Two mysteries solved

[da]

[Argh. This phantom post is courtesy "Session-Saver", the firefox 1.5 plugin which restores tabs when my browser crashes. It helpfully loaded the page which last night contained my latest LJ post. Thank you firefox.

I do have two discoveries I just learned at the optometrist. So I'll reuse this post for those.

The first: if you get headaches when the atmospheric pressure changes, coffee might help. It does for me, and it does for the optometrist. She explained why: she thinks it's because coffee is a vasodilator. I'm a bit suspicious, because a quick googling didn't prove it, but it didn't disprove it either.

The second: melted_snowball, kraig, and I have been. Don't read this until after you've been debriefed."> ...is behind a cut in case anyone here is part of the same optometry study melted_snowball, kraig, and I have been.

Sorry for that, I don't want to be accused of foiling a research study. :)

The second is that my research-study lenses are... progressive bifocals. With a value of +1, which is somewhat low for bifocals.

The research study is trying to describe how people between 30-45 who use computers all day, get eye-strain; we don't have an inability to focus close-up, as with older people who get bifocals, but it's more work for our eyes.

The research lenses are supposed to ease the strain, and also have some other properties that are supposed to minimize the distortion on the sides of the lenses.

It's funny that I described the lenses in my first post about them, as if they were bifocals. Also, I had a suspicion the second set of research lenses were placebos, and they were.

Anyway, here's to fewer headaches, a free pair of glasses, and most of all, to *science*. Yay, science.

]

Comments

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

...that are so exciting that you're keeping them from all of us?

[sfllaw.livejournal.com]

I think we're supposed to decipher it.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say I was being clever.

But my browser crashed, and when I restarted it, "Session-Saver" saved all my tabs, including the one where I had just posted that journal entry last night.

But I've filled in the entry with two discoveries of the afternoon, so that's OK.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say I was being clever.

But my browser crashed, and when I restarted it, "Session-Saver" saved all my tabs, including the one where I had just posted that journal entry last night.

But I've filled in the entry with two discoveries of the afternoon, so that's OK. (Don't read it until after your optometry visit. :)

[quingawaga.livejournal.com]

I'd make a joke about how they blinded you with science, but maybe that wouldn't be very funny.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Hah. That was funny.

How about:

"They unblinded me... with science!"

;-)

[sulle-stelle.livejournal.com]

Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Ha ha.

I found webpages that said it was both, which I suppose shouldn't be too surprising.

Maybe the coffee is a placebo too. :)

[sulle-stelle.livejournal.com]

Well, it helps my sinus headaches (as does tylenol sinus, which contains a vasoconstrictor).

I saw the ENT about my sinus headaches, and he said that recent research suggests that "sinus headaches" are in fact migraines (which explains why I sometimes even get fevers and things with them).

I always thought the vasoconstriction works on the headaches because it dries up the sinuses. But apparently that might not be the reason.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Hm. I've never tried Tylenol Sinus. I probably should.

I've recently thought "migraines" were a code word for "things related to headaches whose causes we couldn't explain"...