Is Wearing Glasses for Near-Sightedness a Long-Term Solution?

[wolram]

I have trouble reading small print and have been told i am near sighted in one eye, but i have also been told if i start wearing glasses i will become more dependant of them, what do you guys think?

 

[Proton Soup]

i say you're already dependent on them.

 

[Evo]

No, you won't necessarily become more dependant on them. We develop more eye problems as we age. I'm seeing the eye doctor right before christmas.

 

[brewnog]

Speccy speccy four eyes!

 

[wolram]

Speccy speccy four eyes!

Thats what i was thinking, plus the fact i will lose or break them.

 

[Tsu]

Depends on whether or not you LIKE TO SEE! (Hi Wollie Ram! Howz it going? *bighug*) Personally, I like being able to see. If I need some fuzz on my world, I'll have a martini.

 

[Proton Soup]

Thats what i was thinking, plus the fact i will lose or break them.

not if you keep them on your face

 

[wolram]

Depends on whether or not you LIKE TO SEE! (Hi Wollie Ram! Howz it going? *bighug*) Personally, I like being able to see. If I need some fuzz on my world, I'll have a martini.

Hi Tsu, thanks for the big hug, poor old me never gets them , i think as long as i can read the pages of PF i won't bother with glasses.

 

[Tsu]

Hi Tsu, thanks for the big hug, poor old me never gets them , i think as long as i can read the pages of PF i won't bother with glasses.

Well, shoot. Have another one then! :bighug: Do you have one of those handy little 'change zoom percentage level' buttons on the bottom right of your screen? I use that at 375% along with my glasses. (just kidding - but it is a nifty little button...)

 

[Evo]

If you had glasses, it would easier to get that tape off of your carpet.

 

[nismaratwork]

You'll break them... which is why I recommend having an emergency backup pair! Definitely get them however...

 

[206PiruBlood]

By the time I reached high school I was slightly near sighted, but it never really bothered me. Reading and recognizing faces from long distances were the only tasks I had difficulty with. Eventually I got contacts and glasses permitting me to obtain my license, and when I first looked outside it was absolutely amazing! For the first time in five or ten years I could see the fine detail of nature and individual blades of grass!

As for becoming more dependent, I think this is a valid concern. I wore glasses for about six months before getting contact lenses. I didn't particularly like wearing them so I used them sparingly. During this period I noticed no change in my vision when not wearing any corrective eye wear. But when I got contacts and started using them daily, my vision without them got progressively worse. It has since stopped declining, but now without any eye wear, my vision is more blurry than it used to be. I can not read or recognize faces from the distances that I could before wearing contacts regularly.

My overall experience wearing contact lenses has been very much positive though!

Has anyone else had a similar experience, where your normal vision suffers from prolonged usage of corrective lenses? Also if I were to stop wearing lenses all together, might my vision return to their previous, sub par levels?

 

[DaveC426913]

What do you mean 'dependent'?

Do you mean, without them you'll keep practicing and hopefully improve your eyesight, whereas with them your eyesight will get lazy?

Or do you mean, without them, you'll find ways to cope with not being able to read well, and with them you'll ose the ability?

What are you gaining, (or at least not losing) by not being able to read?

 

[Evo]

Glasses do not make you vision worse, it's a myth.

Glasses, however, do not weaken eyes; they are simply aids to improve vision.

Of course it is possible that your eye power may also have increased as you age - but this increase would have happened regardless of whether you wore the glasses or not. When children become nearsighted (myopic), usually between the ages of 8 and 12, there is a natural progression in their myopia and a need for a stronger correction over the next few years. These children, as well as nearsighted adults, may believe that glasses have weakened their eyes when their lens prescription needs to be made strong. Glasses, however, do not weaken eyes; they are simply aids to improve vision. People who have been able to read easily close up without glasses may find that they cannot do so as they get older (past 40). When they begin to need stronger and stronger glasses, they may assume that wearing glasses has "ruined" their eyes. In actuality, they are experiencing a normal condition called presbyopia - the inability of the aging eye to focus on near objects.

http://www.agingeye.net/visionbasics/visionmyths.php

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

At the age of 47, I started to experience the symptoms of presbyopia, a hell of a thing for Jew. I was in denial for quite some time. In order to show some text to a colleague, I would hand him a magnifying glass along with the book. He would brush the glass away. It took me at least a month to drink in the meaning of that. At that point, I had only two choices, reading glasses, or get longer arms. I started out buying reading glasses at the dollar store. I would buy them in batches because I was afraid of losing them. My eyes deteriorated fast after that and I had to increase the magnification every year. Since then I started having trouble seeing at intermediate distances had to get prescription glasses. I've gone through a new prescription about once a year since then. Even with insurance, these cost $100 a pair and while I was cavalier with the dollar store glasses, I don't lose these.

 

[DaveC426913]

At that point, I had only two choices, reading glasses, or get longer arms.

My wife calls it "Shortening Arm Sydrome".

 

[Ouabache]

My opthamologist's explanation is that the lens in our eyes lose elasticity with age, and the subtending (ciliary) muscles have more difficultly bending the lens to accommodate the focal lengths it used to. I can understand if the lens becomes less pliable with age, I will require stronger reading glasses to make up the difference. And not just once, but on a continual basis throughout the rest of my life. I know it is time, for a stronger pair of glasses, when I look at a published telephone book and can hardly read the print.

 

[Borek]

I got new glasses about a month ago. Before putting them on my nose I wasn't aware of how blind I was.

Unfortunately it is not just presbyopia, but some combination of presbyopia and astigmatism, so $2 reading glasses are not as helpful as they could be. Details are in a way funny, astigmatism is more pronounced when I look at distant objects. Seems like I may need progressive glasses for driving, as right now if I am driving in glasses I can read speed limits signs, but I have troubles reading speedometer, or - when I am without glasses - I have no problems checking how fast I go, but differentiating between 50-60-80-90 signs when they are further than 20-30 meters from me is problematic. Reasonable progressive glasses are $700+ here. Not sure if they are refunded. For driving I am thinking about photochromics, that means +$100, around $800 at least [PLAIN]http://www.bpp.com.pl/IMG/faint.gif.

I had a pretty sharp vision up to about 40, since then it is getting slowly worse

 

[jtbell]

I'm very nearsighted so I've worn glasses almost all my life. I'm so used to them that I've never even investigated contact lenses.

My normal "focusing point" used to be about 10-12 cm in front of my eyes, but during the last several years it's been receding slowly because of presbyopia so it's now about 14 cm with one eye and 17 cm with the other. It must be about ten years now since I started to wear bifocals.

 

[tiny-tim]

I have trouble reading small print and have been told i am near sighted in one eye, but i have also been told if i start wearing glasses i will become more dependant of them, what do you guys think?

you can only become more dependent if there's either a change in the shape of your eye, or a change in your lens and its muscles

the way you use your eyes can't change the shape … that's happening anyway, either because you're getting older, or because of something like high blood pressure or hitting your head against the carpet!

your lens is getting harder as you get older, so you feel you need to use your muscles more (though you probably still can't focus close enough even at maximum) … if you wear glasses, you won't need to strain those muscles any more, and you'll get less headaches, but i suppose the muscles might get a bit out of practice for short distances

and if you're only going to wear them in the house, buy thick ramshorn-rimmed glasses (with glass lenses) … they're much more difficult to break, and even if you do break one earpiece, they'll probably still stay on

 

[hypatia]

I broke down this year and got bifocals. I don't wear them all the time, just because they annoy me. I'm not use to wearing glasses.

 

[wolram]

I suppose i shall have to get an appointment at the opticians, thanks for all the advice.