This is a public service announcement (per mainstream optometry rules): Do not try to measure your refraction. In fact, do not measure anything, when it comes to your eyesight. Don’t measure and most importantly, don’t adjust diopters. Just don’t do it. You’re *not* qualified and very bad things could happen.
Very. Bad. Things. This is nothing less than curved, clear plastic we’re talking about here. Curved, do think about this means. Think about what you’re messing with. You are bending light! That’s how Star Trek episodes start out, somebody bending some light, thinking it’s no big deal. Thinking, I totally got this. And next thing you know, green aliens, planets exploding. Kirk on fire. That’s what you’re messing with, son.
Bending of the light is the nitroglycerine, the heroin, the poison tipped, spiked baseball bat of vision science.
What now?! You feel confused. You think, Jake. Come on. It’s a rather simple matter of optics, after all, not rocket science. Diopters are nothing more than inverse meters. Measuring myopia, nothing more than a test lens kit and an eye chart. You think. Why would Jake say I’m not qualified to measure my eyesight? And why would the optometry profession lobby government to exclude the public from choosing their own diopter correction, if they wish to do so?
You try to make sense of it, comparing other scenarios:
What’s easier, learning to drive a car, or measure your myopia? Which of the two requires more education, more practice, involves more hardware, more theory, and more rules?
If you were to buy a test lens kit and spend an hour or two on the basics of refraction, you could measure your myopia, without fail, perfectly, every single time. Learning to drive on the other hand, probably took you longer than an hour from the first time you ever saw the inside of a car.
And yet … one thing you’re allowed to do, and the other you aren’t. You don’t get it. Why is this a big deal?
Anyway. Hey look, Jacqueline is doing das Verboten, jaaa!
Complete disregard for survival, this one.
So, why aren’t you allowed to do this?
Why can’t you buy a test lens kit, an eye chart, figure out your diopter needs, and then order glasses accordingly? You’re thinking about substances that appear to be far more dangerous to your health, that you aren’t restricted from abusing:
You can buy all the Tylenol you want, over the counter. 50% of all diagnosed liver failure is attributed to over use of Tylenol. Do you need to take a course before buying ten boxes of Tylenol? Is it a prescription? No. Over 50.000 emergency room visits a year attributed to Tylenol, highest incidence rate of staggered overdose, damage to kidney and brain.
But hey, don’t worry about that. A bit of clear plastic curved lens, that’s where we draw the line at what you’re allowed to handle. Because again, fool, you just. wouldn’t. understand. You stare at the abyss long enough, it’ll stare right back. You don’t want to go there, trust me. Trust optometry.
Worse even, you could get addicted. Buying higher and higher diopter lenses, mortgaging your house, losing your family, eventually standing on the street corner, sucking c**k for that next diopter fix.
You are thinking, Jake. GTFO, you’re kidding. Inverse meters, a five year old can understand that. An eye chart. Something made up by non medical dudes, centuries ago. How did this all get anything more than kindergarden math levels of complicated, in the last decade? How would anyone abuse diopters, in any possible, conceivable way?
There’s IKEA furniture that requires more effort and reading and brains to assemble, than measuring refraction. And yet … go ahead, buy all the Morling Furling Haaken Hausen sofas you want. Buy the sofa, then stop by the drug store for a few boxes of Tylenol, driving your car all over town.
Not refraction, though. That’s beyond your abilities. And lenses, only to be handled by specialists, in BSL-4 level containment units.
Anywho.
Stop questioning everything, ingrate. This is what’s best for you.
Cheers,
-Jake
