Talking of eyes.

That's right. Which was when I started to wear glasses. And during 33 of those years since, my prescription changed very little, so new glasses were rarely needed. It was only in the final two years, during which cataract presence was confirmed, that it changed by about 4 dioptres - from somewhat long-sighted to somewhat short-sighted.

Always thought 'optometrists' a US term.

I suppose it's hard to spell (and say).

Tim Streater snipped-for-privacy@greenbee.net wrote

But you don?t know that that was due to reduced flexibility of the lenses, it is much more likely to have been due to a change in the eyeballs given the age at which that occurred.

So that change in the eyeballs didn?t keep occurring.

Again, you have no way of knowing that the cataracts CAUSED that and given that cataracts are very common at that age, and that variation in the refractive index at that age is too, and that plenty do don?t have cataracts also see a change in refractive index or in the eyeballs, there is no basis for claiming that the cataracts CAUSED the change in prescription.

Fredxx snipped-for-privacy@nospam.invalid wrote

But happens much more often without cataracts.

It

It does when you are claiming that the cataracts CAUSED the change in prescription.

Why are you wasting time with Rod? You don?t fancifully imagine that you will ?win? any argument with him? You?re only giving him a stiffy.

Tim

You're projecting, again.

Go dance a hornpipe, why don't you, you undesirable side-effect.

Heard a news item on the radio this morning that might explain why NAC isn't more widely used for the treatment of cataract. The piece was about the use of medical cannabis to treat epilepsy in children. Apparently only three prescriptions have been issued in the three years since such use was legalised.The reason advanced for this very low number is that doctors are personally liable if something goes wrong as a result of their prescribing unlicensed medication.

As NAC isn't a licensed medicine, doctors won't touch it. The profit in making and selling it it trivial - something like £16 for two 5ml vials to buy on Amazon, enough for up to two months treatment - isn't going to fund the licensing process. Sometimes the medical profession just isn't one's best friend...

Even worse, because NAC isn't licensed for cataract treatment, it can't be sold for that reason, which is why it's advertised as 'soothing eye drops' or something similar. One has to read the reviews to find out why people are really using it.

Yesterday I got my first appointment date, for mid February. I have been waiting since early September. This consultation is probably just the first assessment and not any operation.

The letter explains that the NHS has "appointed" a local private hospital to help with the NHS backlog. In reality the local hospital had a good reputation for eye surgery and it seems that the consultants formed a partnership and set up a private hospital specialising in eye treatment in the same street as the main hospital. I'll probably be seeing the same consultants as I would have done if I had had the appointment at the local NHS hospital.

I too will consider going private if any resulting operation has a long waiting time on the NHS.

My guess is that being deep blue, it's not quite in focus in your bad eye which might have chromatic aberration, but multicoloured things have a range of wavelengths and on balance appear to be in focus.