Failing Vision

[blitz11]

Greetings.

I have spent all weekend trying to build a wirewrap circuit board for my new CDI design. I can't see anymore. My vision used to be tremendous, but now glare, copper, silver, tinned leads all look the same to me. I have 2 sets of glasses (one sort of close up, one really close up), but neither seems to work anymore.

I had to give up. I tried lighting, shading, magnifying classes, headlamps, nothing worked. I am just gonna' triple check my design, and have a board made and hope it works. I don't have any other choice.

I just turned 50, and this is the most depressing thing. I don't run as fast as I used to, I can't ride my bicycle as fast as I used to, but I can deal with that. This vision thing is really getting to me, though.

My distance vision is still really good, but I can't see close up anymore.

Anybody suffer from this? Any way around it? I find jobs which used to take not long at all take longer 'cause I can't see. I don't have enough hours in the day as it it.

Any insight is solicited.

Thanks.

blitz

 

[tm_enduro]

As a track & field athlete and a former AA racer, I feel your pain, aging is rough. When I work on stuff now days, I put enough lights on the subject to heat it up and I wear magnifiers, and I can deal with that. But the loss of depth perception has been the most disturbing part of aging. I have not found the answer yet.
Being a runner, I have read a few articles on the effects of doping for sports, and from what I have read, use of HGH seems help give you 18YO eyes again, along with side effects.

 

[Fred1956]

At 54 I just keep getting stronger glasses for the close up stuff. $2 ones from Dollar store seem to work good for me. I feel your pain though

 

[mtothef]

not much consolation, but...

this happens to everyone, and it starts happening with clockwork regularity to people at around 40. our corneas begin to harden, or at least that's what the eye doc told me (46). as they get hard, they no longer have the elasticity to get shaped by our eye muscles into the right shape to see well close up. hence the booming market in bifocals.

at least you've got good distance vision. i've been slightly shortsighted my whole life. not real bad, but bad enough to need glasses to pass the driver eye test. i was fine with that because my close up vision was awesome. emphasis on "was". now i'm thinking i might as well get eye surgery, and have them adjust me for full on eagle-eye long vision, and then wear glasses and carry a big old magnifyer for trying to read jets. at least then my eyes would work at one end of the spectrum, instead of neither...

 

[gasmonkey]

This will be a common thread for most of us vets.My vision is the opposite,great for working on stuff close up but far away and in dodgy light I'm stuffed.Sometimes it's good to have a fellow vet with you who can see far away to fill the in the gaps.

 

[GasGas]

I'm a 41 year old carpenter and my eyes are just starting to get a little fuzzy on the close up stuff now. Not bad enough to justify wearing glasses though. That is going to be a depressing day. My brother had to break down and start using the safety glasses with the built in magnifiers for doing machine work, but he's got 5 years on my eyes and 15 on the hair. LOL

 

[bchatt]

I currently need 3 pairs of glasses because I only have a narrow range of focus. It drives me nuts. 1 pr for driving (or riding) 1 pr for middle and 1 pr for reading or close up - working on the bike etc. What I hate now most of all is T-shirts without pockets!! 'cause I can never find the glasses I just put down!

 

[john01]

Yep I'm 52 now and went through the can't see to read about 5 years ago. I knew I couldn't wear glasses so I went a had the Lasik done. Now I can READ again.

 

[Clay]

I just turned 51 last week. My close up eye site is getting really bad, too.
My 16 year old son passed me for the first time last weekend in the 4th section at the TX National Enduro. That bugged me worse than going blind!
Clay

 

[rgranger]

Glasses only fix so much, at some point we need to get checked for cataracts. I am lucky so far, had well better than 20/20 most of my life with only some miled astigmatism, now that seems to be getting worse as is my close up, the $2 glasses from walgreens have been a big help as the bi-focal's don't work well looking up under a dashboard as the near view lens is at the bottom, the strait magnifiers seem to be a very good compromise. I keep thinking about going for the lasik stuff, but only to even things out and fix the astigmatism so that the el-cheapo glasses work better I would be worried about the mono-vision fix screwing up the depth perception (any one have this and have comments)?

 

[Qui-gon]

I can give y'all a couple of years but I still work on smd circuit boards from time to time. The biggest problem is the components get smaller as your eyes get worse! I use a very large illuminated magnifier and a jeweller's loupe for really close up work. It is very important that your eyes are comfortable when working like that or you just make it worse. I always now work in the daylight and take regular breaks.
Wire wrapping seems very 70s or 80s so why not use one of the cad packages for the design and make up a prototype circuit board? Designing the circuit and the board on a big screen is a lot easier than using a wiring pencil.There are a few online services around where they give you the tools and you buy the board from them. It is not that expensive these days and makes for a better job.

 

[blitz11]

I was going to do the protoboard prior to the circuit board to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. Breadboard to protoboard can be a big jump, and this design seems to warrant that before spending the bigger $$$. I thought this step would be prudent. Big mistake. I should have just made the order. I know better now.

In the old days, i could whip out a board pretty quickly. I guess those days are gone. I guess at some point you have to have someone do your stuff for you. It looks like i am at that point.

Oh well, live and learn.

blitz

 

[lankydoug]

I had lasik about 15 years ago and could see 20-10 in both eyes plus had great close up vision. Had being the operative word, when you get old your close up vision will still go away. Now at 47 I'm starting to notice that I have to hold jets a little farther away to read the numbers on them and when I took my last eye test my left eye was 20-30. Getting old and weak should not be forced on the old and weak.

 

[john01]

Ranger mine is mono Lasik Plus and the depth thing is not a problem at all. I'm right eye dominant so they did my left eye. The only problem I had for about a week was night driving. The on-comming lights would make things fuzzy for a few seconds or so. Now everything is clear I can even read the numbers on the jets and needles. Hey lankydog when I got mine done they offered insurance where they would correct for the age change. Mine was only $895.00 and with the insurance it was $1,295.00 or so. Best money I spent on my body LOL.

 

[urnuts]

I had some of my monitors at work die...

So I bought some parts, got the solder out.... yeah, right!
I couldn't even see the end of the soldering iron.
Getting old sucks!
46, btw.

 

[bchatt]

I'm thinking this would not be a thread you would see on Thumper talk! I wonder what the average age of GG owners is - about 60, according to this thread!! (Blind and senile as well). I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

[GMP]

I'm 52 and just got my first pair of reading glasses this spring. A crusher for me as I have always been better than 20/20 and once passed a pilots vision test. First clue was having trouble reading the menu in a dimly lit restaurant. Good light especially outdoors I'm still OK. My distance vision is still good. A couple years ago I got a new office with no window, and I swear this has a lot to do with it. I used to always look out the window to change focus every ten minutes or so.

 

[HuskyDude]

Ya their going quick. I had perfect vision till 48 then I notice I had to hold things further away from me to see them clearly. I wear cheater now even while looking at the monitor.

 

[mcnut]

I'm not using bi-focals yet although I probably should be. I have to use the cheap "reading glasses" to read the numbers on a carb jet. By definition I'm near-sighted but now that's going away.

In the last couple of years I've ditched the glasses and have been using prescription inserts in my goggles. It is a major improvement over glasses under the goggles. At least now when I'm steamed up, so is everyone else.

 

[Bobt250]

It's called Presbyopia and it happens to everyone.

I had a very bad lasik experience. Don't roll that dice. Contrary to what they tell you if something goes wrong in any way it's permanent. They can't fix some of what can go wrong with what they call and "enhancement".