Ask Mike: Do glasses make vision worse?
Hey Guys,
I’ve been wearing corrective lenses since the second grade. So it goes without saying that my eyes are weaker than most. But does wearing glasses actually weaken the eyes, as some people think? I donned my Coke bottles and went searching for answers.
The theory, and one that I’ve always believed, is that by wearing glasses, you’re actually allowing your eyes to slack off and not work as hard. Then, when you don’t wear your glasses after a while, things look worse than they did before. In short, by wearing glasses, your eyes get worse. It’s not exactly irony, but it’s pretty darn close. But, is it true?
Not according to the sources I found. The official site from the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC.net) explains that while it may seem like wearing glasses causes your vision to get worse, it’s really just an illusion. Professor of optometry David Atchinson says that once people start wearing glasses, they get used to the improved vision. “So you start to accept that as the norm and if you don’t have the glasses on you’re just so much more aware of the problem.”
A page from the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary also calls this a myth. “Before you start wearing glasses, you are accustomed to seeing a blurry world around you.” Then, when you get glasses, the world is suddenly a lot clearer. After a few months, if you remove your glasses, “you are presented with the same blurry world as before.” Your vision hasn’t changed, but your perception has. The site goes on to explain that it’s possible your eyesight changed, but that would have happened “regardless of whether you wore the glasses or not.”
Looks like I have no more excuses for wearing my thick-as-a-brick spectacles. Rats.
Thanks for reading,
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
- Rating:
(147 votes, average: 4.47) - Permalink
- Comments (250)
Loading ...
Subscribe
Yeah, i’ve been wearing glasses sence Grade 6 and im in grade 11 now. The doctors keep saying my eye-sight keeps getting worse!
So I wondering if glasses really make our eye-sight worse? Or do they help our eye-sight, but when we dont wear the glasses it makes our eye-sight worse??
I Wonder…
Great Post Tho!
Mine actually has gotten better while wearing glasses.
If you don’t wear glasees your eyesight gets worse. So you have no choice but to wear them. But you shouldn’t wear high power one(high numbers). That makes it worse.
I wear glasses and I don’t think they make my vision weaker. I know they don’t. That would be pretty silly.
Thnx a lot! U saved me fr this scam tht almost, i mean ALMOST fall for! It’s a product which serves to heighten our supposedly ‘weakening’ eyesight. To be exact, it’s an eyewear tht doesn’t use lenses. Instead, it uses very small holes (on a sunglasses-looking material minus the glossy part) and when u wear it, u cn feel the iris ‘working’. It claims tht this could actually help to ‘cure’ our eyes as much as 20%. It doesn’t cost tht much cuz its cheaper than my usual glasses, bt a student like me wud still hv probs buying 1. Again, thank u soooo much 4 posting this. I luv it!
I’ve been wearing mine since 2nd or 3rd grade, and I used not have to wear them all the time, but now I DO. It was like one day I just needed them for reading, and the next if I didn’t have them on, my far sighted vison became blurry. So I guess in a way they do, but there are people who only need them for reading or driving, and other who need them 24/7. So I guess their either going to stay somwhat moderate or there going to get worse over time.
You have to harass your optometrist to make glasses with a prescription that is .5 WORSE than best.
That makes your eyes adjust in the correct direction.
Change the presciption at least once a year.
It’s EXACTLY like straightening teeth with braces.
It’s true, my friends sister stopped wearing glasses. And now she doesnt even have to wear them anymore.
When you don’t wear your glasses, your eyes are actually being strained, and are working twice as hard to see clearly, so your vision gets worse when you don’t wear your glasses. When you wear them and then take them off after an extended period, your vision appears worse because you’re used to seeing clearly. It’s like getting off of a boat after going on the water all day – you’re not moving, but you still feel the sway.
It’s similar to using an inhaler for asthma. I use mine more often now b/c I recognize the wheeze. Before I had an inhaler, my doctor said that I was wheezing, and I didn’t even know it; obviously not a serious wheeze in a full-blown asthma attack.
I wore my glasses for classroom use and for driving until I got contacts and got used to seeing things more clearly. It would drive me bananas now to walk around in that blurry world! BTW, there was an age (in my 30′s I think) that my vision was temporarily improving.
i’ve been wearing glasses since grade 4, but my vision would be getting worse if i DIDN’T wear the glasses
lol
I’ve been wearing glassses since I was two months old. (for those of you who ask, I have a disease called Colobomas which makes my vision very weak) I think that your eyes are getting stronger when you do wear glasses, actually. It’s better to get them sooner, rather than later so your eyes aren’t strained.
I’m severely myopic – so my prescription is super thick
I think glasses makes your vision worse. I’ve been wearing glasses since i was 4 and had detached retina when I was 14. I actually regained all my vision back to the point when I had gotten my surgery. But a few years ago, I was told to take my glasses off around the house (etc) where I don’t per se “need” them, and I do that occasionally so that my eyes don’t “get used” to my strong prescription. 
classes do not hurt your eyes if wearing the correct prescriptions.
I’m sorry, but wearing glasses will make your eyesight worse over time. Of course, if you don’t wear them, you won’t see so it’s best to wear them. But wearing them makes your eyes use more powers then ‘ they’re suppose to ‘ (or something like that). So it worsens your eyesight over time.
WTF! THATS GOOD INFO!
Yeah, but that still doesn’t really answer it. What about statistically. Yeah my vision looks worse when I take my glasses off, but how come year after year my eyes get worse and worse, even though I wear glasses? One year I’m 20-40 then 20-60 and now 20-250. Would they still decline in vision if i didn’t wear glasses?
then wat about wearing contacts? is that the same thing?
I had started wearing glasses in 5th grade and im in 5th now. My eyes haven’t gotten worse at all. I did start wearing contacts in the spring of 09′ though. My mom and I both have to wear contacts/glasses and her eyes actually get better. I don’t believe it is glasses that make your eyes worse, I think it is just heredity or maybe you don’t wear them when you are supposed to, when doing some things…!
well I have contacts, and I’ve actually heard that contacts make the eyes stronger…I don’t know, but contacts are definetly more convient
I’ve worn glasses since I was 14. That’s over 50 years ago. As you get older your vision worsens a little bit naturally. Without glasses, it gets worse even more quickly. Strangely, my eyes have gotten better since I’ve been on BP medication.
Your vision depends on two things. Your eye socket and your eye muscles. If your eye ball happens to not fit your eye socket properly, you can develop either near or far sightedness as a result of the deformation of the eye ball. You eye muscles control your astigmatism or distortion of your vision.(Blurriness).
Yes! Only wear them when you absolutely have to. I stopped wearing glasses when reading books or looking at computer screens. My near vision has improved to the point that I use a 7 pt font on-screen without glasses. My far vision is still poor but I have noticed improvement.
My theory is wearing glasses when you don’t need them forces the eye muscles to over-compensate and this results in a vicious cycle of sorts (further muscle strain, requires more correction, etc)
Interesting post. But, who sponsors that source? It would be great if all sources were truly unbiased…..
No your wrong
I never thought about something like that before…because i don’t need them(glasses).But…my twin sister is started to use them,so,if you really feel …your eyes are weakened by usuing all the time your glasses(i think about..Pavlov don”t know why), — just let me know.. it’s really true and i am going to convince her!
I heard that if you have glasses but don’t wear them when you’re supposed to, you make your vision worse. I don’t know if that’s just another rumor or if it’s true. At least my sister said it’s true…hmm…
I’ve been wearing glasses since first grade. I don’t have bad vision, but my vision would get worse if I didn’t wear glasses. I put up with it for about 8 years. Now, I can’t stand my glasses! I see fine without them! Nothing is blurry, but I just cant see small print from far away. I’d say my sight is normal. After I take my glasses off, it is blurry, but in about 10 minutes, I can see fine! I forgot to wear my glasses to school a couple of times, and I didn’t even notice! I only realized because people pointed it out! I could see everything perfect! For me, there is no reason for glasses, plus I look gorgeous…lol. I find no need for glasses unless you have bad vision. My advice, if you have the same senario as me, don’t wear them. I’m still trying to convince my mom to let me go to school without glasses. I’m sure you’ll look weird to some people for a day or two, but after that, you’ll look fine. I’m a nerd in school because of my glasses, but after school, I’m pretty fun. BTW why are you reading this? Get a life! I’m just a stupid person rambling on about my problems! Stop reading this!
Glasses don’t make the eye sight go bad. What actually is happening in most cases is that the disease or the problem itself is progressing.
With age, most of the refractive errors progress. In middle age, the ability to accommodate (to see near things) decreases, still further, lens starts turning white (hard) changing the refractive index of the eye and so the glasses power.
School myopia also progress with age and so the power of the glasses increases.
Ideal method is to get a Duochrome testing done after the glasses power has been calculated. It takes into account the refraction of red and green light rays and provides accurate readings.
Few years back (and even now) some ophthalmologists like to under-correct myopia and some correct it to 20/20 visual acuity. Minor deviations in glasses power can be due to the change in the ophthalmologist / optometrist.
The common feeling that a person gets used to seeing everything clear after getting the glasses also holds true and so the perceived fall in visual acuity on removing the glasses.
You don’t have to wear thick-as-a-brick spectacles ! Ask the person who makes your spectacles to use high refractive index glass. You can even opt for contact lens.
I wore glasses from 1953 until 1968. My prescription kept getting weaker and weaker (my vision was actually improving) until the correction was so slight it didn’t make sense to wear them. Then when I turned 37 I had to get glasses for reading and am now, at 72, about back to the same prescription I wore in high school. All glasses do is change the focal point of the light entering the eye to correct for the lack of proper focus the lens in your eye is providing. There is no way they can make your eyes get worse. However some eye problems can better be corrected with simple eye exercises to strengthen the muscles which help you to change from near to distant focus. The main exercise is to hold a pencil at arms length and slowly move it in to your nose tracking it all the way with both eyes.
I have never had to wear glasses untill the last couple of years. I could see fine, far and near. A few years back I used to get migraines alot and a headache doctor suggested that I go see an optomitrist to have my eyes checked. They perscribed a pair of glasses and I wore them for a few days and they gave me worse headaches than I had before.They said that I should wear them for a while and get used to them then the headaches would go away. Well the headaches didn’t go away and I think they screwed up my eyes. It turned out that the migraines came from the over consumption of caffine. Now to this day my eyesight is poor.
I think my eyesight got better. I’ve been wearing my glasses since 4th or 5th grade. So it’s been about 12 years now. I know I shouldn’t do this but I use to put my dad’s glasses on and I still saw blurry. Just recently I put them on again and it isn’t as blurry as before. (My glasses are way more high powered than his.) I’m getting tired of glasses and I don’t want contacts.
When I wore glasses through grade school, my vision gradually got worse. I switched over to contacts, and I’ve only had to change my prescription once. However, I would probably attribute this to age; then again, I’m no eye expert.
It all depends if your eyes are fine and you wear them they do damage your eyes, but I’m not sure if they damage your eyes if you are already having vision problems
Hmmm… I’m farsighted so I’ve always been able to get along very well without glasses since the only time I have trouble seeing is when I am trying to focus on something which is close to my face. Everything from about a half-foot away from my face and further out looks fine.
When I moved out for the first time and I was no longer covered under my parents’ optical plan I went an entire year without my glasses. When I got a job with an optical plan I went back to the optometrist and guess what…my eyesight had improved.
I asked how this was possible and my optometrist actually told me that this was not unusual since having to constantly focus my own eyes in order to bring things into focus actually made them stronger and that an unfortunate side effect of glasses is that the eyes become lazier because they don’t have to focus for themselves anymore. That’s not to say that my eyesight would not get worse with age without glasses, but simply that the process is sped-up somewhat by wearing them all the time.
Makes sense to me; I mean why should the muscles in our eyes work any differently than any other muscle in our bodies. I mean, if you were to ride around in a wheelchair all day and you didn’t need to, eventually you leg muscles would weaken.
We also have to keep in mind that Mike’s sources were all (albeit understandably) people in the field of optometry and of course they aren’t going to tell you to NOT wear glasses. And while I do not have a degree in optometry or opthalmology I can only speak from personal experience.
Yes, I have asked the same question about worsening eyesight to several optometrists, and they all say that glasses do not make eyesight worse. However, from personal experience, I just don’t agree.
Thanks for the assurance. I never would have guessed. When I take off my glasses my vision seems so much worse than it was before I got my glasses.
I do have a question though. If this is true, then why do we keep needing to get new prescription glasses every few years with more powerful lenses? If our eyes are not getting worse, then why does that happen?
If you are wearing the wrong prescription- for example, glasses meant for someone with worse vision than you have- this can strain your eyes and make your vision worse. It’s a bit like reading in extremely dim light all the time. Again, this only happens if your prescription is slightly off. If your prescription is just right, you have nothing to worry about.
The only time you should call into question a decision to wear glasses is if your vision is ever-so-slightly less than perfect- so slight that even a very weak prescription is too strong. In that situation, you would have an incorrect prescription that causes your eyes to become just a bit weaker until your eyes- hopefully- become right for the prescription.
Also, when getting your eyes assessed, pay attention to the fact that one eye may require a different prescription than the other eye. I, for example, and very slightly farsighted in one eye and, do a greater degree, nearsighted in the other. For years, I had glasses that had identical eyepieces- as most inexpensive ones do. As you can imagine, it took forever for me to pick out the lenses that worked best. In the end, neither lens was right for either eye- it corrected both of them imperfectly and left my brain to sort out a brand-new off-balance image.
That wasn’t too comfortable. I didn’t wear glasses much at all, except to see at very select times in school. It was only much later that I got a much more expensive pair of glasses that have the perfect prescription for both my eyes. I wear those more often, and they are not uncomfortable at all. In the next few years, I plan on having Lasik eye surgery to correct these problems and the minor astigmatism in each eye- something that hasn’t been treatable until pretty recently.
Anyway, that’s my contribution. If you have the correct prescription for your eyes, you have nothing to worry about. If you have the wrong prescription, though- which is entirely possible under certain conditions- glasses can make your eyes worse. Sometimes you have to pick between the options of spending a whole lot of money, just dealing with poor eyesight, or using glasses in a very limited way that will eventually make your eyes slightly worse. If you do have poor eyesight, just hope you’re fortunate enough to have the same kind of poor eyesight in each eye. If you don’t, you may face a tough decision.
I think it that both of those views are correct, in a way. When you wear glasses, your eyes do slack off and don’t work as hard as they would if you didn’t have glasses. So it could be right to say that not wearing glasses will make your eyes stronger, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have better eyesight.
In most cases it probably is just an illusion. When I take my contacts out, my vision seems ever so slightly worse than it did when I first didn’t have them, but I don’t know if that is truly just my weakened eye or it’s just all in my head. It’s hard to tell, but I think that both are true.
I bet the eye doctor ups the prescibtion so its off a little so you have to keep comeing back hey it could be possible i was wearing glasses since elemmentry school and they got worse and worse as time went on but i noticed my little sis just got them and i can see better out of hers than mine and this is her first pair mine are a little blurry very at a distance of like 3 feet
“The theory, and one that I’ve always believed, is that by wearing glasses, you’re actually allowing your eyes to slack off and not work as hard.”
Bad theory. Myopia, as well as other disorders of the eye, are caused primarily by eye strain. Squinting, for example, is proven to hurt vision.
Great post! Now I know my eyes aren’t getting worse by wearing glasses. ALL of my friends say that your eyes get worse by wearing glasses. I’m going to tell them this. My friend just recently got her glasses and she doesn’t want to wear them because she’s affraid her eyes will get worse. So whenever she tries to see people she sqints, I think I should tell her about this. Thank you! You just answered one in many of my unexplained questions.
From: Lynne Lovegood
yes. sometimes.
I wear glasses and stopped for a few weeks and I didn’t notice the blurriness much
hi. yeah glasses rock!
So you’re saying if I stop wearing my glasses my eyesite will get better? It looks that way since the answers say that “My friend stopped wearing glasses and doesn’t need them any more.”
Sorry my fellow Mike, but you are wrong. When I first got my glasses, it was because I was legally blind. When I was in second grade I got my glasses too, because I couldn’t see things that were two feet in front of me. I’m near sighted and they say without glasses it would mean a drivers license out of my window. I want to drive, and glasses are important when it comes to my vision.
Prescription lenses don’t make my eyes lazy at all. They help me see. If I were to take my glasses off and wait a month, I would see exactly the same as when I took them off. Blurry and eveything impossible to see without getting really close.
Unless, of course, you’re calling my eye doctor of 20 years a bad doctor. Thanks to her, I can drive and see better than before.
Telling me something like, “If you take your glasses off after a while you’ll see better” is pure bull. There’s nothing to prove that. Do you really think there’s anyone dumb enough out there that needs to wear glasses all day that would do that? I’m not, because I need to see, and I will always want to see good.
WIthout glasses, I’m like a drunk on the road.
My mom worked in opticals for a while and took classes for it. Reading about the human eye is very interesting! The way things work in our sockets is amazing, as well as the mysteries of the eye (sight) that can’t really be explained. Anyway, she has talked about this to me before, but it is still interesting to read about it.
At the age of 22, my eye sight is still perfectly intact. I always tell myself that the day my vision begins to faulter, is the day I will get laser eye surgery. That way I can give myself a good 5+ years of vision freedom before having glasses the rest of my life!
~sweetheart
I disagree with this blog post. I don’t need glasses, and I believe that wearing them does make vision worse.
A year ago, I could barely read the 20/20 line, but I did eye exercises daily for a year and now I can read it easily. If you don’t believe it’s possible to help your eyesight except by wearing glasses, how would you explain my improvement?
If you feel the need to contact me: whatever_noone AT yahoo DOT ca
I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 6 years old and each year it has gotten worse to the point where I’m legally blind! I feel that stronger lenses actually makes your eyesight worse. The Optometrist don’t care because you have to keep coming back every year or so to get new lenses and so that means more money in there pockets. Its sad but true. Read up on Dr. Bates an optometrist who called out the practices of optometrist. I posted a link.
http://www.amazon.com/Method-Better-Eyesight-Without-Glasses/dp/0805002413/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250922117&sr=8-1
My brother wear glasses only for far things
e.g writing board in school
but he says for me not worse is happening to me
so he can see well
I don’t understand how this rumor got started, nearsighted and far sighted vision problems are caused by incorrectly shaped eye parts, not any kind of muscle that could be “worked” harder.
The good news for nearsighted youth is that your eyes stabilize in your mid 20s. I’ve had the same prescription for three years, it feels great!
i hate wearing glasses.
but i can’t live without them
I think that wearing glasses regularly from an early age does make eyesight worse. I started wearing them aged 9 and the lenses have got thicker and stronger down the years. I am now not safe to cross a road without glasses and if I put them down to wash my hair, or whatever, I often cannot find them. I grope around feeling for them but not seeing them.
The first thing I do in the morning is put on my glasses and they stay on my face until I go to bed again, unless I have to take them off briefly for some reason.
If I were out and about and they were knocked off my face and broken, I really don’t know how I would make it home again.
I have a pair of pinhole glasses which are not safe for walking around in but they are restful for watching T.V. You see several small clear images but you learn to concentrate on just one of the images.
Because my problem is severe short-sightedness, I can read better without glasses than with them but have to have the page about one inch from my eyes.
I really regret having my eyes tested (and my glasses changed) as often as I have. I’m now in my mid 60s so nothing will improve my situation from here on except laser surgery – which I am very wary of.
A lot of people with vision defects as children nearly always find these defects tend to correct over time. There is no mechanism for the eyes to correct themselves if the myopia is artificially corrected with glasses and the user wears them all the time. The question is whether it is ethical to perscribe glasses for children knowing that it will likely cause their vision to deteriorate.
You’re ‘scientific’ source looks more like marketing. The logic is a classic straw man argument following the form “some people say … and that is misguided”. Straw man argument from an industry funded marketing organisation. Some source you’ve got.
And what’s this ‘University of Illinois’ nonsense. Couldn’t you find web pages with a ‘.edu’ domain name to support your assertion?
You’re source is a web page that anyone could have put together with a $50 budget.
I used to wear really thick glasses. My vision started getting worse when I was around 8 and kept getting worse through high school. They finally leveled off around 18 year old.
It bothered me for years. I mean, they were really thick. My prescription was -5.6 or worse in each eye. I finally got laster eye surgery when I was 27. It made a huge difference.
I would say, if your going to do it, get a very good doctor. I went to one of the best in the world. It wasnt much more expensive than any other doctor, but it was well worth it. If your going to trust your eyes to somebody for surgery, get to the best doctor you can. Find somebody who has done the most surgeries and trains other doctors in eye surgery.
I am wondering too
Glasses work to focus the light onto the retina at the back of your eye. Normally your own lenses in your eyes are supposed to do this. But if you have astigmatism, myopia or some other optic condition that has resulted in your lenses being misshapen or not functioning properly, the specific curvature of the lenses in your glasses (what your ophthalmologist writes out as your prescription) correctly focuses the light.
Many eye conditions such as astigmatism and myopia are degenerative. This means they will get worse as you get older, regardless of whether you wear glasses or not.
I think a lot of people get the idea that if they work their eyes harder, they’ll make them better from the treatment for amblyopia, or “lazy eye”, where the stronger eye is covered to make the weaker eye work harder. In fact, in primary amblyopia (not caused by some other disease) the eye itself is usually physically normal; the difficulty in the condition actually occurs when transmitting visual information between the eye and the brain, or in the brain itself.
If you have a degenerative eye disorder, as the vast majority of people who wear glasses do, there is no benefit to not wearing your glasses.
The answer is a great big NO!
In fact, perhaps the worst thing you can do is wear contact lenses. Why? Because your eyes have to “breathe”. Or, shall we say, the membrane the is around your eye needs to have air in order to function properly. People that wear contact lenses are actually depriving the eye of proper air that is needed to keep it working.
Or, to put it another way. Perhaps your eyesight is better, but your “eye health” gets worse with wearing contact lenses. Keep the glasses!
wow iv always though about that
iv worn glasses since the 4th grade
and iv always though about wearing contacts?
so idk
does wearing glasses for far sighted
actually screw up your eyesight?
great post
“Glasses allow you to see comfortably. When you remove them, you see less comfortably. This contrast is what makes some people believe their vision is worse for wearing glasses. Corrective lenses won’t make your vision problems go away, nor will they worsen them. They only correct the symptoms.”
I have been wearing glasses 3 years since now and don’t know why my eyes keep getting weaker and weaker. Last year i got a new pair of glasses and this year, i went for a check up. I couldn’t believe it. My eyes got even weaker though I wear my glasses almost every time. Maybe the problem is with my eyes not the lenses. It may not be the case for everyone though.
is it same with lenses?
I started wearing glasses at age 12. I’m now 60. My eyesight kept getting worse everytime I went for an exam. The last 10 years my eyesight hasn’t changed. It hasn’t improved, just stays the same. So, to me, glasses don’t “heal” your vision, just compensate for your eyes ability to see clearly. In my case, my eyes have stopped getting worse. Your eyesight won’t improve with or without glasses. You won’t be able to see correctly without glasses. Your choice rather to see clearly or not.
You don’t have to wear glasses if you have enough money for buying contaclensess, but if you don’t want contaclensess then wear glasses and if you don’t want glasses I don’t know what’s gonna happen next.
I thinks I agree with you. Your vision hasn’t changed, but your perception has.
My suggestion is… still use eye glasses and don’t forget to drink carrot juice. It makes my eyes better… see, from minus 2.75 become 2.25 amazing! Don’t use eye-contact or soft lens because sometimes you will forget that you don’t wear soft lens but you insist your soft lens can not be removed.
I’ve had glasses for nearly 30 yrs and I can assure you that my eyes continue to get worse each checkup. My eyeglass prescription gets stronger each time, too. In fact, I use the glasses that I replace for computer/reading glasses as they aren’t as ‘strong’.
Well I have been wearing glasses since age 3 and my eye sight has gotten better now I am going into 7th grade and I am getting contacts and those since they arnt as strong….. so I dont have an answer for you really
There is a little truth to what you say (in my opinion). Nearsighted or farsighted eyes result from eyeballs and sockets that are too long or short to easily focus an image on the retina. The eye has to accomodate (adjust lens) for distance to create a clear focus and problems exist when the required adjustment exceeds the capacity of the lens and muscles. My (original) optometrist always prescribed lenses that made my eyes work a little more than with perfect lenses to slow the need for new lenses. Many people ultimately need lenses with age due to presbyopia (elder + optic) because the lens can not be adjusted as in youth. Parts of the eye continue to grow with age and even harden a little.
I wear contacts too and I think your theory is right!
i use to think glasses would make the eyes worse. but the theory that because our vision has been corrected by glasses so when we take them off we see the our blurriness more makes total sense.
…hey man im not wearing glasses but i hav some opinions..
…glasses exist 4 those who hav bad sights..
…maybe your using high grade glasses..
…when you wear eye glasses your eyes are dependent so when you remove it your eyes will work 4 itself and it needs to adjust thats why sometimes you will hav head ache’s or your sights become blurred or worse than before..
…there are some also who cannot adjust because as time pass by your defective eyes becoming worse than before that is why there are different levels or grade of eye glasses,..
….some eyes will become dependent by the time they wear eye glasses because the brain will adapt the function of those glasses,,i mean the brain will adjust your eyesight according to the glasses you wear and it will become a part of your sight now!!!
I seriously doubt if glasses make vision worse. The reason is behind how they work. The eye has sees by refracting (bending) light. If light does not reach the retina properly a person can’t see properly. What an optometrist does is assess the situation with your specific eye shape, and what’s going on in there. That is why they use all those different lenses (is it better now, or now (while flipping lenses over your eye) ). Once the right refraction is identified other eye measurements take place and the prescription is ready to be placed/ordered.
So you see, glasses just work to help the light move/bend in such a way that it can reach the proper part of your eye…not really anything else. I hope this helped!
Btw, I’ve been wearing glasses myself since I was 6 and I’m now in my 40′s!
One of the greatest clashes in history (Besides golf attire) is the controversy between Optometry and Alternative Medicine.
Most people willingly accept the word of their optometrist, despite the consequences their submission (Dependence on eyewear, expensive prices, degenerating sight… to name a few). At this point, someone who’s heard of the Bates Method or any alternative eye exercises would strike their skeptic fingers at me. I only play the Devil’s Advocate to point out the option of alternative medicine, as we should all have choices in life.
Now, there are hundreds of websites offering ways to improve your eyesight. Much of it sounds like New Age bull, but some of the fundamentals they are based on sound intriguing enough to attempt.
As a myopic dependent on eyewear, I can say for all others, that no one wants to purposely wear glasses, it is one of the greatest tragedies to wake up in the morning, only to discern a blurred image of your beautiful spouse.
To raise another point, if we could improve our eyesight, which is of little no cost to us besides time and dedication, what would happen to a billion dollar industry, optometry?
I exclude lasik/PRK from this argument, for it is technology that has come about in the past decade who’s long-term side effects are relatively unknown. My father has had PRK surgery on his eyes, and although his operation was successful, risking blindness for sight which fluctuates, and is prone to future complications, is hardly a fair trade.
Even though these methods may fail in their intended goal, aren’t they worth a try? It is acceptable they may not work, but if we fail to consider it, then we have failed ourselves. For if we try our best to improve our eyesight using these methods, and fail, that is all we can ask of ourselves for we attempted to remedy our ills. Test all things and hold to that which is true.
If that were true, that your eyes get worse as a result of wearing glasses, then your eyes would never get a stable prescription. That means that, say you went five years wearing the same pair of glasses. Were your eyes getting worse, it’d be blurry when you’re wearing the glasses, too, and you’d need stronger lenses. I’ve had the same prescription eyesight (mild nearsighted) for about a year or two now, which is expected from my age and my prescription. If I keep the same steady prescription, in five years when I can have Lasik (getting it as soon as I can), I’ll be a prime candidate. You cannot get Lasik eye surgery if your prescription is not steady.
Plus, you strain your eyes when you aren’t wearing your glasses and you need to. You’re constantly squinting.
@ Cynthia: “It’s true, my friends sister stopped wearing glasses. And now she doesnt even have to wear them anymore.”
Yeah, I know tons of people who don’t wear glasses or contacts but should. They don’t, simply, because they don’t want to or they think they’ll look stupid. But they are acclimated to their crummy vision, which isn’t good, but it means they don’t think they need glasses because they “see fine”; even when they don’t.
A girl I know has such bad eyesight that when she reads, she has to have the book right in her face. None of us around her noticed she did that until she told us.
I have had my glasses for years because i am nearsighted as heck. Once when i was on a vacation i lost them and had no backup pair. It was awful.
“Hey Mom, wheres the bathroom?
“You dont see that big glowing sign?”
“No.”
“… Meghan go show your sister where the bathroom is.”
I was like i was blind! And it gives you SUCH a headache.
I was once told that many people’s vision problems, especially when they start around 14 or 15, are actually caused by the amount of reading we do. Our eyes adjust seeing close all the time. Like a muscle that never gets stretched, our eyes “forget” how to focus on distances. Word has it that these people it is possible for them to fix their own vision by foregoing glasses and forcing their eyes to re-stretch the distance vision muscle.
Whether this is myth or fact, I entirely have no idea.
However, this would explain why some people can “fix” their own vision by leaving off the glasses. I’ve known a couple people who have done this, but they generally had powers of -1.5 or less and got glasses far later than I did.
No such luck for those of us who having been wearing those thick-as-a-brick spectacles since childhood. *shrug*
I had perfect eyes until I had kids. The doctor said it is some Post Partum Refractory Lense changes that are perminant. Now I wear glasses when ever I leave the house for driving and seeing long distances. I take them off right when I walk in the house and I don’t need them to read.
No, they do not make your vison worse.
I asked my eye doctor, and he said that was not true.
though alot of people say it.. it’s just your eyes getting worse. it has nothing to do with the glasses.
As you grow older, your vision naturally gets worse. Even though I’m only 14 and I have 20/200 vision, in a few years(or less) it is likely that my vision will be 20/400. This is not because of glasses. The eye naturally deteriorates overtime.
Wear your glasses, folks. It’s a lot less strain on your eyes.
According to my personal experience, I think it does make your eyes weaker. I’ve had to strengthen my prescription twice since I got glasses 5 years ago. My suggestion is that if you think you could survive without glasses, don’t get them. They are a real pain.
I wore glasses when i was very young but stopped needing them after about primary 5 onwards. Ive heard this alot that eyes gradually get weaker, good to see its not true, i think i may need specs again and having this cleared up warrents a trip to the optitions
.
What’s also kinda freaky is that I have a slight astigmatism, and when I got my first set of glasses years ago, it felt like I was in a funhouse for about a week — angles and lines appeared to be distorted, and a level surface would appear to be slanting.
Glasses do not make your vision worse. You vision gets worse like a normal person without glasses. TV, Computers, etc.
Was the opposite for me. My vision started going to crap in 3rd grade when I noticed I couldn’t read the chalkboard. I kept it a secret and became a “behavioural problem” in school instead because I didnt’ want to look like a nerd and be the only kid with glasses on. I thought glasses were stupid and wanted no part of it. When they asked me to read something on the board, I’d refuse or make a stupid comment and get in trouble. LOL
Vision got worse over the years, never wore glasses, finally got parents to cave when I was 15 and get me contacts. Vision finally stabalized after the age of 24 and it’s still pretty bad.
As a kid, I squinted a lot and that probably strained my eyes more and worse.
I see a lot of pseudoscience in some answers here. An aspect that contributes to the perception of diminishing vision is if the prescription is progressively changed. Whether this is naturally due to age, genetics or a weakness in a specific person’s health formal research is in order. It is a relatively rare circumstance when eyeglasses work like braces on teeth to correct a visual condition. If you get used to wearing corrective lenses there will be a period of adjustment when they are removed. Depending on the degree of correction, you may be able to function eventually with some visual impediment.
Well, glasses are used to correct your vision, but if you strain your eyes too much from over excessive use, your glasses can weaken your eyesight. I have been wearing glasses ever since elementary school, and without say, it would of course weaken through the usage of computers and reading, Yet through the past two years, I have adjusted my computer screen so that the brightness was set on 0, and the contrast was less than halfway. Now, my eyesight has not changed. I wouldn’t say it is because of your glasses that causes your eyes to weaken but, it is rather that your looking at a contrast that expose your eyes to a light that may be harmful.
I do believe eyes gets worse with glasses. That is why I don’t wear my glasses unless I really need them. I seen friends of mines get worse over time. And my children wear glasses and they are worse. I tried telling them to wear them when they need them only but they use it the whole day and they take it off when they sleep. Not me I have the same vision since I was 8 years old. Why? Because I don’t use my glasses everyday, 24/7. I only use when I really need it. Write now, I am typing this without my glasses.
I wear glasses. I think that they correct your vision. And everyone says that they make your eye sight worse, but actually your eyes are just used to the correction.
I’ve worn glasses forever!!! I just think of them as a tool to increase my vision. But our vision does change slightly all the time, new glasses. I’m waiting for lasik,changing the shape of the cornea to eliminate glasses.
I got glasses for sitting too close to the TV. I continued doing that for two years after I got my glasses, and of course they got worse and worse. But then I stopped, and my vision’s been exactly the same ever since.
if it is not a good kind of glasses then definitely it harms the vision of the one who wears them, especially the fake sun glasses.
But besides glasses there is no easier solution at a level your number would become stable, i would suggest morning eye exercise i did it and lost .5 number in 2 months, you can google for more.
I think it’s just the amount of TV we watch, with all the rapid flashing colors, it’s probably because of that our eyes need to work overtime and degrade
My eyes actually got .05 better last time I went to the doctor. But I wear contacts for the most part.
Wow- as fate has it, I just saw this. And today I am going to pick out Eyeglass frames! Huh.
I began wearing glasses at the age of 10, and wore them continuously from then until I was 68, when my optometrist stated that I didn’t need them any more. I haven’t worn them now for 4 years, and I can read, thread needles, and any other thing that needs to be done, with no glasses what so ever. I can guarantee that wearing glasses doesn’t destroy your eyesight.
no, because my eysight hasn’t got worse for the last 5 years.
I currently wear glasses to combat astigmatism in my left eye and been wearing these since I was age 9. I found that whether I wear my glasses or not the perseption I see can either be the same or change as I do agressive stuff for ex. reading or just doing normal everyday activities like working behind a computer. YOU should always have your glasses presciption monitored and changed as your eyesight changes. Doing the exact opposite can impair the vision so needless to say when you asked the question of whether glasses change vision, the answer is clearly NO because it is the retinal cavity if infected or has other preexisting problems that usually cause the problem first. Get your annual exams. I recently went through this with surgery to try and help mine in which I had a lazy eye on the left side. Now that the surgery is over I still see double but that will always be there. The only thing this did is change how I see as I am training my brain to learn to focus differently at things. So thanks for your article and how we challenge ourselves on our eyesight theory.
Glasses don’t make your vision worse. When you you wear them if you continue to do the things that made your vision the way it is before you got your glasses your eye sight will get worse weather you wear glasses or not.
While the change in perception is true, it DOES NOT address the actual question. Would your vision without glasses be better if you never wore glasses than if you do wear them? It is actually impossible to know for certain, but my personal experience from wearing glasses SOME of the time suggests that is likely to be the case.
I must be an exception to the rule. I have actually worn contacts since i was eleven or so. My sight worsened for a couple of years then leveled off. Since I was sixteen i had the exact same prescription for the next tweny years. Granted that going to the eye doctor few and far between my have helped. If you go every six months they are eventually gonna want to sell you some new lenses with a stronger perscription. just a theory. I also think depending on what you do for a living has an effect on your vision. Eyes are not made to stare at a computer screen for 8 hours a day. Maybe thats why Bill Gates has glasses.
Those of you that are young and are saying that your vision is getting worse: This happens regardless of corrective lenses. People’s vision does not level off until about age 25.
well i think you should just where them for a year or
so and then take them off
Glasses make your vision worse. Read about the Bates Method: Better Eyesight without Glasses. Post an eye chart in your room 10′ from your bed. Look at it at night, look at it again in the morning. Big changes because your eyes are rested. Take care of your eyes! They’re the only ones you’ll get!
As a person gets older, often their eyes shift toward farsightedness. I was near sighted when I was young, but was able to leave off glasses for a while, then had to go to bifocals
Myopia(nearsightedness) usually begins at ages 9-12, gets bigger numerically for 4-8 years and thereafter does not show any significant change. For a few people, it begins at older ages but again gets stabile after 6-8 years. One exception is degenerative myopia which increases continuously upto higher dioptries such as -15 or more. Wearing glasses has no or very very little effect on progression of the myopia, in other words glasses are optical devices that merely focus the rays on the retina. It is genetically determined that to what extent the myopia will increase and environmental factors -mostly heavy reading- has little effect at all. Hypermetropia(farsightedness) begins at earlier ages such as 1-4, increases for 4-5 years, thereafter shows a little decrease and becomes stabile till the age 40. Then it shows some increase again. Astigmatism may begin at any age and it has a stabile course relatively except for the keratoconus disease which is charecterised with progressively increasing irregular astigmatism. Wearing lenses again has no or little efefect on the course of hypermetropia or astigmatism. Wearing glasses is mandatory at ages 0-10 since the function of seeing is learnt by the brain during that period. So wearing glasses does not treat your myopia(or hyperopia) neither does it worsen your myopia if you are older than 10; you wear and see clear or you do not wear and see foggy. Opthalmologist
No need for “thick-as-a-brick spectacles” My prescription is very strong,yet my lenses are very thin.
Your vision will always progress for the worse as you get older, I’m 16. The process has turned extremely slow.
i have been almost blind since whenever, it took a long time before anyone said hey she needs glasses. been wearing them since i was 9! AGE makes a huge difference. the older you get the blinder you get, but i can still see. so as far as i am concerned as long as you can still see with, why bother worrying about if they work or make your eyes worse. that was an old wives tale any ways.
i got eye surgery when i was one and got glasses when i was two. And ever since then my prescription has gotten stronger and stronger. I am 14 now and my prescription is pretty thick and pretty strong, for bifocals. Sorry about my spelling, i am only 14 and a bad speller. lol
I’ve had glasses since I was 5 years old, and they’ve gotten a lot worse since then. im 15 now and my perscription is -12 and -12.5. im pretty blind. every year my eyes would get worse and worse. but last year i started wearing contacts, and i went to my eye doctor a month ago, and they said that my perscription hadn’t changed! it might be a coquinceidence, but i would definently say that contacts instead of glasses help your vision. idk if thats true though….
It’s really a conspiracy, your eye doctor gives you .25 above your normal prescription, so when you come back next year you HAVE to get new glasses since the extra .25 raises your prescription by that same amount…
just kidding, my dad’s a conspiracy kind of person, but correct glasses do not damage your eyes providing you don’t go to the eye doctor every year
I don’t know, I was wearing glasses since 4th grade until 8th, and my eyesight got progressively worse (even with the glasses on, I couldn’t read the eye chart and had to keep getting stronger and stronger prescriptions) and then I got contacts and my vision has been perfectly clear (with them on, at least
) ever since!
I am now 45 and I’ve been near sighted since 17. I use to wear my glasses pretty regular but quit doing so when I turned 30. My vision has changed very little since then. So little that there was no reason to get a new prescription. I get my eyes checked every year. I tried contacts before but did not like them so glasses is the only thing I would use.
Yeah when i got glasses it seemed that my eyes got worse every checkup .
To Michael:
I’ve worn glasses since I was 7 and contacts since I was 9. I’m almost 15. My eyesight gets worse every time I go to the optometrist. It’s not the glasses. As we grow, our eyes grow as well. If your eyes are not in the correct shape (the problem behind most nearsightedness) and they get larger, they are still in the wrong shape, just worse. This makes the problem worse and requires higher prescriptions and thicker glasses.
YES!! thank u!! great post!! i’ve told ppl this for the longest time, that it’s ur perception that changes–and they’ve never believed me–now that this is in writing, maybe they will!! awesome work!
I don’t think they make your vision worse, I actually think they make it better. Okay, I have pretty bad eye sight because I have a lazy eye…so my left I turns a little bit because the muscle is wear and needless to say it screws up my vision, but I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 2, and my eyesight, and my lazy eye have gotten better. My glasses (or contacts when I wear them) help turn my eye straight so I can see and help my vision a good amount…and actually, at this point I need a new prescription because I can see better with out my glasses, and compared to a couple years ago…things are a lot less blurry without my glasses now than they were then. My lazy eye is also a lot less noticeable. I know a lot of people only need glasses to read and they think I’m really weird because I wear my glasses all the time…but I think that also depends on your vision…if you have not close to perfect vision you’ll need to wear you glasses all the time as to not run into walls…if you have almost perfect vision and only need them to read than it would probably do you more harm than good to wear your glasses all the time.
After you reach a certain age, like, 65 your eye’s level out . In the mean time wear the things if you can’t see , I know . I never accepted glasses at 48 yrs , but, I did, today my long distance is coming back, go back in history and check your history,, have you denied your system of things ie nutrition etc .. heredity& so forth, & further more listen up, do not pay attention to one word I just said , BOTTOM LINE! Sober up & your problems are over……CLIVE.
ive been wearing glasses since 4th grade (i’m going into 8th this year) and my eyesight keeps getting worse. although, my eyedoctor said it’s because i’m on the computer so much…hehe…
i don’t see how being on the computer so often makes your eyes worse. my dad works on computer basically all day, 5 days a week and his eyesight has been the same for years!
My vision has improved, and I’ve been wearing glasses since I was very young. My vision was terrible then, and now I’m getting better at reading without glasses as an adult.
Your eyes have to constantly adjust to your newer prescription, therefore it gets weaker and weaker. I know this through my own experience and many, in fact countless others. YES your eyes does gets worse. Don’t delete my comments please the TRUTH must get out.
Usually I tend to trust, to an extent, what professionals say. But not this time. I am suppose to be wearing my glasses all the time but I use to only wear them when I needed to. My vision improved. One day I decided why not? I might as well wear them all the time. It will help me see better. I go back to the eye doctor’s after maybe 6 months and my vision is worse. Kept wearing them (just to see if the other time was a fluke), and my vision worsened even more. So if like the professional says, my vision has truly stayed the same but my perception has changed then it seems as though the only thing eye tests are testing me on is my perception, and not my vision. So why should I wear my glasses all the time then? I should only wear them in cases where I’m not able to see somethng without them. The rest of the time doesn’t really matter either way
i’ve been wearing glasses since i was about 2.
and with some glasses i do think my sight was worse but with some pairs i see some improvement.
but i haven’t worn my glasses for a few months now and my sight is about average really.
i really only have problems with far away objects b/c im near sighted.
my glasses allow me to see things far away.
so bottom line do i think glasses make your vision worse no but do i think they really improve vision some what but only to a degree i guess it depends on what type of vision problem you have.
Yes, it’s true.
All this comments seem very naive if you don`t respect knowledge of professionals.. There are 2 basic types of problems with eyes … one is myopic, most at children and young or very young people, which through more years can decrease to adult age or complete disappear, and opposite is problem at older people, long-sightedness, which most can start at adults till late age which usually increase with years.But every case is very individual, also as as glasses must be required quality, and prescribed by professional. So as it is good to exchange experience, it can be danger to accept as advice foreign experience to your own case.
i’ve only had my glasses for about half a year, but my eyesight is really bad. I had problems with seeing things far away starting 6th grade. it wasn’t too bad, just that i had trouble seeing things REALLY far away.
Over time, though, my eyesight kept getting worse. last summer we went to the oculist, and she said that my eyes were just tired from the constant strain i put on them when studying (books, computer, then tv when i rest). she said i just needed to take a break from computers and books every 15-20 minutes, to let my eyes realx, an do “eye exercises” every morning (by focusing on different points in a certain order, etc.).
I did, and my eyesight got a bit better for a while, but when school started (it was 9th grade) after about 2 months or so it dropped really rapidly. When we visited another oculist, he said i needd theese special glasses with the holes in them (someone above already talked about them) and wear them 10-15 minutes a day, when i read or watch tv, but only if the light is good enough. In the end, it only got my eyes to hurt and my eyesight didn’t change, but got only worse after some time again.
we went to a third oculist, and after the had my eyes checked the told me and my dad that my eyes WERE tired from being strained so much, but they we really strained because my eyesight was bad and i they were constantly trying to focus into what i could no longer see. The oculist said that at most, I could properly see less than 20% of what was around me, and tat was if i strained my eyes a lot.
So in the end, I ended up with glasses, which, as the occulist said, didn’t give me 100% vision, but less, so that my eye would still have to do some work, through which my eyes would gradually get better.
It took a while to get used to the glasses, because i’d gotten used to everything being so blurry. But igot used to them really quickly, and i can’t say that my eyesight improoved. I think it got worse, but only by a bit. I’d say that the glasses DO help, but only as long as you wear them the way you’re supposed to. After all, my dad’s eyesight got worse when he wore glasses for about a week, taking them off only to go to bed, when the oculist said to wear them only in the car, to see the road, cars, signs and everything. I guess what happened was that his eyes got used to not having to do as much work as before, and so he almost got his eyesight almost bad enough to have to wear them as much as i do.
And even thought my eyesight did get worse, i think the glasses actually help, because before that my eyesight was dropping at a really fast rate, and i think that the glsses slowed it down. And even if my eyesight doen’t improove enought to stop wearing glasses altogether, i don’t mind, because the glasses actually suit me, and make me look like who i am – someone who spends a lot of time around books and computers.
glasses don’t make your “vision” get better or worse, it applies the lens physics to your eye so it focuses the image of what you are looking at better on the “retina” which makes the image appear sharper than if it was scattered. so in sum: if your doctor tells you that you need glasses, wearing them will make you see things better but it will not fix or worsen the underlying problem, and if your vision gets worse with time, know that this was going to happen either way, the problem is that if you choose not to wear your glasses you will end up putting alot of strain on your eyes to see which can give you some symptoms like headache or tearing of your eyes.
I think that glasses do make your vision worse. I’ve been wearing glasses for the last four years and every time I go to the opticians my eyesight is worse. I need new glasses. I’m thinking of memorizing the letter board so I don’t need new glasses. My mum is going to kill me if I need more new glasses.
My eyes have gotten worse.
My current glasses are thicker than my 1st pair.
So I don’t know….
I’m farsighted and I’ve had glasses since I was 5 years old. I’m 16 now and my vision has improved a lot. My prescription was more than +5 when I first got glasses, but now it’s +2 and +2.5. I haven’t seen a doctor in a while and my vision might have gone even better. Anyway, I think that wearing glasses makes your vision a lot better
.
it’s weird because my brother used to have REALLY bad eyesight like minus something and he stopped wearing glasses and e doesn’t even have to wear them anymore. I reckon that wearing glasses and taking them off will confuse your eyes but thats exactly what I do. I’m short sighted and while I ahte wearing my glasses, I have to wear them when I’m in class like when I can’t read whats on the board. So I take it out only when I need them. I would like to get contacts but I heard that they can irritate your eyes… geez.
Yeah yr rite.Wearing glasses had made my eyesight worse so now i am wearing contact lenses instead.Well,it helps to prevent our eyesight from weakening…
I’ve been wearing glasses/contacts since the 1st grade, so probably 18 years. Of course your vision will change over time, regardless if you wear them or not. My prescription has not changed in 6 years!! Unfortunately I went to a new eye dr. and he does not get .25 prescriptions so I will either have to go up or down, so I am going to go down and get use to it.
I believe that glasses do make your eye sight worse because the doctor told my brother that he needed glasses two years ago. My brother agreed and wore them for a whole year and when he went back to the doctor for a check up they said he needed stronger lens. My dad didn’t understand because it just didnt make sense that his eye sight was getting worse. So my brother didn’t wore his glasses for the next year and he resulted in his eye sight getting better.
I recently got contact lenses and was thinking about this the other day, I was told by my opticians that lenses had been linked to a decline in eye sight,
I too agree that they allow my eyes to ‘slack’ which may make them better worse or niether, however I also thought that i just got used to seeing the world ‘normally’ and that it just looked worse once i knew how much better it could look
According to my eye doctor, eyesight doesn’r get worse by glasses.the perception chages, and that weakens the eyesight, too much changes. so do not put your glasses in and out if you are recquired to use it all the time. and also, according to her, my eyesight keep getting worse because of my age. in the teen years, when you have a blurry eyesight it will get worse as the years pass. it will stabilize when you reach your twentys and get worse again as you approach the old age.
Sorry, but your eyesight does NOT get worse when wearing glasses. If you’re short or far sighted, your eyeballs are slightly deformed, thus the lightrays don’t concentrate on the point they are actually supposed to concentrate, and thus your vision gets blurry. Glasses fix that. Glasses do NOT take away the work the eyes have to do in ANY WAY.
Sometimes your eyesight gets worse when wearing glasses, but not because you are wearing glasses, your eyesight would have gotten worse anyways. That might be because your skull is growing faster or slower than your eyeballs or due to other reasons. I can assure you that the worsening of your eyesight has nothing to do with glasses.(if it would, you wouldn’t get a bad eyesight in the first place. also, that would mean you could get a better eyesight by stopping to wear glasses, which is not the case)
I agree with that Theory also. I mean, you see children with glasses when they are damn near newborns! We don’t give our eyes a chance to correct or even use themselves the way they were supposed to be. Granted there are people out there who just NEED them, there are also people who just don’t give their eyes a chance.
>> If you don’t wear glasees your eyesight gets worse. So you have no choice but to wear them. But you shouldn’t wear high power one(high numbers). That makes it worse. <<
that is totally untrue. one's eyesight doesn't get worse as a result of wearing glasses – in fact, if you have myopia (near-sightedness) as a child, it usually gets progressively worse regardless of whether you wear glasses or not.
yet, as one reaches middle age, most find that their near-sightedness will improve slightly, due to the far-sightedness that starts to occur.
secondly, if you have severely bad vision, wearing high prescription lenses won't make it worse – besides which, since you wouldn't be able to see a dang thing without them anyway, the only "worse" you can get is going *blind* – and there's not one case on record of someone going blind due to wearing high prescription glasses.
I knew this person who never wore their glasses in school and by the end of the year he gained 13% of his vision. This came from squinting at the boards.
IF YOU DRINK SOY MILK IT WILL ACTUALLY IMPROVE YOUR EYE SIGHT! After finding out I was lactose intolerant a year ago I have been drinking soy milk. My vision has increased dramatically for the better. Something to think about people. Oh and I am 28 by the way. Doctor told me years ago my vision was going to get worse. It went the opposite way after drinking soy milk.
No they do not I wore them my wole life but I stoped wearing them at the end of my freshman year of high school and mine got better
no it do not but if you use the glasses for every thing get one that you can us for every thing but no mike
I’ve been wearing glasses since I was four. I’m twenty now. My eyesight has gotten worse each year, but I guess that’s just because of getting older, and because of genetics. My glasses would probably be thicker than my hand if i didn’t get the “ultra-cool uber-thin bevel slim” lenses.
When I was 10 I got contacts. But I only wore them during that 5th grade! My doctor and everyone–they’re always saying I need to wear contacts so my vision doesn’t worsen so quickly. I don’t understand why the help. But I haaate them! And I hate how I look without my glasses (I’ve had them for 80% of my life, so they’re like part of my anatomy, lol!)
Anyway, I might get the contact implants in a year. I would prefer them over lasik because I’m pretty sure my eyes are still going to get worse as i grow older, and the implants can be changed.
Whatever, I’m still going to wear glasses–even if the lenses are fake!
i had 20/40 vision. i never have worn glasses. my eye sight has some how improved without help to 20/25. its weird i know
If the perscription is incorrect or not yours, yes, while you wear them your vision will be impared
Yeah my doc told me that if I stopped watching tv and going on the computer and kept wearing my glasses that my vision would get better – like that’s ever going to happen!
I definitely agree with you, Mike. Wearing glasses doesn’t make your vision worse. Your vision gets worse on its own, regardless of whether or not you’re wearing glasses.
Cool. Now, are conact lenses bad?
I’ve been wearing glasses for 8 years and I’ve had to change to a stronger prescription 3 times. I do gradually notice it getting worse; one day I can read something in the distance, a few months later I can’t.
I’ve been wearing glasses for about 9 years now, but luckily my eye doctor has said that my vision has been stable for the past 2 years or so.
I once had a friend in elementary school who had really thick glasses, but somehow his vision gradually got better and he didn’t need glasses at all when he entered high school. I never could quite figure out how that happened, but I sure wish it happened to me!
I agree that you get accustomed to good vision by wearing your glasses and think it is worse after taking them off because you aren’t used to that anymore. I don’t think it makes your eyes worse.
I do however think wearing over the counter reading glasses as a solution for distance and up close reading (instead of going to the dadgum eye doctor and getting a REAL solution) ruins your eyes. If you get it too weak or too strong I think it causes unnecessary strain to your eyes. This is not the only reason it is bad to not go to the eye doctor. Your eyes are usually the first indicators of health problems…
So anyway, I will continue to wear my REAL glasses and contacts, once I get my updated exam. I like being able to see!
i wear glasses and actually they do.because i first my vision wasnt bad so then i got newglasses and my vision was terrible.my mother got upset so we desided to go to another glasses store because we thought they were just stealing our money.
I remember I had to wear glasses when I was younger- I have rugby ball shaped eyeballs not football shaped. As I wore them i continued to need them, so I haven’t worn them for a year and a bit now. I went back for another optician appointment and what’s this they tell me ‘you have enough prescription to get glasses, but right now you don’t need them’. Well thanks, I knew that.
I asked myself the same thing. I’ve been wearing glasses since grade school. Now I can not get to the bathroom without them.
Now my 8 year old has been prescribed glasses (for distance). My question is, if she is not driving does she need to wear glasses?
Yeah, I thought I was a smart little kid for stealing my older sister’s glasses and wearing them..they made my eyes worse at a young age… nearsighted at that later i was told because of my nearsightedness i could wear these conact lens that would over time correct what was going to be a bad blind experience..I tried them AND THEY WORKED…..BUT I still learned a valuable lesson of how valuable it is to take care of the only set of eyes that we have and improve any vision by having it checked once a year…..it sure helps the squinting go away and gets rid of alot of wrinkles…!!!!
I was born with a lazy eye. I had to get my first pair of glasses when I was two and a half. I wore them every day and my eyesight improved. One day, in about 6th grade, I couldn’t find my glasses so I had to go to school without them. I didn’t wear them for about a week and I could see just fine without them. Then I found them, but I decided to not wear them for a little while longer because I had done fine without them for the past week. “A little while longer” turned into about a year. When I finally put my glasses back on again, I couldn’t see out of them anymore! I went to the optometrist to get a new pair, but when he checked my eyes he said that my eyesight was so good I didn’t need glasses anymore. I can’t tell you for sure whether the glasses helped my eyes so much that they healed or they stopped my eyes from healing as quickly as they might have. But I can tell you that my glasses didn’t make my eyesight worse.
I have been wearing glasses since kindergarten. And I do think they’ve made my eyes worse. I can’t wear contacts now due to too much stigmatism in my eyes which really sucks. The doctors have even said I can’t wear the stigmatism-approved contacts.
I have worn glasses since third grade I’m 31 now and legally blind. As are my father, and sister. My eyesight got worse not because of the glasses but because of genetics. For most of us who get galsses as children or eye problems are in their early stages. They will stablize over time. My fathers eyes have not gotten any worse in 30 years, my sisters prescription has been the same for 6 years and mine has not changed in almost 7 years. I really don’t think that glasses make them worse.
Well actually, If you out them on for the first few days, your eyes would hurt a little, it is normal, cuz your eyes have to get used to the glasses cuz you are looking through a different vision.But once you get used to them, they won’t hurt alittle anymore, and glasses don’t make the vision worse.
For those of you saying you’ve been wearing glasses since you were young and they got worse as you got older… its because you were growing. My eye doctor told me that your eye sight usually stabalizes once you reach your late teens or twenties. That is why it is not recommned to have laser eye surgery until you are older. Then of course, as you get much older, they worsen because of old age.
idk igot the same prob
i heard that sometimes doctors give u a stronger power than u should have,to keep yr eye muscles work ,(so like wearing a stronger power helps u exercise yr eyes muscles) . . .
No If You Wear Them They Wont Mess Up Your Vision But If You Dont Wear Them Them It Might mess Up Your Vision
I started wearing glasses when I was 9 and my eyes kept getting worse and worse until I got LASIK when I was about 27. Best decision I ever made!
I do have to agree that wearing new glasses made my eyesight worse. Everytime I got a new prescription (once a year), I would immediately see everything super sharp… then few days later, my vision would get blurry again. I would try the old glasses and I can tell it got worse. But then if I go back to the old glasses for a few days then back to the new glasses I would see better.
So I guess it could be optical illusion but still every year my eyes would get worse and worse and I would need thicker glasses. I got so sick of it, I got LASIK and my eyes have been 20/20 for 10 years!!!!!!!!!!!! My optometrist drove a Lexus cause of me…. but it got repo’d after I got LASIK. LOLLLLLLLL
I have been wearing glasses since age four, my eyesight has stayed around the same, only getting a tiny bit worse each time. This time they got better!! Glasses help your eyes a lot. Great post!!
One time my glasses broke(a cheap kind apparently-broke every time I got them) and wouldn’t give me loaner glasses like they did the first time. So for 3 weeks, my eye doctor made me go without the the glasses I had worn since age four. My eyesight got worse in one eye, better in the other the next time I had them checked(4 months later). Not sure why, but great post!
Great post, but I’m still not convinced.
I wear my glasses quite often at school, to see things that I would regularly need to squint at. If you have to squint at something to see it clearly, you should definatly wear glasses.
I don’t think wearing glasses makes your eyes worse. It just seems like that because when you take them off, your eyes aren’t adjusted to the sudden change.
-Hopefully everyone reading these comments have them at a decent font so they don’t have to squint.
-Why do they have such small writings on the arms of glasses? You have to take your glasses off to read them, but then you can’t even read it clearly.
I’ve been wearing glasses over 45 years. One weekend I lost my only pair at the beach and had to depend on my husband,as I’m almost blind without them. Well,when I went to the eye doctor, he actually looked surprised. My eyesight had improved slightly! Isn’t that a kicker? Now, when ever I can, I take the glasses off as long as I can. My next dr appt will tell me if this works.
Many people who get glasses at a young age may notice that their eyesight gets worse simply because it continues changing as you get older. I started out wearing glasses in 2nd grade and needed successively stronger prescriptions until about 6th or 7th. I am now in college and my eyesight hasn’t really changed since then. I wear my glasses absolutely constantly, even in bed out of habit, but even if I hadn’t worn them, my eyesight would have degenerated as a child because it runs heavily in my family.
Nahh, its the other way around. Not wearing glasses makes you worse. especially if while you’re not wearing them, you’re straining to see. In my case i don’t wear my glasses for looking at boards and overheads and shopping. Thus, i end up starining to see wordsa dn shop signs and even people’s faces. Not wearing glasses=more strain=bad for eyes. Source: my optemetrist’s response when i asked her if wearing glasses made you blinder, quicker. But wearing the glasses you get headaches if for too long.. Its annoying and ironic. My solution: If your prescription is 1.5. Wear your old 1′s or 0.5′s when shopping, reading, studying or computering. But for TV, wear the correct prescription. Bad thing is my old 0.5 glases look like hary potter’s! loL
You shouldn’t wear them when you’re young, up to 18ish, really, unless your vision is really bad, because when you grow, your eyes are going to change too. I got glasses but my vision wasn’t all that bad, so I didn’t wear them, and I’ve had two visits to the optometrist since then and my vision has gotten better each time.
It must depend on why your vision is poor. When I was in my mid-twenties I had problems seeing to read. My eye doctor gave me a prescription of one-half of what I needed. He explained that he wanted my eyes to work to focus. After less than two years, he told me that I no longer needed glasses. The eye doctor’s theory worked great!
I’m in my mid-forties now and once again I am starting to have trouble seeing to read. However, this time it is probably due to simple aging and the trick of having a half-strength prescription will probably not work.
Not true. I have been prescribed a -1.75 2 years ago. I only wear them when I ABSOLUTELY have to. [1 or 2 classes in school] My eyes have been the same and so has my prescription.
My friends have worn glasses to but all the time and each time they go to the doctors they need a new prescription.
How can even slightly dirty glasses improve a person’s vision? No doubt that most of the time when we wear glasses there are specks of dust and other gunk on our glasses. How can this be good for vision? You see the big picture but micro dirt on your glasses is actually right in front of your eyes. I think this question is still up in the air.
I think wearing contacts really helps me to keep my eye glass power steady (at least it works for me and I have read a few other posts supporting the fact too).
I have been wearing glasses since I was 5 years old and switched to contacts when I was 18 and noticed that my power was kind of stabilizing. But it did continue to increase every year until the age of 23 (this is when I completely moved to wearing contacts and did not use my glasses since). However, when I took my study leave a couple of months back I started using my eye glasses since I was at home itself. After a month, I noticed my vision was getting worse. On consulting with the optamologists I found out that the power increased by .5 in both eyes! I don’t know if it was all the computer staring or the eye glasses really, and I don’t think it was the computer as I constantly use the computer at work too.
Get high refractive index poly carbonate for you lenses and you won’t have to wear coke bottle thick glasses. The material bends light better and allows much thinner lenses than traditional material.
OK, there are so many comments here and the question is answered to each one in his (her) own manner. Worse or not – does it really matter?
The real issue is – what to do with our weakened eyes? Is there a nonsurgery way to cure the vision?
Ask any official doctor and he would say to you – yes, it happens sometimes (e.g. when you have your ears pierced in “right” points – I know a woman who wore glasses since she was six years old and after she pierced her ears at the age of sixteen she suddenly discovered that she could see well. Not better but perfectly well.) but the official medicine does not know any proven and reliable method of such kind…
But there is the way! The potential powers of our organizm itself – well, not revealed, not used in everyday life. But they really may do miracles.Please do not consider it to be a promotion of any kind, it’s not. I just want to show to those who “really” want to change their life and get their inborn perfect vision back, a way out. Read the book “The Experience of a Fool Who Had An Epiphany About How To Get Rid of His Glasses” by Mirzakarim Norbekov (you may find it on Amazon.co.uk) and try what is described there for yourself. You will be astounded with the results.
Wish you all the well in your life.
I am suppose to wear glasses, but I stopped in High school now as an adult I still cannot see perfect but it isnt too bad I work on a computer and passed my eye exam for driving without glasses, i havent gone to the eye doctor in years but the last I went I hadn’t been wearing my glasses and my eyes had actually improved. For me that was proof enough that I don’t need them at this time.
Your eyes continue to develop until you’re 21.
i used glasses until 7th grade. then i stopped and now im in 10th grade and my eyes are alot stronger now according to doctors. i can see the schooltable and all that shit. i really dont need glasses anymore… at first i didn’t see the schooltable when i stopped using them. now i can see everything pretty damn good
experience
no they shouldnt but they annoy people alot
Interesting, I just got reading glasses from the doctor but now I can’t read without them whereas before I got used to them, I could. They help and harm I do believe.
My eyes were corrected through prescription lenses. I wore glasses from age 2 to 17. The summer after I turned 17 I was told by the eye doc that I could start to go without glasses if I wanted to. And I did. I haven’t worn glasses in 5 years. I love it!
Actually my eye sight improved…of course not because I eye wear glasses. I was required to wear glasses while driving; however, recently the restriction was lifted.
I still of wear glasses, my prescription has remained the same for the most part. Glasses are only a band-aid like most medicines and never really correct the root of the problem. The only thing I did was change my eating habits…I know it’s difficult but that’s what’s needed to keep your sight from at least worsening. Sugar worsens your sight. So curtail from large amounts of sugar (i.e. any sweets, carbs and breads turns to sugar, etc…). Simultaneously boost your level of green intake (i.e. kale, spinach, broccoli, turnip greens, green beans etc…). Drink a lot of water. This regiment is a soft detox method. Reduce meat intake as well because today’s meat harness toxins. Stay focused and not only eyes will improve but your body will be saying, “thank you”.
my dad got corrective eye surgery and now he has eye problems because he used his glasses too much, his eyes didn’t get worse they just got weaker and now have a hard time focusing.A weak ciliary muscle is what i think is at the core of this comment and it is therefor my opinion that a weak ciliary muscle can lead to worse vision in the focusing aspects only.
I think this is inaccurate and I don’t think you looked as hard as you could for the right answers. I got glasses in 5th or 6th grade. My vision wasn’t terrible, but I couldn’t see the boards in school and stuff, so that was a problem. For a while, I would only wear my glasses when I had to see the board and I would carry them around in the case. Soon, my eyes got bad enough that I had to wear glasses constantly (7th grade.) Now, my eyes are as bad as my mom’s and I’ve been CONSTANTLY wearing glasses for two years! My mom’s eyes are terrible too, or at least the one eye she can see out of – she’s blind in one eye and has horrible vision in the other eye. Check your facts, buddy, and don’t just settle for one person/organization’s opinion.
The only way to NOT have your eyesight change for the worse is if you are nearsighted and you regularly wear gas permeable (hard) contact lenses. That will for some reason keep the eyes stable at whatever prescription you are currently at.
In today’s world there is no way to know for sure. You see, Optometrists and Opthamologists are in business to make money. So, if they need more money then they might tell you your eyesight has worsened since you were seen last and give you a stronger prescription that your eyes will have to adjust to, and that WILL make your eyesight worse; however the doctor gets to reap the benefits financially and especially so if you purchase your new frames and lenses from him! Almost no one has any honor or a sense of ethics these days.
Oh, I forgot to mention that on the bright side, I have HEARD that if you were hard-lenses contacts, that this might curtail vision from worsening, and/or actually might correct the vision. This is information that a friend of mine told me she learned from her daughters doctor and this is why she got her daughter contacts. The daughter was 12 at the time.
wear*
I’m 37 now, have worn glasses since age 12 or 13, and I’ve only needed two or three prescription changes. My last one, the optometrist said my eyes were getting a little better. Otherwise they’ve pretty much stayed the same the last several years.
I wore glasses from the time I was in 3rd grade until I was in college. My vision had improved enough that I did without glasses until I was in my late 30′s, when I got reading glasses. By the tme I was in my mid 40′s I was in glasses full time again, and now I wear bifocals.
Our eyes change naturally. Wearing the lenses simply corrects the focus, but doesn’t change the natural fluctuations that will occur whether we wear corrective lenses or not.
I’m also wearing glasses. If u don’t wear your glasses, your eyes will work harder. It’s will worsen your condition so it’s better to wear eyeglasses. Your eyesight actually depend on your health too, you need to eat lot of vitamin A, omega-3, and other fish oil. It will help to maintain your eyes’ health so that it will not become worse. In other word, it will slow down the progress and your eyes prescription will change slightly. If your age between 0 to 20 years old, your vision will change dramatically as your body keep growing up. If your age between 20 to 30 years old, your vision is pretty the same (slightly changed in your vision). If your age between 30 to 40, your eyesight starts to change. When your are 40 and up, your vision start to change quickly as your health become unstable. Eat healthy food and exercise regularly will help to slow down your eyesight changes
I really do wish i would stop wearing those things, but i seem lost without them.Help someone
I wore coke bottles since 6th grade (couldn’t get mom to get me glasses before that) and got LASIK – wow what a difference. My eyes got progressively wores especially in my 40′s (now 53).
yeah i know i use to see good then i got glasses cause my stupid teacher told me i need to get them because i couldnt see small as letter from the back tback of the room like 40 ft. stupid. and now 9 years later i see worse. so stupid. and yet the doctor say ooh you getting better. im like umm no!!!!
It’s true what you say, but not true in the sense your eyes can’t get worse.. my eyes HAVE gotten worse. Every prescription I have ever gotten over the past… 18 years, each one has to be a little stronger.
If you compare your old glasses from say.. the 5th grade, your vision isn’t the same!
Eyes can be trained to see better without glasses. They used to do it for WWII pilots during training. If you wore corrective lenses you couldn’t be a pilot so they retrained their eyes to focus correctly without them.
I don’t think eyeglasses are a scam. I use mine all the time. But it’s mostly because I’m too lazy to practice focusing any more. Each new prescription actually ‘hurts’ to wear the first day because my eyes don’t like the lens reconfiguration it takes to adjust. Then the eyes just give up and adapt to weaker focusing. It can be a downward spiral.
This can be true for astigmatism. I don’t know about other eye problems of other causes than weak focusing muscles.
I think people don’t understand that eyesight change over time, regardless rather you wear glasses or not. The purpose of glasses is to help you see clearly as your vision decreases. The glasses ddon’t make your eyes better or worse. I started wearing glasses in the second grade when I told my parents I had a hard time seeing the chalk board. And yes my eye sight has gotten worse since then, but not because of the glasses, but because of the natural degeneration the eyes go through due to genetics. Your genes determine how well you see now and in the future.
That a lot of stuff!!!!!!!!
Natural degradation of vision is another explanation, but no more factual than any other assumption here, even among ophthalmologists. To actually prove it, it needs reproducible clinical research studies against a control group. Even vision changes in the non-spectacle wearing group doesn’t definitively prove ‘natural degradation’ or ‘genetic predisposition’; it only suggests a correlation which may or may not be causative.
It’s easy even among physicians to group physical phenomena in their practice and then say, “Look, that must be the cause…” when no direct proof is established. When patients hear a doctor make a comment like that, it tends to be accepted as fact. Take for instance, patients who are told alzheimer’s is genetic when some get markedly better with regular exercise and vitamin B replacement therapy. It’s not that alzheimer’s ISN’T genetic; it’s that most work shows its correlated and that’s all. Or all bunions being caused by tight shoes when some are known to be caused by shortening of iliopsoas from prolonged sitting (driving or desk work).
If the genetics explanation works for some, they should go with that. But for others, a more dynamic explanation is sought. Whatever works for the individual. But until experiments are done that rule out contingencies, nobody really knows for sure.
well… i dont know about that but once i had reading glasses on and i was always wearing them, becuase i enjoyed seeing everything. So my sister started to tell me i only needed it for reading, but I wouldnt listen. So, once i tried to go back into the habit of wearing them as reading glasses and not far-sighted glasses, my vision got worse and i had no choice but to wear them. ~~What i’m saying is that before i wore my glasses I could see fine, then once i got used to them and tried to break that habit i needed my glasses for every day use.~~
oh and BTW the reason why over time ur eyes r getting worse are not because of the glasses but of how everytime you use the computar or television you are loosing some brain cells which cause weaker eye vision!!! duhhh.
i just got glasses today, and my mom keeps buging me to wear them but they make my eyes hurt even worse and on top of that they make me look nerdy!!!!!!!!!! help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vision is neurochemical, a neural connection to the brain and how light and images are interpreted. CLEAR vision is muscular action; the muscles alongside the eye which act mostly to turn the eyeball but also contribute to its shape; and muscles in the iris and lens which affect amount of light into the eye and point of focus in back of the eye.
Muscles can get lax but they can be trained and strengthened. Most people – even children (I got my first pair in 3rd grade) don’t always have the muscle tone to focus properly.
Try this to test it yourself: pick a small object or cross hairs in tile on the ceiling. Without your glasses, spend time forcing your eyes to push the fuzzy lines into place. After a few minutes, they focus better but usually not good enough. What you do notice, however, is your eyes hurt – they are trying to work the muscles they forgot were there and glasses made flabby. And your eyes feel the strain deep in the eye socket as well as the lens area.
Glasses are a quick fix, but they usually don’t cure anything and after awhile, they can make eyes worse by removing the demand to focus at all.
Again, this does not include eye problems other than muscular – like glaucoma or retinopathies and other eye diseases. That’s a whole other can of worms. ~~~~:)
If you’re the kind of person that wants to fight poor vision tolerating some inconvenience with exercise, go for it. Most people, myself included, just get used to being lazy focusers. I stopped training because I still needed my glasses, although the prescription had changed due to eye exercises (my old glasses worked better), and wearing glasses just made my eyes strain again. I’m not scared off by vision changes due to exercise, but then I’m not particularly motivated to keep it up. Some people don’t feel that way. Good for them and Godspeed. Vision is worth the effort and deliberate focusing works.
I started wearing glasses at 10 years old. My vision got worse every 2-3 years until I was about 17 or 18. I’m 24 now, still wear glasses, and my vision has not gotten worse. My vision was bound to get worse overtime regardless of the glasses. I know I once thought that my glasses were making it worse, but at the end of the day, I still need my glasses, so I stopped worrying about that theory.
For some it’s a genetic thing that no pair of glasses can truly make worse. If people have spent the first 10,15, even 20 years of their life not wearing glasses, then suddenly need them, then it’s clear that it wasn’t an eyeglass problem–their vision was just getting worse with age.
I’ve been wearing classes since i was 13. I believe, sometimes, that wearing glasses makes the eyes weaker. Yet, i know, that age, does it as well.
I’ve worn glasses/contacts for about 2 years now. And my eye power went from 0.75 to 1.5. When I put on my old glasses, things were quite blurry.
I can’t imagine that anyone would believe the physical shape of the eyeball and its internal lens, which is the factor related to visual accuracy, could be changed by putting a piece of glass in front of it. If this were so, we could design lenses that alter the eyeball shape in a good way. It isn’t any strength of muscles that affect our vision, so give up such as absurd notion.
Take this one step further and do research to debunk the myth that reading in low light level or watching a video screen (computer or TV) somehow degrades the eyeball shape.
How can I get a pair of glasses
i think so when i was in fourth grade i hated to wear my glasses and then my doctor sed you have to wear them or my eyes will just get worse so i wore them and they got worse more often and now i have to wear them even if i dont want to becouse i cant see without glasses now urgh so angrey
It’s interesting how passionate people are about the idea of pupil size not being affected by muscle action, although focusing muscles are exactly what cause the lens to change shape. The iris is a sphincter muscle and the ciliary body pulls the lens into position for focusing. These are under both voluntary and involuntary control. Superior and inferior obliques reach around the back of the eyeball while the others attach to the sides for rotation. It stands to reason flabby muscle tone in any of these may well change the shape of the eye, and the focus depth, which is known to be related to near and farsightedness.
Sitting in the dark causes the iris to relax, opening the pupil to let more light into the eye. It’s possible prolonged relaxation could weaken flexibility of the iris the same way arms get flabby just filing papers.
The point is, eyesight has the potential both logically and scientifically to be affected by demand or lack of demand on voluntary and involuntary eye muscle movements. The science is there and during WWII this science was used to improve flight pilots’ eyesight to the point they no longer needed glasses.
What’s curious is how passionate people are about insisting on absolute impossibility that lenses or prolonged darkness or any other effect on eye muscle tone can have any effect at all on vision at any time for anyone. If the concept worries some, they should just wear their glasses and be happy while others try something else if they want to. Trying to improve one’s eyesight has nothing to do with bunk or NewAge herbalism, it’s just plain science. Go for it.
Thanks for answering my question, I was thinking about it before I went to go see my Doctor. I asked him before if I should get Lasik Surgery, he told me it is not that bad. Great article.
Ok i have worn glasses since I was in the 3rd grade I think or maybe 2nd, I can’t remember. Anyways , heres another big question : “If you put on glasses when you don’t need them , your vision will get bad and you’ll eventually need them.” Is this true? My Mom used to tell me this when I was a little girl , because I always put on her and Dad’s glasses. I believe it’s inherited , too. Because both Mom and Dad and Sister have glasses. What do you think?
When i take off my glasses to sleep i sometimes dont put them back on when waking up. I’m unable to even read the biggest letter in a eye test without my glasses. After a few hours, i could tell a major difference. My eyes adjusted, and i was able to see a lot better then i was when first taking them off. I can understand some people might think glasses have damaged your eyes, but in reality your eyes are just not used to it.
I have been wearing glasses since the second grade as well now im a junior in college and its gets worse everytime I go to the doc. I only wear contacts now because my glasses would be too thick. I told my mom that I believe sooner than later Im going to be blind. I’m considering eye surgery but even then I most likely will still have to wear contacts/glasses.
I wear contacts and can see slightly without them in at all, but all the sharp contrast lines I have with them in are completely gone. I recently had an eye appointment and found that my left eye only changed slightly (the doctor was not even sure if it would make any difference to my vision to have a new lense!) and the right eye did not change at all.
I wish I never had to wear them but I know I would never see anything. I don’t like my glasses because the frames make everything look round thanks to the way they hold the glasses. It is hard to explain, but it basically makes me dizzy and gives me a headache to wear my glasses…even before I started wearing contacts!
If glasses made you eyes better the optometrist would be out of a job.
With my glasses I see well when the room is dark, i am able to see and read without them if the light is reasonable.
I can’t speak for others, but then they can’t speak for me either. Can wearing eyeglasses make your eyes weaker? In my case, YES, ABSOLUTELY AND EVEN WITH AN IMMEDIATE EFFECT! I started wearing reading glasses when I turned 50. It was the weakest pair sold but it made my reading eyes perfect. What I have found is that after reading a book with my reading glasses, my vision without glasses diminished considerably and immediately. Before using reading glasses for book reading my vision for everything else was more than fine. Immediately after reading a book with reading glasses I can’t even see what I’m typing now with any clarity at all. What I literally could read yesterday with perfect vision is now a great big blur making me consider the thought of not reading again, but that was just a thought. In my case glasses have accelerated the loss of my eyesight as fast as overnight. It is totally undeniable.
Well I’m not sure if my findings to this opinionable question is.. but certainly from my despicable point of view I really have no idea how to explain what i feel about this brainwasher but i really feel that this question should be consulted with a hardworking trustly fiendly phyisican.
Thanks again Friendly Folks & Have a great one!
I’m here to tell you that I have been using the Bates method that has been mentioned above a few times, along with exercises based on the Bates method from people like Meir Schneider and Leo Angart (check out their work on the internet) and I have reversed my myopia from -3.5 in both eyes to virtually 20/20 in about 2 months. I plan to continue, until I reach 20/20, perhaps by undercorrecting with +0.5 lenses (reading glasses) until I reach perfect vision.
I was lucky that even though I could not get an optometrist to issue me gradually undercorrected lenses, I could obtain contact lenses without prescription that could ease the undercorrection, 0.5 points at a time. Generally, my vision would improve at the rate of 0.5 a week or two. I won’t go into the entire method in detail here, the material in the books and videos are far more comprehensive, but for myopia, relaxation of the eyeball muscles and ciliary muscles is key- I tried once before a year ago and failed after a whole month because I though distance seeing was a question of strengthening the lens muslces.. (it’s actually the reverse, it’s relaxing them).. and so I discovered that muscle tension, due to stress and lifestyle, was affecting the tiny eye muscles as well in the form of eye tension and strain.. that breakthrough helped the full progression back to natural eyesight.
Like most people, I faced a lot of ridicule and objection from family and friends because the idea of being able to improve your eyesight just by doing exercises has been so badly maligned or hammered out of or our heads by the optometry industry that generations since Dr. Bates (who’s research has been around since the 1920s? give or take) have grown up simply accepting this false notion as fact.
I’d almost even say that there’s a bigger fallacy covering our general health and wellbeing- things like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, that are entirely preventable through proper diet, exercise, etc.. yet drug companies are pushing expensive pills like no tomorrow and doctors are recommending expensive life threatening surgeries or debilitating treatments and for what… to be honest, we live in a system that has begun to serve itself just as much if not more so than the true well-being of the individual… imagine if you’re a cardiologist earning 500K$++ a year, or an optometrist or lasik eye surgeon (those guys can make millions in a busy lasik clinic), and you spent the better part of 10 years studying to become part of this collective notion of what we call a health professional, and somebody walks up to you and says everything you’ve learned can be completely bypassed by eating more vegetables, or in the case of eye care, by doing eye exercises that cost nothing to the patient… and are entirely unbillable by you.. would you be prepared to put your ego aside and recommend that your patient pursue this course of self-treatment? would you take the time out of your busy day doling out status quo treatments and actually look up the efficacy of these exercises? and then realizing the potential efficacy, would you actually endorse these techniques in private, or public, and should they garner widening acceptance, slowly see your entire profession be reduced to nothing, see your income spiral to the ground, be forced to take your kids out of their expensive private school education, downgrade your house in the hamptons to a 3 bedroom condo, walk around the streets and say I’m a doctor of this and that and not be flashed a single sign of extra respect or courtesy anymore for your title? (Perhaps I wouldn’t go so far as that- I’d respect a good doctor immensely, but it won’t be the same to some people if you’re a cardiologist who makes $50K a year now would it…) In any case, we don’t live in an ideal world, but if you’re aware as a human being, and full of compassion and humility, then you would try to do what is right, and use your influence as a medical practitioner to truly cure the sick, and alleviate suffering in the *best* possible manner, endorsing the easiest, most effective course of treatment, even if it is self-effacing in the end.
Sorry for the rant, and no offense to those who are health professionals- all people suffer from problems of the ego and self-preservation, this is a fact. But after having gone through all the messages on this one site alone, and seen all the confusion, and misinformation, and people blatantly sticking to their guns believing that glasses don’t make your vision worse, that the eyes are not treatable and simply degenerate with age… that lasik butchery is a viable solution.. it’s heart-breaking. We as a people are routinely fed misinformation as part of a corporate society for the sake of profit, this is the sad side of human nature… but when the right information comes along and frees you, (keeping the scope down to the topic at hand- the Bates method and eye exercises in general), isn’t it worth it to give it a try? And if there is any doubt because there haven’t been that many precedents for people curing their eyesight themselves, then let me just add one more example to that list, as I have personally used these methods and wholeheartedly endorse them as effective in curing my myopia. You should all give these exercises a try. If we could only be so lucky to have information like this to “free” ourselves in other facets of our lives, not just eyesight.
I have worn glasses since I was around 4, I have an astigmatism that will not accommodate contacts. My experience has been that throughout my schooling and most of my life, up until about 3 years ago (I am 32), I have needed prescriptions with prism in them, now the Optometrist doesn’t put prism in my glasses, I obviously still have the astigmatism, but my prescription seems to be getting better.
My eye doctor said that I am used to putting so much force on my eyes, and she said I should read, or use to computer.
But my brother and sister wear glasses, and they said I shouldn’t get reading glasses because when they got glasses they said there eye sight adjusted to the glasses and they started to wear them all the time.
I think that if your eyes are not really really bad, then glasses will make your eye sight worsen, because now your eyes have adjusted to the glasses and when you pull them off, the eyes are not the same any more because they are now depends on they glasses..They have worsen…It would take a very long time for the eyes to really get bad, if you are doing things the right way, such as reading with the light on, dont watch T.V. too close, walk away from the computer every 2 hours…you should be good for a long time (years)….Eyes do get adjust to the glasses and they become your eyes and your eyes become weaken without the glasses…That one man experience….Thanks
Glasses correct your vision. Therefore once you are used to being able to see you will feel your eyes ae worse if you remove your glasses for a period of time. Your eyes may naturally be worsening but this has nothing to do with the glasses-they are there to HELP you.
Actually this is not true.
You need to actually look at the research-
How fast does eyesight worsen with and
without corrective lens
Eyes that are corrected tend to get worse faster over time
than eyes that are not
Using the idea that it only seems that your seeing worse because your used to seeing well is not even in the
equation of a fact based answer
I need reading glasses when the light is low, and distance glasses when driving in the dark only. Only use both as needed and my prescription has been the same for 11 years. (I am now 59). Every 2 years I have my eyes checked and the optometrist is amazed that the there is little variation in my eye sight and I am able to repeat the same script. I pass at the DMV also every 5 years and my license has no corrective lens requirement listed. (But lets see this year in the fall when renewed). I was told years ago by a 79 yr old lady to only use eye glasses as needed for the results I have been experiencing; and I would say she is right.
my son was prescribed glasses because he suffers from lazy eye and the optometrist said glasses would make his eye muscles stronger and pull his eyes back to center.The dr was right the glasses made his eyes much stronger and now he will not have to have other eye surgeries
I feel that if you absoulutly cannot see without them from the very beginning then you have no choice. However if you can see don’t start wearing them even if Doc says so. I was in 3rd grade my teacher sent a note home stating I can’t see the chalkboard. Mom took me to the eye Doc he said I need them so she bought them. Dad gave me his own eye test and said I can see don’t wear them. They fought about it he said I will be in trouble and better not wear them so I didn’t and I’m so glad. I am now 42 and have had 20/20 vision for as long as I can remember. Had I started wearing them I feel he was absoulutly right I would need them forever. Thanks Dad……
I think glasses make your eyesight way better and let me tell you why. Two years ago it was really really hard to see for me so I got glasses. Now when I take off my glasses I could almost see perfectly again. Soon I wont have to wear them anymore. Thats why I think glasses make your eyesight better.
Glasses are worn to correct faulty vision,
it doesn’t matter if you are near sighted far sighted
astigmatism
In 1993 my sight was astigmatism
near sighted
when I got my glasses they were a God send
Although I wore them for 8 years.
Yahoo Answers has a category optical
I have worn glasses for 14 years. My vision got progressively worse for the first 6 and has gotten progressively better since. Why? Age, I’m told. In your 20s, your eyesight is at its best. I’m sure I’ll be back to coke bottles not long after I hit 30.
Actually, the need for glasses is not because of ‘weak’ eyes. They are the wrong shape. The glasses are like the focus wheel on a pair of binoculars.
Especially if you start out being near-sighted, there could come a time when you don’t need glasses for a while because eyes generally go far-sighted as they age.
My mother went from no glasses to far-sighted with bi-focals at age 45.
one should do a study on identical twins who need glasses (identical twins should need glasses at around the same time as they have the same eyes). One twin gets glasses and one doesnt. Then, after a few months or years, they are tested and they can see if the twin with glasses eyesight changed for the worse, and if so then we will know why.
I have continuous alternating exotropia and have worn glasses for distance for years. My eyes have slowly improved due to two things: using the prisms on my glasses and GRADUATING LAW SCHOOL and passing the bar. I hardly need my glasses now. (You can strain your eyes.)
I’ve worn glasses since I was 8 and lenses since I was 13. I’m personally short-sighted and, from what I understood, it’s common to grow out of long-sightedness but not short-sightedness. (As for astigmatism, which I also have, I have no idea.) And my vision has indeed gotten worse over the years. (I’m not an old granny, but still!) I know it has – my prescription changes whenever I visit the optician, and I used to, say, be able to read a newspaper without glasses, which I now can’t unless it’s less than a foot away from my face.
I mean, I’m no optician, so I don’t know. I’d always assumed that glasses made your eyes strain less to read things, so they’d slow down the speed at which your lenses distorted and your eyesight got worse. But then again I’d never even thought there *was* a debate over whether glasses make your eyes worse over time. Very odd.
well i don’t think glasses make your eyesight worse if you have the right prescription. However, the rate at which your eyesight deteriorates depends on you age. For example, if you get glasses in your teens, your eyesight will get worse until you are about 20, where it will level off, and stop changing
my late dad was a myopic by youth but his vision became perfect without any aid as he aged , meaning vision is correctable. theres a kind of black-holes spectacle avail from Daiso(or Japanese 2-dollar shop) . i used it to read books n watch tv. after few hours, my vision look perfectly clear but last temporarily. i didnt follow up much often cos my life is spent on earning a meagre living, feeding a fat boss.
I am wearing glasses from almost 1 yr now, when I started wearing glasses and removed after a week for normal routine I thought the same way because I was used to see perfect vision with my glasses. I started removing glasses for couple of hours each day when I watch TV or doing something at home. Now I feels like my vision is improving without glasses.
12 years ago I received my 1st glasses, a weak prescription and told to wear them all of the time, and I did. 2 years later I go back to the optometrist and my eyes are worse and need a stronger, albeit still weak prescription.
I ran into a friend whom had worn glasses all through school, but no longer did, because she stopped and her eyes improved.
So I started only wearing them when I needed them, which was for night time driving. 10 years later I still have the same prescription, they (optometrists) are amazed. I since have had to get reading glasses, and do the same, although they want me to do the bifocals, and for the last 10 years that prescription has stayed the same; I only use them when I need them.
Good sunlight and no squinting = no glasses. I am in the camp of glasses make the eyes worse, but I do believe their are exceptions, but I don’t know what they are. I am not an expert. I just know what I know.
When I was 40 I got my frist pair of glasses.At times when I have forgot them and need to read something real quick I’ve squinted to see the words and is still a blur. Although I do know that excerise is good and will strenthen them to a extend. My eyes have stayed the same for 20 yrs so what I’m saying is take care of what you have and listen to the doctors after all thats why they get payed the big bucks.
cool
i never wore before well i don even want to wear it but i was just wondering if wearing speactaculs make it worse? let’s find out!
i myself have been wearing glasses for as long as i can remember (since the age of 8), i am now 33, i want to believe that “illusion” is a myth, i have always wondered all my life if glasses really make your eyes worst, to how i am seeing how, if i was seeing like that before the glasses, i wouldnt be able to get around, so , i believe my eyes have dramaticallly decreased
my vision has always been pretty good, but not perfect i have glasses but never wear them. coming from a lengthy conversation with my eye doc on the subject, he said that wearing glasses should not decrease eyesight, but not wearing glasses may improve eyesight, which happened to me. he theorized that my eyes improved due to them being exercised by the slight stress of not having quite 20/20 and not wearing my glasses, though that made me think that would make them worse. what made more sense to me was his other theory that my eyes are the same, but my brain has adapted to the slightly sub par eye sight and has gotten better at identifying shapes and structures, which makes it seem like my eyesight improved but really ive just mastered the use of my sub-par eyes
should I bother getting glasses for a prescription of +2.25?I am able to read without glasses.