GadgetgirlIL and everyone eyesight and activity
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podkey
Posts: 5,306 Member
Gadgetgirl (anyone chime in) asked about how my "double vision" has been. She says she has done pretty well with a macular hole in her retina and cataract surgery. We do with what we are dealt on a daily basis. True enough.
Update for me. I think my vision improved slightly since my incident in January where I clunked my helmet on the end of a wetland deck supporting timber (had a metal plate/cap on the exposed end) The beam was exposed on the end where the deck juts at an angle and is at the level of ones feet. I was at walking speed but fell on what I believe to be a patch of radiation frost (temps above freezing but bridges are always an issue).
What has improved is the amount of more normal vision I have from center of gaze upwards. I always had more normal fusion toward the right in upward gaze. The jumpiness in the bottom part of my gaze when walking (forget about jogging) has gotten better. I think my eyes have improved in their ability to pursue a target together both quickly and smoothly. I think this is what helps smooth out vision when we drive an old pick-up down a washboard road etc.
OK maybe too bloggy here.
When I ride my bike my brain and well being feel much better. Bikes don't have the constant up and down physical shocks to the eyes or body that walking or jogging have. I do ok walking about 3 miles daily but often gaze up and to the right to calm my visual input. Biking I don't need to do that as my head is tilted a bit forward as I ride anyway.
Turns out it isn't a simple just vertical or horizontal alignment issue. Without boring folks too much I have some "torsional diplopia (double vision)" where my eyes are rotated a bit. I can move them separately up and down and to both sides but fusion gets wonky going away from top right. Seems like all the muscles must be working to some extent even if not completely as they should.
Bottom line is that I enjoy moving around and especially biking. It is possible that tweaking the muscle attachments with eye surgery could solve the problem to something like the 90%ish level. The brain would compensate better with the surgery which I am considering. My son has a friend who had the surgery and really likes the result. Better alignment might make me feel better when walking and also reading at close range. I do great with my large screen monitor at a distance but like using a "pirate's patch" for using my electronic tablet or reading a printed book. I prefer the tablet as I can of course increase font size etc.
My sister has macular degeneration (AMD) but it hasn't kept her from trotting around the world constantly from her home base in Chicago. She is more than 15 years older than me (85 y/o plus) and amazes me.
Our dad always said "joneses [made up surname here] don't say can't". Doesn't mean that you can do everything but by golly you do NOT start out with a negative self-defeating attitude.
In some way it helps with persistence and doing things.
Update for me. I think my vision improved slightly since my incident in January where I clunked my helmet on the end of a wetland deck supporting timber (had a metal plate/cap on the exposed end) The beam was exposed on the end where the deck juts at an angle and is at the level of ones feet. I was at walking speed but fell on what I believe to be a patch of radiation frost (temps above freezing but bridges are always an issue).
What has improved is the amount of more normal vision I have from center of gaze upwards. I always had more normal fusion toward the right in upward gaze. The jumpiness in the bottom part of my gaze when walking (forget about jogging) has gotten better. I think my eyes have improved in their ability to pursue a target together both quickly and smoothly. I think this is what helps smooth out vision when we drive an old pick-up down a washboard road etc.
OK maybe too bloggy here.
When I ride my bike my brain and well being feel much better. Bikes don't have the constant up and down physical shocks to the eyes or body that walking or jogging have. I do ok walking about 3 miles daily but often gaze up and to the right to calm my visual input. Biking I don't need to do that as my head is tilted a bit forward as I ride anyway.
Turns out it isn't a simple just vertical or horizontal alignment issue. Without boring folks too much I have some "torsional diplopia (double vision)" where my eyes are rotated a bit. I can move them separately up and down and to both sides but fusion gets wonky going away from top right. Seems like all the muscles must be working to some extent even if not completely as they should.
Bottom line is that I enjoy moving around and especially biking. It is possible that tweaking the muscle attachments with eye surgery could solve the problem to something like the 90%ish level. The brain would compensate better with the surgery which I am considering. My son has a friend who had the surgery and really likes the result. Better alignment might make me feel better when walking and also reading at close range. I do great with my large screen monitor at a distance but like using a "pirate's patch" for using my electronic tablet or reading a printed book. I prefer the tablet as I can of course increase font size etc.
My sister has macular degeneration (AMD) but it hasn't kept her from trotting around the world constantly from her home base in Chicago. She is more than 15 years older than me (85 y/o plus) and amazes me.
Our dad always said "joneses [made up surname here] don't say can't". Doesn't mean that you can do everything but by golly you do NOT start out with a negative self-defeating attitude.
In some way it helps with persistence and doing things.
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Replies
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I feel for you. I had an eye problem a few years ago that taught me how complicated the eye/vision/brain are when there is a problem.
Wishing you well.0 -
Bob - I appreciate you furthering my education on how the eye and brain works. Sorry you have had to go through all this but I'm glad to hear there is some improvement as well as a possible procedure that may provide even more relief.
I can understand the jumpiness - when I had that gas bubble in my eye after the macula hole surgery it bounced all over and made me queasy. Thank goodness I only had to have a 2 week bubble not a 6 week one.0 -
Hey Pod,
Sorry to hear about the vision issues! Since you and I are "across the river" neighbors, I wanted to touch base with you and pass along the names of two doctors who have had great success dealing with the vision issues you've described. If you'd like to touch base, feel free to email me at gavinflynn@comcast.net.0 -
Good point. I am hoping intellectually that getting better registration of objects especially to my left and down by readjusting the eyes will in essence make me less "queasy"/"wonky" or however ya put it. I am thinking my brain will have to work a bit less to fuse objects in my visual world AND be able to fuse more of my visual field. No rush to do it and I hate the thought of surgery. It will be a while before I have to think about cataract surgery as I am not really quite pre-cataractous.
Hey Jim right you are about the complexity of the eye and brain interact. I spent many years in eye research studying the retina and how the photoreceptors are constantly growing and regenerated. At the national eye research meetings the meetings were split up between visual scientists (brain functions) and ophthalmology scientists studying basic science,structure and more of the eye itself.
I do have a book to recommend for everyone who has an interest in how we actually see written by a visual scientist titled Visual Intelligence: How we create what we see by Donald Hoffman. Turns out we view the world in our brains using a "set of rules" that are based on the law of averages of how stimuli are presented to us in our environment. Example might be that objects are illuminated from the top (think about sunlight here). Photographers know this and use diffuse lighting from above at an angle to have peoples faces look great. Kids know how funny we look when you place a flashlight underneath ones chin.
Many of what we might think of as parlor games are not any more "optical illusions" but in a sense rather how our brains actually construct the visual world around us. We receive input similar to a series of pixel points on our retina. We totally create from individual data points a three dimensional world in our minds using a set of clever brain assumptions. I use to go to some of the papers given by visual scientists as well as folks in my field. I was extremely impressed by what they did.0 -
@podkey In re:
"Many of what we might think of as parlor games are not any more "optical illusions" but in a sense rather how our brains actually construct the visual world around us. We receive input similar to a series of pixel points on our retina. We totally create from individual data points a three dimensional world in our minds using a set of clever brain assumptions."
This reminded me of a TV show on why "eye witnesses" to the same event "see" things differently.
Interesting posts!0
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