Archives for June 13th, 2004

My right eyeball, with Sauron Syndrome.

Earlier this year, my local optometry ran out of Acuvue contact lenses, my preferred brand. Rather than wait for the next shipment, I decided to take whatever was available.

“What’s available?” I asked the optometrist.
“Focus Monthly Lenses by CibaVision,” he said.
“OK then,” I said, “Give me twelve of their hydrophilic contact lenses immersed in sterile isotonic phosphate buffered saline solution.”
“Who did what now?” he asked.

I eventually got the lenses. However, after trying the first pair for a week, I suddenly developed Sauron Syndrome. That’s where your eye, which normally isn’t on fire, suddenly catches fire. Or at least, it feels like it’s on fire. I should mention that I’ve been wearing contact lenses for about a decade and have never had any problems, much less an inferno raging on my cortex.

I removed the lenses, switched to glasses, and let the fire burn out. I thought it might be an infection and decided to take it easy for a while. This Friday, after a month of wearing glasses, I decided to try the Focus lenses again. I put them in, and immediately went back to being Sauron.

So, two big thumbs down to CibaVision, whose contact lenses ate my eyeballs.

Moving right along: European Parliamentary Elections are going on today in Slovenia. According to one poll, the center-left Liberal Democrats of Slovenia (LDS) are expected to take 31%, followed by the main opposition party with 19%. The total results of the poll are here. I’ll post something tomorrow about the actual results and the election. Right now I have to go put on an eye patch or something.