My Vision Background

OK, so in order to provide some context to this discussion, a little background on me is probably helpful.

I am a 29-year-old male, living in the Greater Washington DC Area. I have been wearing glasses since I was two, and have a wide array of vision problems. First, I am heavily nearsighted- in the -9.00 range. I also have a slight astigmatism for which I have been wearing soft toric contact lenses for about 10 years, and gas permeable contact lenses for seven years before that. I also have amblyopia (aka "lazy eye"). This means that one of my eyes is not as strong as the other, in fact correcting only to about 20/50. Finally, I was born with strabismus, where the muscles in my eyes were imbalanced, making me look all cockeyed. I had surgery to correct the strabismus when I was six.

Now, you might wonder, how do I even function? Well, none of this is very major, other than the nearsightedness. The amblyopia is mildly annoying, but for the most part my good eye (my right one) does the heavy lifting while the left eye provides peripheral vision and depth perception. I can see pretty well out of it on its own, but not in the detail required to read anything at any distance.

I had been wondering if Lasik was an option for me for many years, and at the prodding of my wife (who had Lasik last year and now comments on her "bionic" vision), I asked my optometrist about it. He said that I might be a candidate, but that due to the myriad eye issues that I have, should see one of the top surgeons for an evaluation. He explicitly directed me away from the "Lasik Factories" that promise deep discounts on Lasik. He assured me that one of two doctors in the area, one of whom operated on Tiger Woods, would provide an excellent evaluation and would give me all of the available surgical options.

I think this is all the background necessary for the moment. I've posted two of these this morning, tried to have the site added to Google (not sure if I was successful), and should probably get to the business of the day. We still haven't packed anything, and there's lots of college basketball to watch. Hopefully tomorrow I will get to the next installment in this series, though I know nobody's actually reading this yet, so I'm not feeling the pressure, yet...