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.