Category health

Today I made a stop at Costco and visited the eye doctor inside to get some contact lenses. I’d tried getting them back in 2002 or so, but found that I didn’t really care for them at the time with my eyes feeling dry almost all the time. Now that I’ve been biking a lot I find myself wanting sunglasses, but it’s both difficult and rather expensive to get them in prescription models, and even if I do it’s necessary to carry a pair of clear lenses if I’m out late enough that it becomes dark.

This eye exam was much different than the last, with a device being used to determine how much correction my eye needs then the results of this confirmed with the old fashioned lens-based eye exam tool. This is much nicer than the old “This or That”, “One or Two”, “A or B” method. This was followed up with a puff-less glaucoma test, inspection of my retina, and then application of a fluorescent dye and close-up inspection of the surface of my eye and tears.

The device which automatically determined my prescription displayed an image of a hot air balloon with three colored stripes, which I suspect is really the image it looks for on my retina, with the three colors being used so it can compensate for chromatic aberration. It also measured my pupillary distance, which the doctor noted on the prescription after I asked for it so that I can use said prescription to order glasses online.

Hopefully I’ll have some time this weekend and throughout this week to try out the daily disposable contacts that I was given. This type was suggested to me by the doctor after I told him that I only plan on wearing them on days when I’ll be riding my bike, and that otherwise I’ll probably just wear my glasses. He told me that he uses this type as well when playing softball and is quite happy with them.

The most recent stage of the cold is an exceedingly runny nose. Danielle experienced this yesterday and purchased the box of Target-brand (up & up) pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, which helped her but kept her from sleeping well last night.

Knowing that this drug makes me feel overstimulated I resisted taking any, but by mid-afternoon when my nose needed to be emptied every five minutes or so, I relented. Since twenty minutes (or so) after injecting the pill I’ve felt twitchy, shaky, and slightly nauseous, the same as if I’d just ingested a few hundred milligrams of caffeine. This is not very much fun, and hopefully it won’t keep me from sleeping, as there’s a bunch of things that I want to get done at work tomorrow.

Last night both Danielle and I started to feel a bit run down, and this morning I found myself feeling heavy and sluggish, with a bit of a headache and stomach ache. Since both Pandemic H1N1/09 is going around and my coworker Tom just got back to work from being off with strep throat, I opted to go to the doctor this morning. The doctor tested me for strep, then determined that I likely just have an upper respiratory infection and prescribed me a course of Azithromycin, as seen above.

Made by the same company that brought us Delysid, this serious antibiotic has worked well for me in the past. I hope it does this time – and does so rapidly – as I’d like to be feeling well before Massive Fallout, which is scheduled for this Saturday.