Old eyes

I've got them (old eyes). I am near sighted and need reading correction. When I buy a good pair of sunglasses that wrap around, they can only be made in single lens prescription (no progressive or bifocal lenses). That is OK for the A cat where I don't need to see up close and my countdown timer has BIG numbers, but i have a problem on my larger cat that I also race and has instruments that need to be read. I short, I have to take off my sunglasses and do the old gheezer squint at the GPS; its not only hard to see, but causes erratic steering.

My question is, what do you older sailors do (even the ones with 20-20 vision) when you have to see up close on a boat? I'd think about lasik surgery except that i would still need reading glasses to see the instruments.

Thanks for the feedback.

(myopic) David
A Cat and large cat

Hey David

I've got a similar problem, having had eye surgery a couple times now.

Give Steve Murray at Murray's a call about Barz. They can be made in prescriptions and I'm curious as to whether or not he can get them done in a bifocal arrangement.

Or just have your (hopefully younger) crew read them for you on the bigger boat. Most trimmers claim their drivers are blind anyway....

I know that there is such a thing as bifocal contact lenses. A friend of mine has them. Don't laugh, I thought it was a joke too but his girlfriend and other confirmed the claim.

Maybe that will work for you?

Wouter

Hi David

My optician set me up with polarized Maui Jim Progressives.
They have the best polarization which makes looking at the lcd displays tough unless you are strait on but that comes with any polarized lens.

Ronstan Clearstart watch? Its HUGE!

David,

I thought that was what Colette was for ????

Any way it's kind of hard to miss 43' of Corsiar Tri thats in front of you ... that Sunday race back was a fluke!!!!!

But I do have the same issue ... and no solution yet

Harry

Get a Sailing Eye Dog...

For wrap around sunglasses, one option is stick on vinyl "add" bifocal--you can purchase them in powers of +1.50 up to about +3.00.

Several makers of quality wrap around sunglass can be made up with most prescriptions, including progressives. The optical lab simply must be set up for the frame design to compensate for the wrap.

Other options include multifocal contact lenses or wearing one contact lens for near and one for far.

Depending on your overall eye health, LASIK may also be an option.

PM me if further questions--I'm an eye surgeon.

I recently had cataract surgery and have distant vision in both eyes. Since I can't deal with reading glasses, I had a contact lens fitted for one eye for near vision. This monovision set up works for me. It's a seamless transition from far vision to reading the newspaper. I had the same set up with contact lenses for the last forty years when my vision was 20/200.

I have pair of Maui Lim "readers". They have a reader set in the bottom 20% of the lens.

Jim...

I have bifocal contacts that I just started wearing in Decemeber, no contacts ever in my life. A little hard to get in for awhile, but I would have to say they have changed my life. No more glasses, good vision on the course, but possibly problematic in a lot of spray. i do wear some decent polarized glasses with a built in strap that helps with the spray.
If you dont get them for sailing, get them for everyday life.

yes, Im old

I had lasik and love it, but the reader thing is probably in my very near future.

I got the bifocal contacts just for sailing and love them! Haven't worn them since last season, but it's about that time again. I wear Polarized sunglasses over them which keeps the spray from washing them out of place.

You can get LASIK mono vision. That means one eye is reshaped for reading and the other for distance. I've got it and am quite satisfied. Go in and at least get evauluated. It should be free. See what your vision would be like after the surgery.

If you were in the LA area I could set you up with the eyeball doc to the stars at Cedars Sanai.

I called in sick today...Anal Glaucoma.

I could not see my butt going in to work today.

That's also known as Anal Oculosis. It a condition where the optic nerve is connected to the rectum. It can be resolved by a simple surgical procedure known as an Optirectomy.

Both conditions are closely akin to optical rectitis; when one inserts one's head into one's rectum the resulting pressure of the anal sphincter on the optic nerve produces a sh!tty outlook on life.

My neighbor had a lens transplant done. Not sure of the particulars but he's in his 70's and is very happy he did it. No glasses, contacts.

what's the long term prognosis with Lasik?

I'm aystigmatic and near sighted, but I hear that as we age we get farsighted... So maybe part of that will self-correct?

I think I'm like 20/40 or something. Can read without glasses, but prefer to drive/sail with some perscription glasses.

Do a Google on polarized bifocal sunglasses to find a bunch of options.

I keep a pair of these handy for those days needing closeup. Try to do a ring-ding into a pin without bifocals.

Tom G

Good to see that I'm not the only one...

At 46 I find I can't comfortably read print without a cheapy pair of reading glasses. This after a whole life of perfect vision. I can see everything on the boat fine at this point, but worry about needing to read a chart in a distance race. For this, I brought along younger crew on Tybee! But, seriously, I figure I'll throw a plastic magnifying glass in with the chart stuff.

But, the answer about younger crew brings up the thing I've realized about trying to read GPS while helming. The overall thing is that trying to helm a fast boat while interpreting any GPS display except for the big arrow that points to the next waypoint is going to cause you to helm poorly. Any time I've been tempted to look and fiddle with the GPS while driving has led to really poor immediate results (mostly Alec yelling "watch your course!"), especially on the N-20. So, let somebody else do the nav, and have them let you know what heading to follow (can still read the compass I hope...).

On the N-20 I did two things - we had the SpeedPucks on the boom to show either heading or speed (in nice big numbers) and I strapped my GPS to the boom right behind them set to the arrow display. Between the two I had enough to satisfy my immediate curiosity without screwing up driving. Any other nav functions needed while underway are punted to Alec, with him relaying what heading adjustments might be necessary. While that's on a distance race N-20, I suspect the same advice could be followed on your big boat.

I don't know how the helm is on your TRT, but my F-27 "suffers" from the same responsive helm as the N-20. If I take my eyes (previous or now) away to try to mess with the GPS I'm off course. When I singlehand I deal with it, but for any crewed situation (and if I ever race it) I'll split the duties with a similar solution to the above.

My $0.02. In a nutshell, make Roger do the nav and give you the headings, you concentrate on driving fast and keeping the pointy end up!

Cheers!

This is a really good subject, considering that, for some strange reason, sailors all seem to be getting older. Vision problems generally start after age 40.

Rick and I have gone through all sorts of things to try to keep our eyes working right, including some gadget we bought with strings and beads to exercise our eyes and make them work to focus at different distances.

Thanks to this thread, I have found "night-driving glasses," and I am very excited about that.

So, we have ordered the bifocal stick-ons and the night-driving glasses.

We'll let you know how well they work for us.

I had dinner last night with the eyeball doc to the stars. He said that people with good eye sight are usually a little far sighted. Between 40 and 50 is when sight starts to degrade for these people.

He did say LASIK is currently a very good option but, with a few more technology breakthroughs, it will be great. He estimates that should be in about seven years.

Lasik is a good option for the near-sighted people, apparently,but not for the far-sighted people like Rick and I. We can see a course mark off in the distance, but we can't read a newspaper without magnifying glasses from the supermarket.

The nice thing about it is that when he or I can't see some small print, we borrow each other's glasses and double them up. I don't know what we would do without each other.

I go to the local flea market: good quality polarized sunglasses that fit perfectly over my bifocals are $4. Use a string to tie them on (better than Croakies). Buy 2 pair, one to wear and hang up on the rearview mirror, another pair for someone else to sit on or scratch by jamming them into a gritty glove compartment. Solar Shield brand is good = $20.

Also- as previously stated here- lick the dang things off and spit out the salt. My $400 plastic bifocals last many years when licked off. NEVER RUB ANY PLASTIC LENSES with a nasty cloth or shirt.

Mary,

LASIK is effective for nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. It can also treat presbyopia (old eyes) with monovision.

Another treatment modality is intraocular lens implants, which can also treat presbyopia, such at the ReSTOR or Technis multifocal lens implants. The FDA studies--which tend to be quite conservative--found that well over 80% of patients receiving these implants did not use glass at all, regardless of age. In my practice the vast majority of people receiving these implants do not need to use glasses at all from then on.

Glasses for correcting vision are going the way of the slide rule and manual typewriter--they're becoming obsolete. Quite frankly, this isn't something futuristic--we have the technology available right now to eliminate the need for glasses for most people.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in, including all those who described some very nasty sounding vision conditions. I kind of feel like our declining vision has helped bring us together; seeing some posters who were squaring off on that interminable "drilling" thread coming together to discuss how we deal with this crap of getting older (the great equalizer?).

Storz; I've got the Ronstan THAT I can see; I love it.

Eric; the vinyl correction add ons sound great; I've never seen them in a drug store; where do you get them?

Also the lens replacement seems like the complete solution (along with Lasik?). It is the hardening of our lens that leads to needing reading correction. I've been talking about that for years, but didn't think that technology was available yet. When I add up what I spend on glasses about every 15 months, it makes surgical solutions seem not so far out of reach.

Eric, your email box is full; at least that is the message I got; I'd like to talk to you further about some of the solutions you work with in your profession.

Thanks to all. I know I'm going to find something that works better than the squinting I do now.

David
ACat and big cat.

David,

I cleared our my mailbox.

Stick-on bifocals are available from many sources, eg:
http://www.burfish.com/catalog/2020.html

Probably will work AS LONG AS YOU DON'T WORK FOR A Proctologist