Son has to have glasses

[Mummybear26]

Evening everyone,
so my son had two headaches in the space of a week so went to get his eyes tested. The pre test showed he was a +4 the optician guy said +3.50... collected his glasses yesterday and they’ve made him poorly.... blurred vision with them on, bloodshot eyes, feeling sick, constantly blinking and eyes watering.... is there any chance the optician guy could of got the prescription wrong? My son never complains his eyes hurt and can read, use computer etc and says it’s fine and not funny or blurred, phoned vision express to be told stop wearing them with immediate effect ! Any advise appreciated x

@itsgettingweird previously I posted to say he has no problems reading a book or being able to read instructions up close either his never had a problem with his eyes he can see things close and far away then these high prescription glasses are making things worse where he can’t see anything just blurs

Yes long sight can see distance

should say I'm a children's eye specialist.
Opticians shouldn't be using an autorefractor at all. it sound alike it's because they aren't confident .
it's a rough guide for screening purposes not for prescribing.

just go elsewhere and don't mention you've been somewhere!

Can I request they don’t use that machine?

There’s so much mis-information on this thread.

Autorefractors are fine as a screening tool. It sounds as if the optom has done a cyclo with drops and then refracted.

It’s very possible that his day to day vision is fine without glasses at +3.50, children are able to adjust their eye focus to compensate for even quite strong plus prescriptions (called accommodation). My own daughter is a higher prescription and only wears her glasses at school in the classroom.

At +3.50 it will just mean that his eyes may get more fatigued from having to accommodate and the muscles may have to work harder to keep his eyes straight.

Sometimes, you need a slightly lower prescription to help him adapt to them, although they may be a little strange at first. Book in for a re-test at the original optician, in the meantime, he’ll find it easier to adapt, whilst wearing them just for close reading, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

He’s been given quite a moderate first prescription for long sightedness...means he can see far away but not close up. I’m minus 3.5 in one eye (-4 in the other) and I couldn’t get away with not wearing my glasses in day to day life...but I don’t know how long sighted people respond to a similar level of prescription.

I’d get him retested elsewhere....it doesn’t sound right to me.

underneath it sound slike they did a cyclo refraction and dindt take enough off for cyclic and working distance. which would make the prescription wrong?

@JoshLymanIsHotterThanSam that’s the thing he can see up close without any problems he loves to read a book and do Lego builds with lots of instructions so he can see long and short as far as I’m aware and no complaints.

@underneaththeash @FREEM I’m abit thick lol could you explain what cyclo and refracted means?

@FREEM if you got +4.00DS for a cyclo Rx; +3.50DS would be a sensible RX to give. Autorefractors automatically remove the WD and tend to under plus, do it’s unlikely to be a WD issue (and besides, even a pre-reg is unlikely to make

@JoshLymanIsHotterThanSam it doesn’t work that way for minus prescriptions as you can’t alter the eyes focus to make things clear. Even a very small minus prescription will make things blurry, whilst a small plus prescription in a young person won’t.

• is long sightedness so (says she grasping at memory) its more about reading (huh dyslexic that rings a bell with me - I was undiagnosed short sightedness & couldn't read board or anything much & only really learnt to read age 10 after getting glasses & than I bloomed educationally. My not so dm use to scream at me for bad school results & how much better my older sister was, & why couldn't I be more like her. Than I got glasses - ) . get his eyes checked from another optician but just wear them for reading & computers at the moment

Mummybear26 Cyclo - cycloplegic refraction, so with the drops.
Refract - refraction (so working out a prescription, autorefractors do this automatically (but are often not accurate), other methods of refraction are a retinoscpe which is a little light and subjective refraction where we ask which lens is clearer.

Most optometrists would do all three on a child of 10, whereas in a child under 5 we usually wouldn’t do a subjective.

Honestly OP it sounds fine, there is no point at this stage starting somewhere new, when it’s probably just a case of needing +3.00 rather than +3.50 to aid adaption.

Can I get a new prescription for a lower one then? Should he be feeling so ill through wearing them for 5mins alone? Why would vision express tell me to stop using them from the symptoms I described to them.

@mumwon Thanks for info , I don’t know how they work it out because he can see far away and he reads books like Roald Dahl so there not minimal reading books. His never had any problems at all just the mishap between certain letters

Hello OP, I know a thing or 2 about eyes. Let me explain your son's prescription.
He has a + prescription which as you rightly said means he is "long sighted" ie his eyes sort of 'prefer' seeing in the distance compared to near.
However, because of his age, his eyes have the ability to compensate which means he's able to see clearly at near.
An analogy I tend to use is this: imagine you have a book shelf which is quite tall. If you stand on your tip toes you can just about reach the top shelf to get what you need. But if you keep standing on your tip toes for long periods of time then you'll get tired. This is what happens with your sons ability to focus at near. He can focus and see clearly but only because he is compensating (like standing on tip toes) after some time that his eyes begin to tire of compensating and that's when you can end up with headaches/strain.

Now when you get new glasses especially with a + prescription they take some getting used to. Going back to the shelf analogy: imagine I give you a stool to stand on for you to be able to comfortably reach the top without needing to go on tip toes (this is like the pair of glasses). However, you are so used to needing to go on tip toes that you go on your tip toes as well as use the stool and end up too tall for the top shelf! This is what's happening with the glasses. Your son's eyes are so used to compensating for the prescription he needs, they find it hard to relax and let the glasses do the work and this results in blurry vision and funny side effects. The solution is to keep trying the glasses and build up the wear slowly. Eventually his eyes will learn to relax and let the glasses do the work and that should reduce the strain/headaches. If there's no improvement in a couple of weeks time then take them back to where you got them and get the prescription in the lenses checked and possibly a retest if they feel it is necessary.

To clarify, they would've used drops in the test to temporarily stop your son compensating during the test so they could extract the full prescription.

Using an autorefractor (the hot air balloon machine) is absolutely fine as it is just a pre screen and is not used to prescribe glasses. It is just used as a very rough indicator of prescription. He also wouldn't really have been able to fake a + prescription as + lenses make things VERY blurry if you don't need them.

If you have not chosen any extra coatings such as antireflection or thinner lenses and you chose a frame that was in the free range then they should have been free. Go back and ask for a breakdown of what you've paid for so you can be sure.

Long response but hope this helped.

What @underneaththeash said, word for word.
There is so much nonsense on this thread.
The optician most likely didn’t make a mistake, prescribing is quite an ‘art’ and sometimes it’s best not to give the full strength straight away. But it doesn’t mean he was wrong.
Go back to the same place. You would have to pay for a second opinion’ at a different place so it’s much better to go back and see if they can help.
You can’t really ask for a certain machine not to be used - as @underneaththeash said, there is nothing wrong with an autorefractor as a screening tool. Every optician has methods or machines they like to use (or not use) so it’s unreasonable to try and tell them how to do their job.
He does not need to go to the hospital.

Also, it would be dishonest to ‘just not mention’ having been elsewhere. You are only entitled to an NHS contribution for a sight test/glasses if it is clinically necessary and another test elsewhere is not at this point. Besides how would you explain to another optician about his symptoms etc without telling them about the glasses causing problems? If the glasses are causing him problems as you describe then the optician needs the FULL story, not just whichever bits you decide are relevant.
I personally really dislike doing ‘second opinions’ as usually the patient makes it clear they do not trust opticians, which puts me at a disadvantage to start with.

Sorry OP, having read the comments this morning I can see it's actually a +3.5 not a -3.5 prescription that makes my posts a bit useless as I was answering from a short sided point of view - sorry!

I'd personally still be going back this weekend to chat to them about the issues and see what they say (by second opinion I didn't mean it had to be a different shop) but I wasn't aware of the compensation possible for long distance eyesight (interesting!)

You need them to clarify why they have charged you £40. My som has been wearing classes for 6/7 years and always gets two free pairs (Specsavers) and we have never had to pay anything (well when he breaks the non NHS pair I have had to pay £7.50 to repair).

He has a +4 and has from the first test at age 5. I remember leaving specsavers and outside is a big statue. He just stopped walking, looked up and was exclaiming how big it was - he tried to pass me his glasses so I could see it big too. He has never had any of the symptoms you describe.

Personally I would try another optician for an eye test.

Not an optician, take the advise from them on this thread, but the glasses are not working for him.

I's go to another optician, my local one is great, and so was the independent I used to use before. He might not be eligible for an NHS eye check but a private one should be about £20, often this is 'refunded' with the purchase of glasses.

I've worn glasses since 10, and should have had them sooner. I've been lucky not to have problems but a friend had problems, they had got the pupil distance wrong, she didn't notice until she went for another test a year later, when the pd was corrected she had real problems.

Sorry ladies just had chance to catch up on thread after running around after Ds 2 this morning, thanks all for advice I have called vision express this morning and they have advised to get a second opinion at same place but with a different guy this time round but his on holiday until the 28th feb!! she said they have looked through my sons file and can’t seem to understand the side effects of him having that prescription. In the meantime I wish I hadn’t gone wading in with my size 6s and looked around for a opticians rather than go vision express because they had an immediate appointment!

Just say you’d like it sorted sooner so will go elsewhere! Get him retested ASAP

prickly pear 12 my point is that only-0.50 seems to have been removed .
for a cyclo refraction.. never mind working distance

@FREEM I assume you mean -0.50 from the autorefractor result? The autorefractor result doesn't need a WD allowance and I believe cycloplegic refraction doesn't require a tonus allowance?

It's hard to say without knowing VAs and subjective vs objective refraction so OP your best bet is to have the specs and the prescription checked.