Comment by wrong_variable | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wrong_variable | Hacker News Reader

... Personal Story ...

+ I was suffering from increasing myopia and astigmatism yearly.

+ It turns out my power was all wrong, it was wrong by 2 dipoters !!

+ Why ?

+ It turns out if you spend 12 hours a day in front of a computer, you start suffering from 'pseudo myopia', a temporary state where your ciliary muscles cannot relax, its quite harmless and normally reverses within 1 week of no screen time, but if you go to an optician - unless they correct for it they will give a wrong power !! which acts as a negative feedback to increase your power !! :(

+ The solution is quite simple and that is to check your power under dilation (3 days of blurryness ). I managed to fix all my headache and eye pain once I got the correct power but I am quite pissed about the whole thing.

+ I apply 0.01 atropine before sleeping to force relax my ciliary muscles since I cannot quit coding.

+ Sunlight is key but only when you are young, as you get older and see more opticians, wrong power can do more harm than lack of sunlight.

+ Atropine works even without sunlight, it the best control mechanism we have in 2018 (outside of taking up a non screen job or working outdoor )

That's brilliant! I noticed on vacations (before smartphones) where would spend most of the time looking at the horizon, that after less than a week, my eyesight would be so much clearer.

So you're saying before checking your eyesight you should not wear glasses for 3 days? Or you need the atropine?

The doctor normally gives you a different muscle relaxant, you wont be able to read for 3 days.

The reason why more opticians do not do this is because its inconvenient for the patient, I beg to differ since my ability to see things is worth a lot more than 3 days of paycheck.

I saw a lot of different optician / doctors for it, but finally an optician / doctor researcher with a Phd fixed it for me.

https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-336/cyclopentolate-ophtha...

I had this done before getting laser eye surgery to ensure my prescription was correct (it was wrong, just like yours) but the effect wore off within 24 hours. It is very inconvenient though, my pupils were fully dilated and I couldn't see anything within 2 feet of me!

The rule is the harder dilation gets better power reading.

The strongest dilation is 1% Atropine that wears out in 14 days, but gives you the most correct power.

Milder dilation lasts for 3-4 days, but is about 70% correct, so you could just do some maths to extrapolate (even though its not not ideal).

Weakest dilation lasts for hours but the lowest accuracy of the three options.

Anyway next time ask for 3 days dilation just to be extra sure and take 2 days off.

Where does one buy atropine drops

This is quite tricky isn't it ?

I couldn't get hands on it at first, so what I did was buy 1% atropine (easier to get) and used a syringe to dilute it using normal tear drops.

Somebody told me its not a good idea but I had no other options :(

I was fortunate enough to have somebody traveling to Asia, to get me 2 years of supply.

In Asia too its not easy to get your hands on it, I finally figured out that its easily and cheaply found if you ask around the pediatric department.

1) Look around in your country, pediatric eye doctors.

2) See if you find somebody traveling to Singapore, Honk Kong or Beijing.

3) If you really cannot get your hands on it (try ebay or something ) I will see if I can help.

But really talk to a doctor first, its just what I know and I have no medical training.

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