Dr. Calvin Roberts Talks about Contact Lenses on The Dave Nemo Show, SiriusXM Road Dog Trucking Station

Posted by The Dave Nemo Show, SiriusXM

Dr. Calvin Roberts talks about Contact Lenses on The Dave Nemo Show, SiriusXM Road Dog Trucking station. Road Dog Trucking keeps over a million professional drivers and industry stakeholders informed of current and pending issues affecting the trucking industry, ranging from transportation legislation and technology to health and wellness.

Podcast Transcription

Speaker

Live from the American Gulf Coast, it’s the Dave Nemo Show.

Nemo

Indeed it is, and it is wonderful to welcome back Doctor Calvin Roberts. I wasn’t here the last time he was on the program, and it’s a real thrill for me to get a chance to chat with him during the news break very briefly, and we’re going to get to chat with him right now on Highway to Health. Doctor Roberts, welcome back.

Roberts

Oh, this is great. I enjoyed it so much last time, and I’m eager to talk to you a little bit more this morning.

Nemo

Ohh man. Me too. Me too. You know, I went through the whole biography and bona fides and everything before the program, as I mentioned to you during the news break. Because if I would have done all this now, number one, it would have been embarrassing for you probably. And number two, it would have taken so much time that the program would be over. But let’s just say you know what you’re talking about and you’ve been doing this a long time, and you head up an organization that is really, really, really a worthy organization, which has more history, I think, than folks would actually realize: The Lighthouse Guild.

And this is Contact Lens Safety Month. And eyesight, you know, I mean it’s stating the obvious, is kind of what I do for a living Dr. Roberts. So how important is eyesight to a professional truck driver? I mean you can’t overemphasize that in any way. And a lot of folks wear glasses of course, I wear glasses now myself. But contact lenses are becoming more and more popular and more and more accessible, I would imagine, and easier to maintain and use. So we’re going to kind of talk through contacts here this morning to a great degree, but I thought it would only be fair to maybe talk a little bit about the Lighthouse Guild first. The history goes back to 1905, so we won’t go year by year here because that would take a long time.

Roberts

Well, so Lighthouse Guild was formed by two sisters, the Holt Sisters, their father was a famous publisher from a company called Holt Reinhardt. And so they had this idea of taking their allowance and putting it towards helping people who were blind and visually impaired, and then they recruited a bunch of their friends, and pretty soon this turned into a pretty big thing. The goal there was to help people who are blind and visually impaired and give them something to do with their day rather than just sit around. So started out that the way things were back then they gave people really pretty menial jobs of cleaning, weaving. That’s not what we do today.

At Lighthouse Guild today, we’re all about making it possible for people who are blind and visually impaired to be as productive as people who are sighted. For me, technology is the great equalizer. If people who are blind can operate their computer as effectively as people who are sighted, then really there’s no limit to what they can do occupationally and in terms of activities of daily life.

Nemo

In fact, a couple of years ago you opened the Lighthouse Guild Technology Center.

Roberts

Right. Yeah. And so here we have all the latest technology. I think of Lighthouse Guild as being the world’s leader in assistive technology in terms of developing technology that helps people who are blind and visually impaired. Teaching it, making it available to people across the country and across the world, actually. And so we have a bunch of not only in-person activities here, but a lot that we do online through our website. We have courses that we give. And so there’s a lot that’s available.

Of course, part of it is just getting the word out because so many people, as they lose their vision sometimes from macular degeneration or diabetes, they think that their world is over. That, “if I lose my eyesight, my world is over,” and we’re here to say no, your world isn’t over. And with technology, there’s a lot that you can still do and be productive in terms of taking care of yourself, navigating your community, being able to watch television, use your computer, communicate with your family and your friends. So it’s really an exciting time now as we advance technology to help people who have lost their vision.

Nemo

And I just want to point out one important factor and then we’ll kind of move on into contact lenses here, Doctor Roberts, but the Lighthouse Guild is a not-for-profit organization. The website is lighthouseguild.org or you can go to radionemo.com and right there on the front page, just scroll down a little bit, and you’ll see the link for today’s program for the Lighthouse Guild – lighthouseguild.org.

This is Contact Lens Safety Month. I’m due for my annual eye exam in a couple of weeks and I was telling my wife, you know, I think I’m going to go with contacts this time. And she says, Dave, you’re never going to do that. Just forget about it. And I think she’s right. But what about a guy like me who has been kind of afraid to put stuff in my eyes for so many decades? Is this the case where this is not your granddaddy’s contacts?

Roberts

Well for sure. I’ll tell you very intimately what happens in my family. So I’ve been wearing contact lenses now for over 50 years, and continuously, you know, I started with them when they were really the hard, big, uncomfortable lenses. And then they became kind of semi soft and then eventually the soft lenses. I’ve worn ones that you keep in your eyes for a week. I’ve worn ones you keep in your eyes for a month. I’ve worn ones that you take out every day. So I’m not just the spokesman here I’m really the user, too.

But my wife, her vision has gotten so much worse over the years. And so she started out, she was one of those people who never wore glasses, then she wore glasses just for reading. Then after a while, she needed glasses, both for distance and for reading, and now she seems like she needs her glasses almost all the time during the day. So she said to me, “so maybe I should wear contact lenses.” I said, “great!” But to get her to put the contact lenses in? Oh, it’s really a chore. Now, once she has them in, she loves them. And she says they’re really comfortable, “I can see really, really well, it makes a huge difference.” But to get her to put something in her eye and and take it out, oh, my gosh, you know, we’ve been married 43 years. I wasn’t sure we were gonna make it to 44 one day when I was there to try and help her get her lenses in and out so.

So yeah, it does take a little bit of practice. And you have to be really, really motivated to say I’m really gonna do this. And have someone who is really good at it show you how to do it. Because once you get the knack of it and once you can figure this thing out, of course that’s the challenge because once they’re in your eyes, most of the time you really don’t feel them at all.

Nemo

And we do hear a lot of folks who say, well, I forgot my contacts are in and you know things like that. And as you know, and you’ve been here before, we were talking to folks out there in an environment that is, even with air conditioning and power steering and all of that, a pretty rugged environment. You have folks who, say, haul commodities on flatbed trailers that have to get out along the side of the road sometimes and tighten down straps, check loads and things. So they’re in environments where you’ve got dust and debris, weather, things like that. Are there some cases where contacts might actually be better in those situations than, say, wearing standard glasses? Or are there trade-offs along the way?

Roberts

Well, there are some great advantages. I think you brought some of them up. You know, if you’re wearing your glasses and you’ve got to start looking underneath the cab and then twist your head in a funny angle and all of a sudden your glasses are starting to fall off. So sometimes it’s great to wear contact lenses because you have so much a wider field of view and you can move your head and without it worrying about the glasses coming off.

Trucking is a particularly tough, though, environment sometimes for contact lenses because of the fact that you have to really be concentrated on what you’re doing. And what happens when we concentrate at something that we’re looking at is we tend to stare. And when we stare, we don’t blink our eyes as much as normally we should. Blinking your eyes is just a normal part of keeping your eyes moist. I think of your eyelids as being like windshield wipers, and that every time you blink, it clears off the surface of your eye. It actually brings a new layer of coating and hydration to your eye,  gets rid of the dirt. So blinking is good, and blinking is great, and normally we blink sometimes in the order of about every 7-8 seconds usually we’ll blink. When you’re staring, that could go 30 seconds without blinking and your eyes get dry.

You know, two things that happen to contact lenses: either they get dry or they get dirty. And so what you’re trying to do when you wear contact lenses is keep them moist and keep them clean.

Nemo

So in other words, one of the things you know, it’s kind of interesting too, because we talk about breathing a lot. Because folks forget to breathe sometimes, especially in situations where you need to be breathing properly and that gets thrown out of the window pretty quickly. So remembering to blink. I never really thought about that as a thing, but that is kind of a thing, isn’t it?

Roberts

Now that’s a great analogy. Remembering to breathe and remembering to blink. You know, sometimes we tell students who are just studying and studying and studying, you know, just get up, stand up, walk, look out the window, blink a couple of times. Just to refresh your focus. And to just give your eyes a chance to rest a little bit and blink. So absolutely, blinking is important and when you wear contact lenses, blinking is more important because not only do you have to keep your eyes moist, but you have to keep the contact lenses moist as well.

Nemo

You kind of went through that check off list of the different types that you’ve worn through the decades now. So you started with the hard glass ones, and that’s where my wife started, too. And on through the different types. If you were a truck driver yourself and you wanted to give contacts a chance, what type would you recommend for those folks in the conditions that you kind of just described?

Roberts

So I think right now the state-of-the-art is in what we call one day disposable contact lenses. And the idea here is that you open up a pair of contact lenses. You wear them during the day as long as you want, as long as they’re comfortable. At the end of the day, you just take them out of your eyes and you throw them out. And the reason why this is great technology is number one they never really get dirty because you’re throwing it out before they get chance to really cake up. Number two, you don’t have to worry about caring for them. You don’t need the solution and cases and all these other things which sometimes can be a hassle. And then the case doesn’t work right, and the lenses dry. Whatever happens.

So one day disposable lenses tend to be very thin and they’re very comfortable to wear. And you just wear them for a day and you throw them out. And it also works well for people who wear their contact lenses maybe not every day. And so they want to wear their contacts some of the days, and they want to wear their glasses the other days. And that works out well, too. Obviously there is only one disadvantage to the one day disposable lenses, and that is because of the fact that you’re putting a new lens in every day, the cost is a little bit more. And I would say the contact lenses these days are running, you know, somewhere around a dollar a day. And so that’s kind of what you’re looking at in terms of the cost of contact lenses.

Nemo

Maybe a cup of coffee a day. When you think about it, yeah.

Roberts

Well, I’m in New York City. Coffee has gotten really expensive here. No, a lot more than a dollar, yeah.

Nemo

Sorry, I knew that. I could tell that hesitation there. But you know, the idea of no maintenance really will appeal to a lot of folks out on the road, simply because so many drivers, and I have it myself, have sleep apnea. So you have the machine and the hose and the mask, and you got to clean all of that and on and on and on. So all this little maintenance stuff gets to you. One more thing to maintain like that in terms of contact lenses is probably too much to bear. But the idea of you put them in, you take them out and that’s it. And then you would probably have some glasses or something for the off hours or things like that.

Roberts

Right, right. I have to tell you a story. I wasn’t going to talk about this, but this really struck me. So I do a lot of my meetings on Zoom these days and I’m speaking to this woman who does similar work to what I do in the eye research area. And I’m speaking to her for the first time. And we start talking and she brings up the topic of contact lenses because she’s wearing glasses. And so she says to me, “what do you think about contact lenses?” And I said, something similar to what I just said to you in, “I think they’re great.” And she says to me, “well, you know, I thought about contact lenses, but people tell me that I’m so much prettier wearing glasses.” And so I just, you know, so I just kind of smiled and go on and, you know, I don’t make any comments about people’s appearance, it’s a professional discussion and I thought to myself how much the world has changed. I mean, I remember the fact that as a young person, they used to say, “boys won’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.” And that was like a big motivation for people to get contact lenses so that they would look better in contact lenses than with glasses.

Nemo

You took the words right of my mouth, I thought of the same thing.

Roberts

Now glasses have gotten to be a fashion item, and so you know, everything changes.

Nemo

Everything changes and everything old is new again.

Roberts

Exactly.

Nemo

We’re going to take a real quick break right here. And we’ll be right back with Doctor Calvin Roberts. You’ve probably heard about contacts that are weighted and we’ll talk about those, but you may not have heard about something called toric lenses. And we’ll kind of launch into that as well.

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Nemo

It’s about 25 after the top, Dr. Calvin Roberts is with us here on the program this morning. Highway to Health. And this is Contact Lens Safety Awareness Month. The word safety gets played up quite a bit in the trucking industry as you well know, Doctor Roberts. Safety. Is there a consideration here that I’m not thinking of?

Roberts

Yeah. So safety, what we’re really talking about is, the contact lenses are there to help you. And the last thing you want is for the contact lenses to hurt you, and it does happen from time to time. And so why does why does it happen? It happens if the contact lenses get dirty. And then your eye can get infected. So think of it like if you got a cut on your skin and you put a dirty bandage on it, it could not make it better. It might make it worse. And so you want to have your contact lenses being clean.

When we were talking before about the one day wear contact lenses, one of the beauties of them is the fact that since you only wear them for one day, they don’t get a chance to get dirty. They stay clean. For the safety point of view, it’s a real important thing. But if you don’t, if you wear other kinds of contact lenses, it’s really important that you care for them properly and that is that when you take them out, you clean them, you store them in fresh solution, that the solution has antibiotics in it to disinfect it and keep it clean. So that you’re sure that when you put something in your eye, you’re putting something that is sanitary and clean and not gonna cause problems for your eyes.

Nemo

One of the things that, well, I wear progressives, what used to be called bifocals, you know, for distance and and reading. And there are contacts that are essentially progressives or bifocals, and they are weighted so that there’s a little thing in the bottom there that so when you put them in your eye obviously is going to rotate and settle in there. Anything to say about those good, bad or indifferent?

Roberts

Oh, good. Good, good and good. So I wear those, I wear those too. So I wear them and I have to tell you that I never wear glasses to read 100% of the time. I can see when I’m wearing my contact lenses and it’s not something you have to think about. It’s not something that you have to like look down as you would with your glasses. With the progressive vision contact lenses you can see far, you can see near, and so again, like everything, they’re not for everyone. And I think it’s a little bit more important that you get fitted by someone who is experienced, who understands the subtleties of these contact lenses. But for really most people, these progressive style contact lenses work out great, and they don’t look any different than regular contact lenses. They don’t feel any different than other contact lenses. They just give you the ability to see both as far and as near.

Nemo

One thing that I ,and I don’t know a lot, but of course I’ve heard about the hards and the softs and the long wear and the dailies and things like that of the weighted, but I’ve never heard of toric lenses. Is that something really new? Or have I just been not paying attention?

Roberts

I would never tell the host of the show that I was on, that he wasn’t paying attention. By default it has to be new, but it’s not that new. So the idea of toric lenses is that some people actually most people have something that has this terrible term, but it’s called astigmatism, and people don’t really understand what astigmatism is, but astigmatism is nothing bad. Of course it sounds bad. It has the word “stigma” in it. Like it sounds like it’s something that’s bad. There’s nothing bad about astigmatism.

Nemo

Yeah, yeah.

Roberts

What it just refers to is the fact that our eyes are round, and because they’re round, light coming in from all directions focuses equally and therefore we see clearly looking in all directions. And what astigmatism refers to is the fact that, in actuality, no one’s eyes are perfectly round. Everyone’s eyes are a little subtly more curved in one direction than the other, and the difference in term in the curvature between one direction and the other direction is what we call astigmatism. And astigmatism can lead to your vision being not 100% sharp with contact lenses. The correction for astigmatism is always built into your glasses and you don’t know that your glasses have astigmatism. They compensate for the fact that your eyes are a little more shaped in one direction, than the other by putting a correction in your glasses.

Nemo

My goodness, we just ran out of time and the clock has no mercy. Doctor Roberts, thank you so much for being with us here this morning. Really enjoyed talking with you.

Roberts

It’s a pleasure. Thanks Dave.