Eye Appointment - Is This A Good Day to Dilate You r Eyes

Well, I arrived at my eye appointment a few minutes early.  When I had called and asked for the appointment, they asked about my insurance.  I had my "major medical" card with me, but I did not have the card for my supplementary vision insurance, which I purchased about a year ago, and never used before.  When I signed in, they informed me they were able to access my supplementary insurance information, and would be using that as my primary for the appointment. I was a little concerned that that kind of information is available about me online, but well, what isn't these days.  But, that saved me a little bit of money for my co-pay, even though I had the insurance card with me at the appointment. 

I wore my old glasses into the appointment, but had enough forethought to bring my broken pair of glasses with me.  That was good, because they wanted to do my screening exam with that pair of glasses, and we were able to do so.

As the exam progressed, I was informed that they were going to dilate my pupils.  Well, when I started seeing an ophthalmologist as a child, he always, always, dilated our pupils.  Over the years, I have usually used optometrists, and sometimes they dilate my eyes, and sometimes, they don't.  I hate having my eyes dilated, but generally feel more confident in the optometrist, if they do dilate my eyes.

So, when we arrived at that point in my exam, the optometrist asked me if this was a good day to dilate my pupils.  I hesitated and said, "yes."  Later in the process, I told her that she should not ask that question, because it was never a good day to dilate my pupils.  She said she understood, and rephrased the question.  I answered something like, "yes, I am not scheduled to read anything in public in the next few hours under bright lights."  I do not think she took offense. I hope she did not. 

The one thing I noticed about this exam that I had not always noticed (because it was not present) in my prior exams, was that when tests were good, I was told the results.  I was, of course, told the results when tests were bad in the past.  But when things were okay or good, the optometrist would usually say "uh hum," and that was that.  I should have told the optometrist how much I appreciate that.

The one thing I did tell her, when she talked about my cataracts, was that was the same thing she told me last time, so I am guessing they did not enlarge too much.  She checked the record and agreed with me.  That was nice. 

The clinic provided slip in sunglasses so even though I said I had sunglasses in the vehicle, I was instructed to wear the slip ins out to the car.  The gentleman checking out next to me at the same time, who said he had sunglasses in the car, was told the same thing.  That, too impressed me.  

I drove home very carefully.  I had hoped to run some errands after the appointment, but did not remember they would dilate my eyes.  I decided not to drive any more than I needed to, so went straight home.  It was about 3 hours later before my vision started to normalize.  It was very frustrating. But, the doctor did tell my that I had good eye health, so dilating the pupils of my eyes had some reassurance benefit.