Thursday, January 17, 2008

I don't usually do this type of thing......

I know, I know, bad joke.....or is it? I know loads of people who have had laser eye surgery done in the last five years or so it's definitely a Celtic tiger phenomenon, that and plastic surgery. Ah, but I hear you protesting, no it's not the same at all, plastic surgery is frivolous, but laser eye surgery, well that's an essential surgery! Is it? Is it any less frivolous or less vain than having your boobs lifted (when I win the lotto, the girls are going back up to prebaby position) or having your ass fat sucked out and then injected into your face?

I love the episode of the Simpsons set in the future where Lisa is President and Ned Flanders is blind because ten years after laser surgery your eyes fall out! Also love it cos Rod and Tod are flaming and look like Tom Sellek! How do we know what's gonna happen? I don't want anyone going near my corneas with a laser....just run those words through your mind for a moment, a laser....burning your eye....No! If I had a growth or cancer or some kind of sight threatening disease yes, but just because I'm short sighted (I actually only have 30% vision in my right eye, so I just hope my left eye is never damaged!).

We worry a lot about people putting botox in their bodies or silicone but very rarely do we talk about laser eye surgery, and maybe we should, these clinics play on our insecurities the same way the cosmetic surgery companies do. "You too could have perfect sight, wake up in the morning, no need to put on your glasses to see your wife (maybe the wife likes that he can't see her first thing?), you can swim, play rugby, see your baby being born without your glasses getting steamed up, all if you just pay us one thousand euro per eye!" But is this the reality? I know one friend of my age who had no problem with one eye but wound up suffering problems for over a year with the second, now I don't know if he'd change his decision, but it shows the risks.

Some of the people I know who have had it done have lost something afterwards, their glasses were a part of them almost, part of their face, their personality, and now they look a bit naked without them. It's the same thing with teeth whitening, everyone seems to be rushing in to have bleach smeared inside their mouths to make those pearly whites shine. I have heard awful horror stories about that, I suppose I remember when you went to the dentist and he cleaned your teeth for you and that was how you had white teeth, and they weren't as white as the teeth today are. But there was minimum chance your teeth would fall out or your gums would recede.

Why do we want to look so generic? Why do we feel the need to look like celebrities or pop stars? I just don't get what is wrong with just being ourselves, slightly off white teeth, glasses and sagging boobs! No one is perfect, no one at all because there is much variety in human beings there really can be no model for perfect. If we (myself included) could get this into our thick skulls we would be so much happier, and there'd be less chance of our eyeballs and teeth falling out in twenty years time!

9 comments:

  1. I'd like to have good vision again - I too have a dodgy left eye but my right has started getting worse since this last p[regnancy (sigh) so I'mstarting to notice, it makes me feel old.

    I stopped wearing my glasses after my daughter was born, too much of a hazaard - and I liked being unencumbered again. I think my glasses had started looking like a part of me - I must have been getting that myopic, bleary lok people who wear glasses all thetime get, and people think they look wierd without them. I think it's sad, like you can't look like yourself without this thing you stick on your face anymore!

    BUT there's no way I could sit still while someone lazered my eye, nope, never.

    Never will I ever be awake while someone burns my cornea with a lazer! BLEH!

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  2. Exactly, squeamish won't let me go there, not that I'd have any interest. But to me the main point is the misconception that blur is bad. Blur is good. I find blur relaxing. I like trying on stronger glasses temp. just for that blur chill. I have very minor short-sightedness and wear glasses only for driving and cinema. I could wear them all the time but couldn't be arsed and find the clarity too shocking, gives me a paid on my head.

    I went to get my glasses done a while back and after the whole shop reviving from the swoon caused by my declaration that I had checked my eyes in 7 years, I asked the woman was it true that your vision gets worse if you don't wear correction lenses. She said no it was nothing to do with it. She was trying to point out that glasses are for seeing better, presuming that 20/20 is perfection - but for me its not.

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  3. I noticed an advertorial on one of the free sheets yesterday morning. Basically Brendan O'Carroll must have got his eyes done for free in return for sticking his arselike face to the company's marketing.

    You should keep an eye out for it. It's full of double entendres and would encourage you to go blind rather than face into having to have the tits who allowed this to be published anywhere near you

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  4. LOL
    beautiful comment. Award for funniest coment goes to...

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  5. Interesting. At a brief and badly done count I make it at least 7 of us who wear glasses in one form or another.

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  6. It's obviously all from spending too much time reading screens and pages... or wanking...

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  7. Wanking????Jo surely that's an old wives tale????

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  8. As for yer man Brendan O'Carroll, oh he just makes me want to throw up. So horrible, little evil man!

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  9. No, no, it definitely blinds you ;)

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