hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2605.txt

Episode: 2605
Title: HPR2605: The Eyes Have It
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2605/hpr2605.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 06:27:55

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This in HPR episode 265 entitled, Did I Have It, and in part of the series, Health and Health Care.
It is hosted by AYUKA and in about 10 minutes long and carrying a clean flag.
The summary is my history with vision issues and how I have dealt with them.
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Hello, this is AYUKA, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode,
where I'm going to be continuing the health saga, my own for now, but there's other issues we'll get to later.
And I'm going to be taking a look at my eyes, which I guess would require a mirror, wouldn't it?
Anyway, my eyes have always been an issue in some way or another.
It started when I was very young.
When I was a toddler, I developed the habit of leaving the home and heading out to the wide world to the despair of my mother.
One possible reason this was attractive is that I would frequently get picked up by the police,
who would give me an ice cream or some other treat while they figured out who I was and where I belonged.
Quite an attractive thing, if you think about it, locks certainly never stopped me.
And then one day I walked out into a highway. I was three years old.
Well, a car hit me. My skull was in pieces, literally, and I was rushed to the hospital.
Now, this was no trivial matter, and it required emergency surgery to put my skull back together.
Eventually, I was sent home with my head completely bandaged.
And a few days later, the police found me bandaged head and all, climbing on a railroad-tressel bridge.
When they took me home, the officer said to my mother,
lady, you need to keep this kid inside to which she replied, what do you suggest?
So, when my mother says that of her six children, I am the one responsible for all of her gray hairs,
you have to admit there is some justice to the charge.
Now, with a serious injury to the head, they had to do extensive testing to see if there was any damage
that required therapy. Luckily, they didn't find anything like that.
But they did tell my parents, oh, by the way, this kid will need glasses when he's around 10.
Apparently, when they tested my vision, it was a little too good.
And that sort of thing starts to deteriorate over time.
And sure enough, in fifth grade, my teacher noticed me squinting and off to the eye doctor I went.
I've worn glasses ever since. I never did get into contact lenses, and at this point,
I doubt I ever will. But it does mean I have a long-standing relationship with eye doctors.
Then, when I was diagnosed as diabetic, around 2002, I was sent in to look for science of
diabetic retinopathy. This is a common side effect of diabetes.
It occurs when high levels of blood sugar caused damage to the very fine blood vessels at the back
of the eye. Nothing was found, but I began eye checkups every year at that point as part of my
diabetic treatment. When my blood sugar was not well enough controlled, my eye doctor was not happy,
but left it to my primary care doctor deal with it.
Fortunately, as I mentioned in my previous program on diabetes, I now have excellent control
of my blood sugar, and all of my doctors are very happy now. So that's a very positive development.
Now, of course, changes can happen even without diabetes. Getting older can cause some things to
develop, but things like cataracts and glaucoma are also more common with diabetes.
And I have some very minor signs of those things, but nothing that bothers my eye doctor very much
at this point. Sometimes, he says that in another 10 years, he might need to do something about it,
but for now, don't worry. In 2013, though, I had a scare. Suddenly in my right eye, I had spots in my
eye and flashes of light, which could be a symptom of diabetic retinopathy. I also worried that maybe I
had a detached retina, whatever it was, it scared me to death. So I called the eye doctor immediately
when in for a look. Fortunately, it did turn out to be something less serious. What had happened was
that the vitreous humor, a jelly-like substance inside my eye, had pulled away, and that is fairly
common as you get older. The flashing light effect came from it pulling on my retina,
and the spot turned out to be a floater, another common issue. With time, both symptoms seem to
mostly go away, though in the case of the floater is not so much that it stopped being there,
as my brain learned to ignore its presence. I can force myself to see it, but I'm just as happy
not to. By the way, the closest I can come to describing what this looks like is like looking at
an amoeba through a microscope. Odd. Well, then my eye doctors started to see some other things
that would bear watching, so he took photos of both of my retinas that he could refer to in order
to detect any changes from year to year. And the most significant is something called macular
degeneration. This is common as people get older. It's called age-related macular degeneration. What a
surprise. And is the leading cause of blindness among people 50 and older? There's no known treatment
to cure it, but symptoms can be delayed. What my eye doctor has me doing right now is taking a
diet supplement called erids 2, which is really just a combination of vitamins.
Now, the macula is the spot in your eye in the back that provides the most sharp central vision.
And when it degenerates, you lose visual acuity in front. If you get it, formulations like
erids 2 can delay the onset of symptoms. But once you have the vision loss, the only thing left
is essentially therapy to help you adjust. At least that's the case right now.
And one of the things I'm always aware of is that medical science continues to advance.
And I'm sort of hoping that either I can slow it down enough that it's never an issue or that
something will materialize to help deal with it. Now, there are lifestyle changes that can
reduce the risk or slow the progression. Avoid smoking, exercise regularly, maintain normal blood
pressure in cholesterol levels, eat a healthy diet rich in green leafy vegetables and fish.
Well, I quit smoking in 2008. So that takes care of the avoid smoking.
As I mentioned in my previous program on diabetes, I exercise regularly and eat a lot of salad.
As a result, my blood pressure and cholesterol levels are both fine. So I have done about everything
I can do to slow the progression. Now, at this point, I do not see any differently.
So it has not manifested itself. And if I keep doing the things I am doing, I may be able to hold
it off long enough that I never quite get any serious symptoms. As I record this, I am now 66.
So I think I've got a punter's chance of making that. A few years ago, I went in for my usual
annual check-up. And my eye doctor saw some bleeding in my retina that he was concerned about. He
said it might be significant, or it might be nothing, but he referred me to a retina specialist for
a second opinion. Fortunately, the specialist said it was nothing to worry about. Although in the
course of being examined, I discovered I have a mild allergy to the contrast dye that they
injected to make it easier to read the blood vessels at the back of my eye. The contrast dye makes
them stand out more, so it's easier for the doctor to take a look at the image.
Now, the retina specialist said that from now on, I was going to be looked at every six months,
instead of once a year. So now what I do is I see my regular eye doctor in the fall, the retina
specialist six months later in the spring, and then six months after that, back to my regular eye
doctor in the fall. I do continue to wear eye glasses, though now they are bifocals. That's another
thing that happens to you over time. Over time, I find I need them more. For most of my life, I only
needed glasses for seeing things in the distance, such as when I'm driving, since otherwise the
road signs would be kind of fuzzy. Generally, I would take them off for other things since I didn't
need to use them. But then I found about ten years ago I could no longer read fine print,
and five years ago it got to reading in general. Now, I still take my glasses off when I'm at the
computer, but I suppose that won't last too much longer either. But having worn glasses for 56
years at this point, I'm pretty used to it, and I don't think that would be a problem.
As webwilder says, where glasses if you need them. So at this point, my vision is fine for me,
and I can do all the things I want to do. That may or may not change as I get older,
but I know I am doing everything I can to slow the development of macular degeneration.
Otherwise, as I always do, I follow my doctor's advice and take advantage of the best care I can get.
So this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio, and I will, as always, remind you to support free
software. Bye-bye.
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