A seemingly unique problem

[Terestai]

Hi all! I'm new here, but I joined to pose a question about a problem that has troubled me for years and has elicited only chuckles from every opthamologist I've ever visited.

Let me start by saying that I'm not the least bit color blind (yes, I'm a guy... I know that's an important factor in this case and hard to tell on a message board :) ). I'm farsighted, but only mildly so at this point. At the age of 45, my mom wears a +7.00 for distance and her eyes started getting bad at the same time in life that mine did (for the record, I'm 27 and have had eye trouble for ten years). Like her, I've been told that I will probably never be able to wear contacts because lens manufacturers don't make contacts for eyes with such flat corneas. I was fitted for some contacts yesterday, and the numbers on them are BC 8.7, DIA 14.0, and +.25 in each eye, and they're still too curved. My glasses are +.75 for distance and I've always been told that I have no discernable astigmatism.

Please forgive my lack of familiarity with the lexicon of the eye care profession. My degree is in film and I currently work in international tax law. Don't ask.

Like other hyperopic people, I have problems with eye exams because my eyes still try to accomodate distance vision, though I have to strain to see small details like the craters of the moon, the pinpoint light of stars, or the writing on road signs at night. Even then, I can't do it for more than a few seconds (though it is possible when I try), and doing it for too long gives me headaches.

So here's my problem - colored lights on dark backgrounds. Every opthamologist I've ever been to has laughed when they heard the following story, and none have wanted to disuss it with me in depth.

Simply put, I have problems seeing red, orange, yellow and white lights without my glasses. With my glasses on, they come into focus nicely. Conversely, I can see blue, purple and green lights perfectly with my glasses off, but they diffuse into obscurity when I wear any sort of correction.

Has ANYONE heard of this? So far, noone I've gone to see has, and I'm at my wit's end.

Let me give a few examples as to how this works in different situations.

1. Think of a liquor store at night. They usually turn off the inside lights but keep their neon signs illuminated at all hours. Those signs are of many different colors. Without glasses, I can see the blue, purple and green lights (the cool end of the spectrum) at the same time and without difficulty, but red, yellow, orange and white lights (the hot spectrum) will be blurred. When I put my glasses on, I can see the entire hot spectrum at once, but not the cold spectrum. Additionally, I can't focus on the cold spectrum with my glasses on no matter how hard I try. It's not a hyperopic type of blurry that I can accomodate for, but more like a myopic type of blurry that can't be overcome. This example works for any type of backlit or illuminated sign on a dark background (exit signs, road signs, storefront displays, etc.) that's viewed at a distance.

2. Picture a web page with a black background and with blue and red writing. (Don't you just hate those? ;)) Sitting at normal viewing distance with my glasses on, I can focus on either the hot spectrum or the cold spectrum, but not both at once. Since all near objects are blurry, I have to accomodate quite heavily to see them and don't own any reading glasses (my distance glasses aren't bifocals, though the doctor wanted to give me a +2.50 progressive lens for close vision). On such a web page, when I try to strain my eyes to see the hot spectrum, the cold spectrum goes blurry. When I relax my eyes a bit, the cold spectrum comes into focus and the hot spectrum becomes blurry. Obviously, without my glasses, all near objects are blurry, including the cold spectrum lights on dark backgrounds. But without correction, those cold spectrum lights come into focus when I get a distance of about 20 feet (hot spectrum lights don't come into focus with any sort of distance).

These don't seem to be common problems, even for my mother with the +7 distance prescription.

Having done some independent research, I found a nibble that looks promising. But please remember that I don't have any background in this field and I could be completely wrong about the following hypothesis.

On a totally unrelated website dedicated to viewing colors in crystals with the naked eye, I read that the hot spectrum has a tendency to focus farther back in the eye. Putting two and two together, I realized that this sounded like the nature of hyperopia where the focal point of light is behind the retina. This could explain why these colors blur so badly for me - they're pushed back further behind the retina than the cold spectrum, but can either be brought into focus with correction, or can be accomodated for in the way that hyperopic people can maintain a degree of accomodation even after needing glasses. Conversely, the cold spectrum has a tendency to focus more to the front of the eye, explaining why these colors might be hitting my retina in the perfect place without glasses and why correction pushes them up too far for viewing (creating, in a sense, myopic vision in regard to these colors that I can't accomodate for in the way that myopic people can't accomodate for their poor vision).

The whopping flaw in my hypothesis is this - why doesn't the above problem affect other people with hyperopia and why has no doctor ever heard of these symptoms before? And why do they just laugh, shrug it off, and act like I'm making it up? :angry:

I'm absolutely at my wit's end. I guarantee that this story is not a chimerical yarn, but a real problem that gives me serious headaches and a great deal of frustration because I can't get it to go away. Keep in mind that I have absolutely no color blindness... in fact, I have quite the opposite. Colors are beautiful and vibrant for me and I possess an almost inhuman ability to discern the smallest color variations across the entire spectrum (I can easily tell the difference between grass green and olive green, and the difference between black and navy blue is about as stark as that between a giraffe and a 1969 Mini Cooper). When I take color blindness tests, the numbers stand out as plain as if they were black writing on white paper.

Any insight into the problem would be greatly appreciated. I'm not looking for a diagnosis, but the comfort of knowing that I'm not crazy. Maybe also some hope that my vision CAN be corrected. I want to be armed with information for when I go back to a doctor after my move to New York in June. Maybe if I have information, this problem won't be brushed aside with a chuckle as it has been for the past ten years.

Many, many thanks in advance!