PATCH over my eyes for a week. so beware! :)
January 21st, 2008 at 11:47 am
I enjoyed your interesting blog regarding advent of silicon chip based eyewear. However, I am bothered by your current use of contact lenses. Even with the so-called night and day contact lenses, continuous wear is approved by te FDA for no more than 30 days - and with good reason. The normal metabolism of the eye, even with clean, well fitting contact lenses is compromised. As a lens remains in the eye the negative impact on the eye’s health increases. Wearing a contact lens until you sense the lens is dirty is not unlike wearing the same clothes until your friends notice your BO. Typically with clothing, bathing and other hygeine issues we handle these before they are hygeine issues. The risk to your eyesight includes total loss of vision - no kidding!
(btw: I am a member of Cross View CC)
January 21st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Though I intended the post to be sort of toungue-in-cheek, I appreciate your concern and will probably go see my eye doctor now. I have been very open with my optometrist about how long I keep my contacts in and am always concerned with infections and other such dangers that can occur from leaving my contacts in too long. I’ve never left a pair in more than 90 days. Even though that is long past the FDA’s approved time frame, the doctor says my eyes are healthy and actually correcting themselves a bit. Besides, I’m not the biggest fan of an organization whose mission statement claims the only cure for any illness is a prescription drug. The irony is, I actually wear glasses now that have no prescription just for the look of it. Maybe I need to see a doctor about that.