me and mr. optometrist

All my life, I've had fantastically good fortune with optometrist and opthamologists. Kind, knowledgeable and patient, they've been a joy to work with. I've been wearing glasses or contact lenses to third grade, so I've had my share of interactions with eye health professionals.

My luck was bound to run out sometime.

A couple of weeks ago, the nosepads fell off the nose piece of my glasses. Right before work, in fact, which meant I had to go the whole day with the metal ends of my nose piece digging into the sides of my nose. The focal point of my lenses was off, too, since the glasses were sitting differently on my nose. This sufficed to give me a walloping headache by the end of the day.

I chucked my afterschool routine and Biker Hubby picked up the kids and took them home. I drove over to our optometrist, got out of the car, traversed the steps which were being monopolized by a couple having a Huge Argument, and tried to open the door. It was locked. And there was a sign, taped crookedly to the glass, informing me that the office was "Close due to sickness. Be back in a few days".

OOOOkkkayy. I went back up the flight of stairs to the parking lot, avoiding the Huge Argument, which had now become an Ugly, Screaming Row. With tears and two people swearing and throwing their car keys at each other. I avoided eye contact and scurried through, resisting the temptation to shout over my shoulder "The make-up sex should be AWESOME!".

Back in the car, I pondered the location of another optician's office, remembered one across town and drove over. Office closed.

I found another one a little way out of town. Office closed.

Uh. Was there some kind of seamy, optometrist underground situation in our town? Or do they all just close very early on Tuesdays?

Finally I stumbled onto one of the big, national chain offices. Let's call it Glasses R Us. They were open and they had an optician working. Hooray!

I hurried in before they could change the sign from "Open" to "Closed" and presented my glasses. The nice optician quickly found nose pads and secured them on my battered old frames. Then she shined my glasses up nicely. Then I told her I'd needed bifocals for a while but had been putting it off.

So I somehow ended up with an appointment over on the optometrist side of the business, for a bifocal contact lens exam. I was really, really grateful for the nice lady stopping my headache, I guess.

So this past Tuesday, I went back for my appointment. I waited around for a few minutes and then the optometrist came out to ask me to come back to the exam room. He was in his fifties, balding, sandy hair slicked straight back. His portly body was encased in greenish pants and a yellow button down shirt, with the pants hiked up to perfectly bisect his protruding belly.

I followed him back, set down my purse, took off my glasses and sat down in the exam chair. Immediately, he was annoyed. I think he wanted me to wait to be directed. But good grief, I've been going to eye exams for a LONG time. He called me "dear" and "darlin'" and looked me up and down paternally. Now, I've been raised in the south and lived here and deep south my whole life. This sort of thing is just how a certain segment of older men act. They think they're putting me at ease. It bugs me but I can deal with it.

We were making small talk, I was expressing a wish for contact lenses instead of my ten year old glasses and Dr. Smarmy was hmmming and mmming while getting me to look through the various lens devices. He stopped and looked down his nose at me, rather ominously.

"You have been ruining your eyes."

"Ah? Ok?"

"Seriously. If you keep this up, you are at grave risk."

"Grave risk. Grave risk of what?"

"You read too much and do too much computer work."

"I...what?"

"I can tell you how to avoid the damage you have done to your eyes."

"----" (I am busy trying to parse this sentence)

We go on with the exam and Dr. Smarmy is telling me about his twin boys and his daughter, who is in medical school. He put her in bifocals at age six. (Mental note...sucks to be the optometrist's kid) He told her and told her how to keep from damaging her eyes...but would she listen? No. Not until years later.

By this time, I've tumbled to his power play " I have Information Which You Need. I want you to ask breathlessly how you, too, can avoid Grave Damage to your eyesight".

However, I'm annoyed now. Dr. Smarmy's irritating build up to his life-changing revelation is getting on my nerves badly. However, I've gotten this far and the contact lens prize is almost mine. I will stick it out.

Finally, Dr. Smarmy can take my lack of response and interest no more. He stops what he's doing and lifts one hand dramatically to point at the ceiling.

"Your close work and reading has taken a terrible toll on your eyesight. I can tell you how to slow the progression of damage!" Here, he leans in and pronounces, with fever bright eyes shining behind his glasses, "I am the ONLY DOCTOR who will tell you this!"

Okay, apparently we've taken a little detour into Crazy Town. Yay.

I stare back at him.

"Close work, like reading, dramatically increases pressure in the eyeball. The more pressure, the longer the eyeball gets. The longer it gets, the more nearsighted you are. The more nearsighted you are, the more risk you have for detached retinas. If you keep going, I guarantee you'll have detached retinas."

Ok, now he's got my attention. My dad recently had surgery for partially detached retinas and my dad reads and does computer work hours and hours a day.

"So, what's the way to avoid damaging my eyes?"

Dr. Smarmy is disappointed that I'm not wringing my hands and wailing in fear. I've skipped a few points in his diatribe.

"When you're at the computer or reading, take a break every twenty minutes. Look out a window for 20 seconds. It has to be looking out a window."

"Ok."

"Hah!" (Yes, he did.) "YOU thought I was going to say you'd have to stop reading or stop using the computer! DIDN'T you?"

"Uh. Well, that wouldn't be very realistic for a teacher and writer, would it. So, I guess you could tell me that...."

But he's off in his own rant now. I sit and wait for him to wind down and wonder if I should ask questions, like "can you show me statistics or science or studies to back this up?". I decide to nod and smile. Crazy people like the nod and smile. I have a particularly good smile for round-the-bend older men.

I am employing my best smile and doing my best to look fascinated.

Out in the outer office, I put my new, trial pair of contacts in. I promise solemnly to follow his instructions to the letter, then I pay the exam fee and skedaddle out of there.

Since then, I've checked out as much of this as I can. I've found that being nearsighted does increase one's risk of retinal detachment, but no information on what percentage of nearsighted people are at risk for retinal detachment. I've found that yes, close work may cause one to be more nearsighted. Or it may not. But probably it does. But I've not found anything at all that draws a straight line from reading or working at the computer and retinal detachment risks.

So, just in case Dr. Smarmy is the Lone Retinal Detachment Crusader, who's being frozen out by the American Optometric Association and forced to work for a giant national eye care chain to keep him quiet, I'll pass his information along.

And I get to see him this Tuesday for a follow up. Feel free to post questions for Dr. Smarmy in the comments. I'll ask and see if he'll answer me.

Baiting...I'm a master of it.