Is it just me, or does getting eye drops put in your eyes rank just below “assault with a deadly weapon” or “trying (unsuccessfully) to explain to your ex-wife that your daugher’s version of events isn’t correct” in stress levels?
I had an eye exam today, and when they put eye drops in your eyes I have to strongly resist the urge to kick the doctor in the balls and run the hell away. The doctor has to clamp open my eyes with his fingers, but I’m sure if he’d had that device they used in “A Clockwork Orange”, he probably would have used that. It’s a wonder I didn’t bite his fingers as they approached my face. Afterwards I’m panting and sweaty.
I can’t understand how people can practically touch their own eyeballs to put in contacts. I’ve never in my life managed to put eye drops on my own eyes – any good I get from eye drops occurs because some of it stays on my eyelids afterwards and gets into my eyes after the eye dropper is gone and I open my eyes again.
After the exam, I couldn’t see anything close up for hours afterwards. Luckily my distance vision was barely good enough to drive. I had a useless morning at work, even compared to my normal slow Monday mornings.
I’ve been verbally assaulted (and assured that the next assault would be physical) just for putting my contact lenses in whilst a squeamish party was in the room with me, vaguely looking in my direction.
It’s never bothered me at all though – I can’t understand how people do get so bothered about it. I guess you just do or don’t.
As a child, I remember poking myself in the eyes with my fingers, just to freak out the other kids in the playground…
…I truly hope this isn’t the reason I’m short-sighted…
If you want to put contacts in your own eyes, go ahead, I’ll just look away. It’s only if you tried to put them in my eyes that I’d resort to violence.
I’m with you…I really hate having my eyes dilated. And, even with the numbing drops, I hate even more the little pressure things they use to check for glaucoma. When I sense those things coming at me, I just want to run and hide.
I’m the opposite. Having someone else put drops in my eyes is easy-peasy, but trying to put them in myself suddenly turns into an operation where i need at least another hand to hold my fucking eyelids open. One trick i resort to at times is to pinch my eyelid open and put the drop into the eyelid. Then i can close my eye and it’s still good.
I couldn’t touch my eyes to get contacts in when i tried as a teenager. I’m glad i didn’t, though, because contacts are a real pain in the ass (and i’m fortunate to have a fairly minor prescription). Nonetheless, boredom in my late 20s led me to learn to touch my eyeball, just in case i ever needed to do it.
I never had much trouble with contacts or eye drops — I kind of like being dilated, actually, because it’s the only time I can read with both eyes without my glasses/lenses and without going cross-eyed. But that’s because I’m blind as a bat.
When I was 12 and first got contacts, my mother told me the story of when she got her first pair of contacts when she was 15 or so. She was all excited because she was the first girl in her school to get contacts, and she knew everyone would be impressed.
Nowadays, they make you put the lenses in yourself when you first get them at the doctor’s office. But they didn’t do that for my mom — they showed her how to hold it on her fingertip, and had her approach her eye but not actually put it in, and told her she had the best first-time technique they’d ever seen. She was chuffed. The next morning, though, when she tried to put a lens in, her perfect technique continued until the contact was about an inch from her eye, and then she simply couldn’t make her hand go any further. She kept trying, but she just couldn’t bring herself to touch her eye.
So she continued to wear her glasses for another few months — until a classmate stole her thunder by coming to school with contacts, which made my mom so mad that that night she finally steeled herself and did the squicky deed. And after the first time, it was a piece of cake. I think she’s still a little disgusted with herself for being so squeamish (and so petty about what finally got her over it).
The first time I can remember having my eyes dilated was in university. I went to the eye doctor by myself, had the tests done and then drove to Carleton so I wouldn’t miss any more of the class than absolutely necessary. Having pupils the size of dinner plates, I wore my sunglasses from the moment I saw the insanely bright sunny winter day from the lobby of the eye clinic, into the (dark) parking garage where I almost drove into another car (because it was dark), parked in roughly the right place at Carleton and stumbled into class about 10 minutes late. Sitting in the back row of the lecture hall, I stared at the ceiling most of the class listening to the lecture, all the time wearing my sunglasses.
I often wonder what the prof thought was going on with me that day.
I too was squeamish about putting contacts (and drops) in my eyes until I got contacts about 9 months ago. It seems to me that what you’ve experiencing is a fight or flight reaction to a foreign object approaching your eyeball. It’s the same with the glaucoma pressure machine. Putting drops in my eye is a whole lot easier now I can control my flight reaction. Oh, having your wife/partner get their eyes tested [and dilated] at the same time and realising neither of you is in a fit state to drive home isn’t so funny at the time…
Just had my eyes examined yesterday, May 12, 2006. My eyes were dilated, of course I thought that after 6 or 8 hours my eyes would return to normal. No such luck!! Here it is 24 hours later and my eyes are still dilated. I have to wear these plastic “Rollin” sunglasses for God knows how long. I called the clinic and they said call back in a week if your eyes are still dilated !!! Never again will I have those fucking drops put in my eyes!!!