When do I have to start wearing glasses (vs when big name opticians say I do)

[bluekingfisher]

I always feel the opticians are hard selling me glasses after I go in there for a test. My eye sight has changed -0.25 since two years ago and isn’t bad enough to need glasses for driving etc. I have astigmatism that the optician has said is pretty bad. I have had most of my life and think my eyes have accommodated it naturally so I can see well, can see small text from a distance. I don’t have any symptoms around this day to day.

I believe I can see reasonably without glasses
but the opticians said I would ideally be wearing them all the time. So I don’t know if I should get glasses or not. Ideally I don’t want the faff of them unless I actually need them

@Rallentanda , someone who has the money or someone who has an expensive prescription.
if you wear specs all the time, then you might want the nicest frames.

£450 for something you wear for 16 hours a day every day of the year isn't that much . People spend more on their hair.

I spend as little as possible on my hair, and just get my existing frames reglazed, but I sometimes think maybe I should make more of an effort.

@Pleasesaynothing thank you. This is what I was looking for. @evilharpy thank you this is what I mean. I don’t even carry a handbag and so would have to consider where I put the case when out and about, I could leave them in the car for driving though.

Amazing how nasty some people have become when once every two years I get given some numbers and I’m supposed to work everything out from there. @Kreepture what a nasty soul you are!

It isn't nasty to be incredulous that you're behaving in the manner you are over glasses.

The optician wouldn't tell you that you need them if you didn't need them.

It is Blindingly obvious (pun not intended) that they'd be suggesting them to correct your astigmatism if you HAVE astigmatism and they're advising you to wear glasses.

If you don't have distance/close up vision problems, then they must BE for your astigmatism, which YES they DO fix.. as i said upthread when i said i have astigmatism and wear glasses because of it.

@Kreepture its nasty to say jfc

Get in the way for doing hair, make-up, taking tops on and off, slide around when doing sports. Ok if your vision is good enough to do the hair, make-up etc without them but mine isn't. Luckily for me contact lenses were invented.

@EffectivelyDecluttering i can’t even put eye drops in my eyes, can I get over this? I shut my eyelids every time before they go in and it just drips down my face. I have had to get my dh to try to put eye drops in as well (had a reaction to something and needed them) and he couldn’t get the drops in either. I can’t seem to put anything near my eyes without them automatically shutting as a reaction.

I’m thinking to get the glasses and force myself to wear them for driving only after this thread though,

Well, once you've got used to contact lenses eyedrops will be a breeze! I can poke my finger in to get an eyelash out no bother at all. It's a long time since I started wearing contacts but I do remember it being very difficult at first but you quickly get used to it. Opticians are quite happy to do a trial with you. I do think get some glasses for driving and see how you get on is a good start. As you go into winter even in daylight you are often dealing with rain, mist, spray, glare from tail lights etc and having the best eyesight you can get becomes even more important.

I've come to glasses in middle age and it is a faff. Your prescription is similar, but a little stronger than mine and it became clear to me that my eyes were not safe enough for driving (especially in poor light conditions). I am happy for the world to be a little blurry, but not ok with being a danger to world around me. I now have 2 pairs of the cheapest most plastic glasses that can be bought from one of the big chain opticians. They were about £25 each and contain the same lenses as you'd get in expensive frames. One pair stays in the car and the other stays next to the tv. They'd win no prizes for fashion, but it works.

I know. I'm not thick. They are READING glasses ffs.

Why did you advise someone who is discussing their distance glasses to buy off the shelf reading glasses?

Well they do for me. You can be short-sighted and have astigmatism at the same time.

The OP says she doesn't need glasses for driving, so she presumably doesn't need distance glasses, and also says she can read small text 'from a distance' so I took that to mean that she needs to hold text at arm's length for it to be in focus, and it is out of focus close-up. Hence the reading glasses thought that popped into my head. I based my post on that information.

There was a study in Australia regarding car accidents and people with reduced vision. It found drivers who could see a line of letters within the driving standard were still much more likely to have accidents. I.e. even though they were legal they still were no where near as safe as those with 20/20 vision, so please wear them for driving if nothing else. If you want to walk around with less than perfect vision the rest of the time that's your choice.

I have 20/15 vision (better than average 20/20 vision) and if I were to replicate your natural sight I would hate it. You only think your vision is good because you are not used to better. Also next time your reading something small at distance or near, pay attention to have much you're squinting in order to actually see it and think of all the lovely wrinkles in your face.

Reading glasses aren't for short sightedness OR astigmatism.

I have significant astigmatism and I am slightly long sighted. Being in my 50s, I do also need an addition for reading ON TOP OF that prescription. I usually wear varifocals but have some prescription single vision reading glasses for close work. If I look up when wearing them, the room around me is very blurry so I wouldn't want to drive in them because it would be dangerous.

If I bought off the peg glasses to my reading addition prescription, I wouldn't be able to read much in them because they would do nothing to correct my astigmatism.

Yep, this .... (sigh)

You don't have to wear glasses if you don't want to and if it's Specsavers, they do try a bit of hard sell on you. Yes your vision might not be top notch, but you're not going to make your eyes worse at your age by not wearing them. There is also a bit of variation day to day in our vision and on another day you might not have measured as needing an increase in prescription.

I understand the dislike of them on your face. I am the same, can't even wear sunglasses. Unfortunately I'm very short-sighted, but I wear contacts.

Mine was close to that...decent frames (not cheap, flimsy plastic/metal ones), varifocal lenses, ultra clear lenses (better for night driving, computer screens, etc), polaroid reactive (saves fannying about swapping to sunglasses when I'm out). I have anisocoria so the ultra clear/reactive lenses are slightly different for each eye as they let in different amounts of light. I wear glasses full-time and I want to be able to look and feel good. Other people might save hard for a designer handbag/shoes whatever, but I'd rather spend that kind of £ on glasses.

Mine are a bit worse than yours, but im so used to it that i dont wear my glasses.
I have them in the car and wear them to drive, because i have to. But anything else I go without. Ive worn them all day once for 2 weeks and they give me the worst headaches. I tried to persevere, because they told me to, but it didnt get better.

My prescription is about the same as yours OP and there is no way I would drive without wearing glasses. I can just about watch TV without them, but wear them all the time now.

I think because vision deteriorates quite slowly you really don't realise how bad it's got. It's only when you put glasses on that you realise how much you weren't seeing.

Prescription glasses aren't nearly as heavy to wear as normal sunglasses, and they will be fitted to your head so that they don't slip around.

Can everyone please stop saying that they have a similar prescription and they can or cannot see. That is not how eyes work. Some people have better powers of accommodation (ability to focus) than others and the angle of the astigmatism can make a difference. The op has a plano sphere at a regular angle and may well be able to see 20/20 !

If you don't trust their advice, why are you going to them in the first place??????

That’s at only slightly better than mine and I do not meet the driving standards anywhere near. Are you sure you can see a numberplate at 20m?

I started wearing mine full time when i couldn’t see the board at Victoria station

@Pleasesaynothing what does the Plano bit mean? Thanks, I don’t think I can’t see to the extent that some people are describing here with the same prescription. I can certainly watch tv absolutely fine (and read the subtitles). I don’t notice not being able to see whilst driving either. I don’t drive at night so can’t check that atm. I will maybe get some glasses to compare anyway.

does anyone know what VA means I also have a number: 6/5-

Visual acuity. 6/5 suggests that you can see at 6m what most people can see at 5. Mine was 60/6 in one eye before being fixed, earlier this year and that correlated with only being able to see coloured blobs through it.
It's metric, while 20/20 etc is imperial.

Plano means that on the horizontal plane you have no prescription at all, at 90 degrees to that you are slightly shortsighted (astigmatism is a slightly irregular front surface of the eye often described as rugby ball shaped whcih causes 2 different prescriptions at 90 degrees to each other) This particular angle of astigmatism often affects vision less which explains why your vision is better than what is considered normal !!

6/6 is the same as 20/20 and 6/5 is a line below 6/6.

Just be careful where they have written that though as that might be your corrected vision (ie with lenses in place)