For most people, eye care is important. When you only have one functioning eye, eye care is crucial. You don’t have the same margin for error that other people do, so you have to take extra care of the one eye you do have. There are certain things you can do easily, like protective eyewear, but it’s also really important to establish yourself with the right eye care professional. Here are a few tips.
Don’t Just Stick With the Doctor at the Eye Glasses Shop
If you need glasses or a contact for your good eye (although you probably should avoid vision-correcting contacts if you have monocular vision), you likely go to a place that sells glasses. Those places employ optometrists who will give you an eye exam. This is good, but it may not be enough. Why? If something goes wrong in your bad eye — this happened to me — that doctor at the glasses shop may not be able to help you. Worse still, if something goes wrong in your good eye, that doctor definitely won’t be able to help you.
Instead, Get Established With a Hospital or Practice that Specializes in Eye Problems
Years ago a relative strongly encouraged me to seek out an ophthalmologist to see regularly. At that time I had no real problems other than the fact that I was mostly blind in my right eye, but the relative felt like it would be smart for me to have an expert who understood my eye and could keep an eye on both my bad eye and my good one, anticipate problems, and react quickly if something went wrong with either eye.
I looked for someone who could handle things like retina issues, cataracts, and other eye problems. There were several options in my area, including hospital-based operations and private practices. I went with a local hospital-based team, which was affiliated with a local university and had some very good doctors.
Getting established with an ophthalmologist turned out to be a smart decision. A couple of years into my time with those doctors, my bad eye developed serious problems, including high eye pressure. When that happened, it was great to be established with someone that I could get into see in a hurry, and who already knew my situation well. In my case, it was a relief not to have to fill out a stack of intake paperwork while in serious eye pain.
A note: a hospital ophthalmologist or vision-based practice will most likely take health insurance rather than vision insurance. If you don’t have health insurance, or if you have a high deductible that doesn’t exclude specialist copays, this can cost you. Still, it’s worth it if you can afford it.
See If the Hospital or Practice Will Also Issue Your Glasses Prescription
At a certain point, I decided I was done with going to glasses shops. I was tired of enduring two eye exams a year and explaining my eye situation to the glasses place every time. The worst was telling the optometrist at the glasses place that “I already have my eyes dilated somewhere else,” and being told, “well, we have to do it anyway.”
So I asked the doctor at the hospital I went to if they could do glasses prescriptions, and it turned out they could. Unfortunately, in the United States health and vision insurance are separate, so I had to pay out of pocket for the “eye exam” part of the visit, but for me it was well worth the trouble.
I also saved money on the glasses themselves by getting them online, which was far cheaper than the glasses places around me. Amazingly enough, I’ve also had better luck with durability buying glasses online.
This arrangement may not be for everyone. But for me, it’s made for a less stressful glasses-buying experience.
Hi, thanks for the blog! I still have my eye, but 5 surgeries and counting (cornea transplant 2 on the way) and I don’t think I will see out of it again, if I keep it in my head, and I am trying to wrap my head around the possibility of losing it. I have found the info informative and encouraging.
I’ve been wrapping my head around the prospect of losing my eye, too. I recently told my eye doctor that I had to go through the stages of grief, but I’m close to acceptance if and when that happens. (And, of course, if and when it does happen, it’s probably a foregone conclusion that I’ll write about it here.)
Josh , thank you.
Things are different in the UK. Unless a person is under the care of a Hospital due to an accident most use the services of an optician which are abundant in most high streets.
They do not just prescibe glasses, they do field vision tests, eyeball pressure tests and a host of other things as well, they examins your eyes visualy and in my case are always interested in my blind eye in case there is anything going on there.(its beyound repair)
If they spot anything which may develope they will make arrangments for you to visit a hospital which has eye care facilities. all are advised under our national health to have an annual checkup, this is free to those over 60, so I use it.
Thanks for sharing. Like most things related to health care in the United States, eye care is complicated. The biggest divide is that vision insurance in the U.S. covers glasses and routine eye visits, while eye problems like glaucoma, cataracts, retinal issues, and others is covered by health insurance. It would probably make more sense if we had a system more like what you do.
I am blind in my right eye. I’ve been this way all of my life. In school, learning to write was an issue, particularly staying within the lines of the paper. Many times, teachers would yell at me for my writing drifting off the paper on my blind side. I always like to think of it like this: Imagine looking at a piece of paper and only being able to see half the lines on the paper. How would you do if you were able to see only half the lines? Letter formation was another issue. I would constantly be yelled at for having “sloppy and careless penmanship.”
But the focus of the article is finding an eye doctor when you are blind in one eye. Luckily this has never been an issue for me. all of my eye doctors have been interested in protecting my only good eye. One of my eye doctors was hesitant to do cataract surgery on my only good eye because it was only my good eye. 12 years ago, my eye doctor was able to successfully do cataract surgery on my left eye, my only good eye, and I never had any complications of being able to see out of my good eye. This past February I successfully had a YAG laser procedure on my left eye, the same eye I had the cataract surgery. The same eye doctor performed that procedure. My eye doctors and I agree that it wouldn’t serve any purpose to have cataract surgery on my blind eye, my right eye, as the only vision I have in that eye is some peripheral vision, but no central vision ( I can’t read with it, or see distances with it) Some years ago, my retinal specialist was wondering if I could undergo interocular injections to shrink the size of my noncancerous ocular tumors in both eyes. So she sent me to an ocular tumor specialist for a second opinion. She was concerned about how to do this and protect my only good eye. The most important thing is if you have a vision in one eye, to make sure you find an eye doctor who is interested in protecting your good eye, and not rush to treatment. If you don’t have one like that, then change eye doctors. And optometrists are not acceptable. Optometrists don’t have as much training as an MD or D.O. opthalmologist who has extensive training in diseases and conditions of the eye. Optometrists are only good for checking your eyes for glasses or contacts and only have a general knowledge of the eye, as well as diseases and conditions of the eye.