Free glasses, eye surgery and stuff

It's -1 F in my part of the world right now, and I don't approve.  Not that anyone asked, but there's my opinion.  When its above 68 I don't approve either. 

I had the most amazing day today!  My self help aide took me to the PO where I picked up a book I ordered for her for Christmas and I just tucked it into my messenger bag. 

Then we went to my pharmacy and I picked up a prescription and was delighted to see that my insurance paid the pharmacy 166.68 for the 30 day supply.  They only pay $4 on a 90 day supply which costs him 594.  I get all my drugs 90 days at a time, but the pharmacist called and asked if I would please consider getting it only 30 days at a time.  He said my insurance company reimburses him a reasonable amount when he fills for 30 days, but virtually nothing at 60 and 90.  I wasn't happy about it; his pharmacy is 28 miles from my house.  But  I like him and I've done business with him for a long time so I said yes. 

Then we went to the eye clinic in town and stopped in the optometrist's area first to get my glasses adjusted again. 

And then we went upstairs to the surgery center.  There, my ophthalmologist used a laser gun to put about 100 holes in each of my eyes.  This is the second time we've done this, and it worked very well the first time.  We do it to lower the pressure in my eyes.  It's never been real clear whether I have glaucoma or just high eye pressure, but the diagnosis has been glaucoma since I was 19.  And my eyes don't respond very well to drops, so we have trouble keeping my pressure down.  Laser surgery does the job, though. 

I reassured a man in the waiting room who had not yet gone in that there is no pain involved in the surgery.  The doctor utterly goos up your eye and then puts a magnifying lens on it and finds her places to make the holes. 

Laser surgery apparently has many applications in vision care.  In macular degeneration, the wet kind, laser surgery destroys the veins causing damage to the retina.  The only drawback to that surgery is that it has to be done rather often to keep the new growths gone. 

Laser surgery is also used in  Lasik of course, but I don't know of many people who can afford it.  I think insurance companies should pay for it if it's going to eliminate  the need for glasses.  But of course medical insurance would pay for the surgery and vision would pay for the glasses, so they probably don't work together that way. 

When I was employed, I had VSP insurance to help pay for my glasses.  Since they cost about $700 each time, it's very nice to have insurance.  And I recently learned that I could get it for a very decent monthly payment (less than $15) so I enrolled again.  I will have a small copay for lenses next time and nothing else.  I think it's about $30 and when you compare that to $700, it's just not a bad thing at all. You might want to research them if you wear glasses.  I believe it's relatively recently that they've begun accepting private subscribers instead of just accepting businesses. 

And the other place to check out is Coastal.com.  Every now and again they do a promotion allowing one pair of free glasses per individual.  They call it your "first" pair of glasses with them, but of course you don't have to go back and buy more from them.  I paid 13.31 for my glasses, and that was just shipping.  If you have a pair of glasses that fit, they probably have 3 tiny numbers on the inside of one temple.  Find those and enter them on the site; that gets you immediately to frames with the same measurements across your nose, in the temples, and between your eye and lens.  So that's one set of numbers.  The next is your prescription.  I just got my pair for reading glasses, so the prescription was pretty simple.  And the offer is limited to single vision glasses, by the way.  If you need new glasses or if you want to reduce the cost of your next pair of glasses, coastal.com's offer just can't be beat.