I left it until I was 58 — and just wish I’d done it sooner

AT THE age of ten, I found I was unable to see the blackboard and an eye test confirmed I had myopia (short-sightedness), which was corrected with spectacles.

Initially, glasses were a blessing because I no longer had to sit in the front row in classes. However, the novelty soon wore off — especially after the problems I encountered on the rugby field and in the swimming pool.

From that time on, I struggled — as many do — with the burden of glasses.

Naturally cautious, I decided to hold back on having laser eye surgery until I met an eye surgeon who’d had it, but it wasn’t until I was 58 that I met that expert, and learned that his wife, too, had undergone the procedure.

Confidence boosted, I decided to go ahead, by now frustrated at the misting up of my spectacles on my motorcycle, never being able to find my towel (or my family) on the beach, and aware of the everincreasing cost of a new pair of varifocals (€550 even then) every couple of years.

I had the good fortune to be under the care of one of the top experts using the most advanced technology.

An hour after the painless operation, I was home, with slightly red, irritable eyes and perfect vision — for distance.

I had been warned that, posttreatment, my near vision would be poor at best, and indeed it was — so poor I had to go out that day to buy off-the-shelf reading glasses.

The re-shaping of the cornea to give me normal distant vision had, as predicted, removed the ability to focus on anything close.

This meant I was dependent on reading glasses to see anything close, and several aspects of my work became more difficult — particularly examining the ears and eyes with a scope.

A whole new world of frustration opened up: endlessly searching for reading glasses of the right focal length for different activities.

On the motorcycle, I couldn’t read the speedometer or the rev counter, it was all guesswork.

With hindsight, I should have had the operation 28 years earlier, when I was 30, not 58, when I would need reading glasses, too. That way I would have got the greatest benefit from the surgery.

The pity was that six years after the laser surgery, I lost my new-found distance vision when I suffered a retinal detachment — when the retina pulls away from the back of the eye.

I know that some experts claim laser surgery raises the risk of this condition, but I am not convinced — certainly my laser eye surgeon, and the surgeon who corrected my retinal detachment, didn’t raise this as an issue.

Retinal detachment is more common if you’re shortsighted — the very people most likely to undergo laser eye surgery. Following treatment, glasses had to become a part of my life once more.

I was disappointed — the original vision-correcting procedure in 2008 had cost about €4,000. It all seemed such a waste.

Furthermore, by 2014, I had developed cataracts as a result of steroids (for a lung complaint) and needed yet more surgery.

But if you asked me whether I would have laser correction again, I’d say yes, if it was done by the right hands and at the right time. I was too old to reap the full benefits.

My dictum is always avoid unnecessary surgery. But the question is . . . for eyes, what is necessary?