Medical & HealthNews and debate about medical and health issues as they relate to aircrews and aviation. Any information gleaned from this forum MUST be backed up by consulting your state-registered health professional or AME.
No sorry, I don't remember details of all the tests.
They just look into your eyes with various machines/tools, and one that puffs some air onto your eyeball, don't know what it's called or what it is for.
I remember the slit lamp cos the lady who examined my eyes said "This is a slit lamp blabla...". All I mean by "blood vessels" is that I could see those "little red veiny" things in my eyes with the very bright light going into them, even though I was told to look away.
Hope it's of some help, good luck to you.
The puff of air into both eyes measures eye pressure (well I think it does). To be honest, the eye test is very thorough, lots of different tests, looking into the eyes etc. If you are very worried about it, it might be worth booking a trip to an optician, who will charge you about £25 but will be able to give you a good idea of your chances of success.
There is a form that you can download on the CAA website that tells you what they are looking for, or not. The optician will be able to say if you meet their requirements.
how do they detect lasek since there is no flap involved like in lasik ?
Yeah there is a flap with LASEK, it's just the method of creating the flap is different - there's no blade like with LASIK. I hear that the chances of corneal haze with LASEK is higher than with LASIK. Something to check out with an impartial medical professional...
I've never managed to get a definitive answer from either a surgeon or optician about whether or not LASIK is detectable with a slit lamp. Most say "probably".
From what I remember there is no topography performed at Aviation House.
thank you
can you remember what tests do they do for the health of the eye ? slit lamp and what else ? eye scanning ? topography ?
what do you mean when you say that you see your blood vessels in slit lamp ?
bye thanks
One of the strange things about eyes, is that so much of the life support system is in front of the sensors! Here is one I took earlier as they say.
Hi guys
I had my cathay cadet pilot 3rd stage interview and the medical, but in the medical i had 20/20 or 6/6 vision (better than 20/20 actually) with my contacts. My diopters are -4.75 on both eyes with a VERY slight astigmatism in the right eye. However this does not cause my right eyes vision to drop below 20/20. Because my unaided vision was so terrible (as i recall it was around 4/66 or 6/66 (i might be getting the 60's mixed up), the medical officer told me that I had to go and have my eyes checked by an outside eye-doctor who was airline approved, which i went and did.
Nothing was wrong with my eyes except for one thing. I did a test where the doc used this thing with a faceplate (with two holes for the eyes) connected to another marked plate, about a foot away from my face, with a small bar. On the plate that I was supposed to stare at (the marked plate) there was a horizontal scale with numbers running below its entire length (it looked like a ruler) and a vertical line also running from the center of the top of the plate, to the center of the bottom. Both the horizontal and vertical line had an arrow which pointed to a certain number on that scale, however, my right eye was blocked off by a small screen on this device and a I could only see the horizontal scale from my left eye.
The doc asked me what number the arrow was pointing to on the horizontal scale, but to me the harder i tried to look at the arrow the more it seemed to move. It started out at the "4" mark (to the right side of the plate) and moved slowly until it hit "8" which was just reaching the center of the plate from the right. The arrow on the vertical scale remained at "0" and did not move even when i looked at it.
At the end of the examination, the doc said everything was fine except that i have a slight muscle imbalance (this is what i remember him saying) or he might have said slight misalignment. He also mentioned something about a squint. He said that this was not too large at all, and that everyone has it, however he was unable to tell me if it was a factor in me getting a Hong kong Civil aviation dept. class 1 medical (similar to the UK CAA standards). If anyone could shed some light on this for me i would be very grateful, as i am sick with worry on whether i will fail the interviews because of this.
Also as a note, i couldnt read anything on the eye chart without correction, so the doc made me get up and walk up to the chart until i could read it. Is this bad although i am short sighted?
I have a FAA class 1 and they never did this test there, also when i did my medical with cathay they didnt test for this either. Any info would be helpful.
I have just went for a full-body checkup. During one of my eye tests, one of the nurse used a thin long black instrument(about an arm's length) with words printed on a small rectangular box. Then she put the instrument onto my upper part of the nose where the center of both of my eyes are. She then asked me to read the words from a certain distance, read another time at a different length. She can slide the rectangular box up and down. Then she asked me to stop her when the words get blurred when she slide all the way to the front of my eyes. May I know what is the name of this device? and what it is test for?
Probably she wanted to test you eyes' focusing power. As far as I know they do it By using eye charts, lenses, and special instruments. In my own eye exam, she held a paper with a word written on it at about 5 inches from my eyes and she put a lense infront of my eyes to blur the vision then she asked me to tell her when it becomes visible then she would remove it, she repeated it until my eyes became tired and I couldnt see visibly anymore! Whe I asked her about it, she said its used to measure your eyes strenghth and fatigue! check this: http://www.allaboutvision.com/eye-exam/expect.htm
WOW! b747heavy, all I can spot in that photo is a gorgeous girl! I wish all eye test were like that! Even a blind can see her!
Hi there
I wanted to learn to fly last year, but I didn't bother starting once I'd found out that I couldn't get a class two medical because I am +7.5 and +8.5
I also have some other problems with my eyesight but the CAA said that the refractive errors were the only major problem.
I live in the channel islands so If i wanted to fly, I have to get the JAA PPL and I cant do an NPPL over here!
I have heard this talk about relaxation of vision requirements, do any of you know if I will be able to get a class two in the forseeable future?
I went to my CAA class 1 medical the other day and was told that due to my poor visual acuity, I would NEVER get a Class 1 certificate. This is due to the fact that my left eye is perfect and my right eye is pretty poor, only getting to 6/24 line on the distance vision chart. I needed to get too 6/9 at least, which is 3 lines below my best attempt. The medical officer told me that there is no way it can ever be corrected because it has something to do with the optic nerve not getting signals to the brain (hope this is not too boring!). I refuse to believe that I will never fly commercial because of this. There MUST be something that can be done.
Does anyone know a procedure that can be done or whether the CAA is going to relax its rules a little? I am desperate for information so that I can start my career. I have tried to buy a bionic eye on Ebay, but no luck!!
Hi,
I'm a CPL holder in Oz. About 2 weeks ago I saw an optician about slightly blurry vision and was told that i need glasses/contacts for distance vision. My prescription was -0.50 Right eye, -0.75 Left eye. And when i had the contacts in my corrected vision was fine.
Now just today i found out that the trial contacts i've been wearing for the last 2 weeks are the wrong prescription. They are slightly stronger, -0.75 Right eye and -1.00 left eye. My question is, does wearing the slightly stronger prescription make my eyesight worse than it was 2 weeks ago? And should i stick to these contacts, or get a set made up to the original prescription?
Obviously I'm a little stressed about this. I've already told CASA my ORIGINAL prescription, and they say its not problem. I just hope that my eyes havent gotten any worse because of a cock up by the optician. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated.
Also, and pilots living in melbourne who wear glasses, if you have any recommendations of a good opticians, please send them to me. The people i've been to dont seem to know their stuff!
I think seeing a different, if possible, personally recommended optitician is the right way to go about it.
Having a stronger prescription than necessary can't be good in the long term, but it's got to be better than goofing up 'cos you can't see properly.
I have very poor uncorrected vision but a good optician sorted me out, don't think that you've anything to worry about.
Hi,
I have been interested in becoming a pilot in the RN for a very long time. Yesterday I went to the opticians and was horrified when I saw some number on my feedback sheet. To be honest I am not sure what it means. This is what it said: Right Sph : +0.25 Left Sph: +0.25
(the rest of the things Cyl Axis Prism Base were all 0.
I don't wear/need glasses or anything like that. I think it means i am slightly short sighted, does this mean I cannot become an RN pilot? Does anybody know the cut-off boundaries. Does anybody know the cut-off boundaries for Observer also? Many Thanks.
Can anyone tell me if my eyesight is likely to result in me being required to wear glasses to fly, my prescription is:
L:
-0.50 sph
-0.25 cyl
90 axis
R:
-0.75 sph
-0.25 cyl
65 axis
I ask only because I actually don't like wearing glasses, and only do so when absolutely necessary. For example, I consider my eyes perfectly good for driving without glasses so rarely wear them. If I'm going to have to wear corrective lenses to fly I might look into contacts - are these acceptable in the same way as glasses for a medical?
on landings.com, i found out that FAA 1st and 2nd medical req. are
minus or plus 5 Diopters. So, what are the actual FAA uncorrected, or diopter req. for 1st, and 2nd med. class?
P.S What about astigmatism?
I went for a class 1 medical renewal yesterday and everything is ok except my eyes. From my last medical my vison has dropped slightly and the AME recommended i get a eye exam. I got one today and it confirms i need glasses. I still can't believe it! but ok.
My AME will review the results next wednesday (i'll be so nervous for the best part of a week) but the optician stated that i will be fine. I am a little nervous and in need of some reassurance that everything will be ok. My n14 and n5 is perfect. My vital stats are:
Uncorrected ,Corrected
right 6/12, 6/5
left 6/12, 6/5
Binocular 6/11, 6/4
unifocal (s/v distance recommended)
Sphere, Cylinder, Axis, Near (add)
right -0.25, -0.75, 90, n/a
left -0.25, -0.50, 25, n/a
Please reassure me everything is ok
Kind Regards
+Truth747 (nervous as hell)
Last edited by TruTh747 : 14th July 2006 at 12:28.
Pretty sure you'll be fine - your prescription is very mild - you are allowed up to 5 dioptres of refractive correction on each eye (you have a quarter of a dioptre required in each) and something like 3 dioptres of astigmatism (you have half a dioptre in one eye, three-quarters in the other). As long as glasses/contacts can correct your vision (which seems almost certain to me with such a slight prescription, but I am not an optician) I see no problem.
Sorry to have to hedge this with disclaimers about not being an optician, I'm as certain as I could be that you're OK (I've been looking into this recently too as I have a similar prescription along with some colour vision deficiency) but wouldn't want to mislead you either.
Flash
Quote:
Originally Posted by TruTh747
Hi guys,
I went fot a class 1 medical renewal yesterday and everything is ok except my eyes. From my last medical my vison has dropped slightly and the AME recommended i get a eye exam. I got one today and it confirms i need glasses. I still can't believe it! but ok.
My AME will review the results next wednesday (i'll be so nervous for the best part of a week) but the optician stated that i will be fine. I am a little nervous and in need of some reassurance that everything will be ok. My n14 and n5 is perfect. My vital stats are:
Uncorrected ,Corrected
right 6/12, 6/5
left 6/12, 6/5
Binocular 6/11, 6/4
unifocal (s/v distance recommended)
Sphere, Cylinder, Axis, Near (add)
right -0.25, -0.75, 90, n/a
left -0.25, -0.50, 25, n/a
Poor Vision at CAA Medical
This is due to the fact that my left eye is perfect and my right eye is pretty poor, only getting to 6/24 line on the distance vision chart. I needed to get too 6/9 at least, which is 3 lines below my best attempt. The medical officer told me that there is no way it can ever be corrected because it has something to do with the optic nerve not getting signals to the brain (hope this is not too boring!). I refuse to believe that I will never fly commercial because of this. There MUST be something that can be done. 
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