Eyes......again!

[Squawk 2650]

Hi Guys and Gals,

Just got my latest glasses prescription and it says

... Sph Cyl Axis
R -125 +050 180
L -150 +050 180

When you guys talk about +8.0 for the class one renewal limits how far off that am I??

Medical is coming up in about a month so starting to get that worrying feeling!!!

Ta
:cool:

[Bad medicine]

No worries at all with that one, Squawk. They've left out a few decimals by the look of it.

-1.25 +0.50 180

etc

[Squawk 2650]

Thanks Bad Medicine… looks like I’ll have to find something else to worry about then!

:cool:

[Halfbaked_Boy]

Hi,

Just one thing I noticed whilst looking at that - the difference between the correction in each of your eyes is 2.25 dioptres which I believe is 0.25 dioptres outside of the 'anisometropia' limits, but to be honest do not worry about this - with your prescription so far within all other ranges and the fact that you are ever so slightly outside of the limits would just about justify a deviation, if that.

Cheers, Jack.

[Charlie Zulu]

The difference is 2.00 for the initial JAR medical at Gatwick.

However if your eyes are stable etc then they will allow this limit to go to the renewal standard limit of 3.00.

Its only 0.25 out of the initial so I wouldn't worry about it.

I am just about to buy some contact lenses (£150 - ouch!!!) so will probably be grounded for a month or so whilst I get used to them.

My prescription is:

L Sph: +0.25 Cyl: -0.50
R Sph: -0.50 Cyl: -2.00
(Has been for the last 9 years or so, I'm 28 now).
(I too have a difference of 2.25 between my eyes).

Although my right eye can see to the CAA standards of 6/9 (actually 6/7.5 -2) and my left eye to 6/6 with glasses, my optician believed we could improve my right eye. So yesterday I trundled down to his practice and tried some special contacts that he ordered to try in my right eye to compensate for the very slight cone shape of the cornea in my right eye (it has always been there). This improved my vision somewhat and have decided to purchase them pending what the CAA say (they are soft lenses - I wouldn't be able to handle hard lenses).

My uncorrected vision is L: 6/9 R: 6/12 -2 ie, quite bad! :D

I have a SODA for my FAA Class 1 at the moment (due to the 6/9 in my right eye) so I may be able to lift this limitation *if* the FAA agree with contacts.

My question is would these type of lenses be accceptable to the CAA? I will be calling them on Monday but thought I'd ask just to see if anyone has had any experience with this. If not, I'll just stick to glasses as I'm still well within the renewal limits.

Also, for those of you who already wear contact lenses, do you find they dry out quicker whilst flying? Ie in pressurized cabins etc? Anything I should know in regards to flying and contact lenses?

Sorry to hijack this thread!

[Squawk 2650]

I was never aware of the 2.0 limit! I never had to wear glasses on my initial or my first renewal just the last 2 years my eyes have got slightly worse… although they have always been border line for wearing glasses!

Does that mean that if my long distance vision gets a bit worse they could take my medical away??

It always worries me I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my medical having started flying straight after college!!

S
:cool:

[captplaystation]

Charlie Zulu, I wore hard gas-permeable lenses a few years back.They were okay to do (say) 4x 1hr flights, but got a bit dry& itchy on anything over 2 hrs or so.If you drop one,unless you are lucky & it drops on your trouser leg, you will never find it though,although looking at the average cockpit floor I'm not sure you would want to ever put it back in your eye ever again anyway.I believe big advances have been made in contact lense technology since I wore them,but as I get older I get more handsome so don't worry so much about the vanity aspects of lense wearing,oh & my ageing eyes would need a bi-focal gizmo too & my eyes already got fed up of my over-wearing in spite of a scrupulous cleaning regime so I am a bit reluctant to start again.A few of my colleagues seem happy enough with "softies" though, so you should be OK, biggest bonus for me was how much better my peripheral vision felt with lenses instead of specs.

[Loose rivets]

Edited by LR just after posting

I erroneously picked up on a later poster with a CYL that was much larger than the mentioned in the original post. So, the statement 'CYL correction as large as yours' would be applicable to folk who are say, 1.0 or more. I doubt that .5 would cause any significant difficulty if it went off angle. Unless of course it moved so far that it augmented the astigmatism giving say a 1.0 it would be the sudden change, and not the amount that might affect a pilot at a critical moment. end of edit


There has been quite a lot written about the dryness/irritation factor of contact lenses worn by aircrew. However, my findings on the use of contacts for CYL correction are as follows.

Firstly, I was blessed with good eyesight all the time I was flying, so it was not until I had a vitrectomy and later a cataract op in my dotage, that things were not so good. So, I have no experience of flying with it (singular). However this lens gets me back to 20/15 (better than 20/20)

The main problem that I would anticipate is the sudden rotation of the lens at a critical moment. This with a CYL correction as large as yours, would I guess, render the eye pretty well useless. Try your glasses and rotate them say 20 degrees. If you feel that this would not be too much of a problem, then probably no need to worry. My -1.25 is really tedious if it spins more than about 10-15 degrees. Yours will be more significant, but it's your call. There is no doubt that some people are more affected than others.

I am trying a lens that is so thin that it is difficult to handle. It is however, the most comfortable. ACUVUE ADVANCE for ASTIGMATISM (they capitalize) -- yet another free sample. I have asked for an increase in base curve to experiment. Changing from 8.5 to 8.6 has made an improvement in comfort. It may be that the B&L Soft-lens 66 just takes a bit more getting used to, but again B&L are coming out with a lens that has a yet ‘higher water component'. Should be due in the UK about now.

Having someone that will work with you is of great benefit. There are so many options, with new ones coming along all the time.

There is a tiny line scribed on the surface to orientate lenses for astigmatism. However, I have given up looking at the lens with a loop first to get it in the right way up. It really does spin round to the correct angle within twenty blinks or so. Talking of blinks.

The nice lady at Wallmart gave me a sample mini-bottle of "Blink". I use it to re wet the lens and aid in the insertion and removal. I use it to wash away the ReNew that seems a bit stingy to me. I now put a drop of Blink into the cup of the lens and tip it out again before applying lens to eye

Because I have done an in depth study of the eye for my personal handling of my problems, I totally reject the grabbing of the lens in the way they taught me. I use a plastic tube for removal and gently suck it away at one edge so that it peals off. (I wear skinny times 4 readers to see exactly what I'm doing.) I then drop it straight into the re-wetting agent without touching it at all. Errr if all goes well that is.

[captplaystation]

Christ, think I'll stick with me specs as previously intimated!

[Loose rivets]

Well, I did.

While usually trying to remain serious on this forum, I did write a comment a while back about making my own glasses for flying. It was a hoot....but strangely they worked really well.

I think large lenses in lightweight frames take a lot of beating while flying, but we should remember that it was not all that long ago that contacts were not suitable for correcting astigmatism.