To ask if not wearing glasses when you need makes you eyes worse

[User40407]

I’ve always told my ds1 who wears glasses that he should always wear to prevent his eyes getting worse. I’ve just read something that says wearing glasses only corrects your sight when you are wearing them and not wearing them has no impact on your eye sight either way. Aibu to ask if this is true?

Probably not the same as worsening eye sight, but if my DD doesn't wear her glasses the squint in her eye becomes much worse and much more obvious.

Dd also had a lazy eye due to her long sight causing a squint. If it wasn't treated with glasses and an eye patch then her brain would just switch off the signals from her squinting eye and would just have proper sight in one eye

I think the difficulty is that eye problems develop due to environmental condition and are also are effected by familial genetic patterns. Unless the conditions that created the eye issue in the first place are removed then the eye issue continues and develops because it is the body's way of adapting to those conditions. There is research, for example that indicates a correlation between lots close work in dim light and short sightedness. IMO the body tries to adapt to the eye muscles tensing to focus and lengthens axial length to alleviate this. Or the muscles become overdeveloped and are unable to fully relax. Squints are a habit which helps distance vision by narrowing the beam of light going into the eye and also 'squeeze' the eyeball IIRC. Good light and removing the need to strain to see objects at a distance would remove the need to squint but corrective lenses would also create a new set environmental conditions which might create a new biofeedback.

Sorry demented I think I skim read. I think 'a squint' is different to what is meant by 'squinting'. But the principles of the biofeedback would work similarly.

I wish i had the luxury of trying this out. I’ve worn glasses everyday since I was 3 years old and without them I wouldn’t be able to see the phone in front of my face that I am typing on.

I’d have been run over, or fallen down a drain if I’d not worn them and just hoped they got better

I’ve also had the same prescription since 1992. So wearing glasses has neither worsened or bettered my eye sight.

But Iam, if your eyes are still progressively getting worse, you could try wearing your old prescriptions as much as you can to see if it halts progression. Good natural light conditions also has found to be correlated with good vision.

I don't know but I'd go with what @Allsizes8to14 is saying. I'd say there is a big difference between eyesight issues at 40 and those at 7 years of age.

Sorry, xposted, just read your recent post. You could still experiment to see if your eyes improve with a weaker prescription if you (still) have glasses that are made up to that prescription. My eyes did improve wearing weaker prescriptions that the ones that gave me the greatest distance acuity. I there are, undoubtedly, several factors at play concerning various eye conditions.

My old prescriptions are in child size glasses. My prescriptions have not changed since I was 8. They haven’t worsened.

I'd say there is a big difference between eyesight issues at 40 and those at 7 years of age.

Maybe, as we have ceased growing. However there is still opportunity for biofeedback in terms of eye muscle development and functionality in the way the eyeball fluid is regulated.

Haha. Why would I pay £300+ for glasses that aren’t even in my prescription just to hope I can see mildly better than I can now I can’t see anything, even if they got slightly better I would still not be able to see anything.

I just wear my glasses proudly. I love them!

I think it depends. Straight forward long or short sightedness which is pretty equal between the eyes then not much in it - but make sure you are legal to drive etc

But if you have one significantly weaker eye it can cause a caste (or lazy eye) and would make one worse and cause strain on the other etc

But also be aware sight is effected by alot of things not just the way your eyes are so migraine, general headaches, blood sugar levels etc and if you are significantly tired as well, so all of that will impact on a sight test result. Having said all that I also have had opticians cock up prescriptions for me both in terms of the test and also the provision of the spectacles not being to spec (ha pun intended)

My old prescriptions are in child size glasses. My prescriptions have not changed since I was 8. They haven’t worsened.

Ok. But you still may be able to improve your eyes by exercising their functionality within the perimeters of what you can comfortably see without glasses.

I'll stick with my glasses for reading as I am in my 40s with age related long sight. It is far more comfortable to use glasses and see without getting eye strain

I gain very little from going from -9 to -8.5. Or even -8.

I am short sighted and find it easier to read without my glasses on.

I just wear my glasses proudly. I love them!

Don't get me wrong. I like the way my glasses make me look. I have several nice frames etc. However, I was not happy with progressively stronger lenses and sought to tackle this. And succeeded. Win win. My glasses, incidentally, do not cost £300. More like £10 to £30. Depending on where I shop.

I am short sighted and find it easier to read without my glasses on.

I did. However I persevered reading without them. My distance sight improved. My near vision normalised so I didn't prefer my distance glasses to read. The body is remarkably adaptable, thats part of the problem..

I gain very little from going from -9 to -8.5. Or even -8.

Your choice. However my eyesight was worsening by a diopter per year (past adolescent growth) until I took action. I could have easily ended up with -20 vision, IMO. That would have severely impacted my sight. I can also cope with no glasses now, enough to comfortably move around. I couldn't before I started exercising my eyes.

Because I wear them all the time, they are effectively part of my face so I get very nice ones, it’s my treat. I had such shit glasses as a kid.

Iam, me too. I actually prefer the way I look with glasses on. However, that is not my issue with them. I was genuinely concerned about my sight getting worse. Severe shortsightedness is correlated with developing detached retinas, glaucoma and macular degeneration. As well as being so myopic there is not enough correction available. I was extremely happy I managed to resolve the issue of myopic progression in terms of my own eyesight.

Yes a 'squint' is an eyeturn and 'squinting' means screwing your eyes up to try to reduce blur (but gives eyestrain headaches) 2 totally different things.

I've been an optom for 19yrs and have tested 10s of thousands of eyes...it is far to complex to explain the reasons behind everything on a MN thread!

My take home message here is if you have a child under 7 who has prescribed glasses they MUST BE WORN AS DIRECTED they will ONLY help and the consequences of not wearing can be lifelong

Age/type of prescription/eye health/family history all play a part in how eyesight changes so find a good optometrist and try to stick with the same one so they can build a history.

On the subject of myopia, young myopic patients will often 'over accommodate' during a sight test and appear to want a stronger prescription they don't actually need. It's the job of the optometrist to only give an increase if improvement can be quantified, broadly speaking you would expect an extra line of letters to be read for every extra -0.25. If this was not happening I would be highly suspicious that it was not genuine change, but over accommodation.

Obviously the accuracy of the subjective response (the answers provided by the patient during the test) can vary massively which then can impact the accuracy of the prescription. But this is something an experienced optom can navigate through 👀👀

When my glasses broke I wore my old glasses that were only maybe -1 to -2 in difference. Everyday that I wore them I would get visual migraines (the ones with the aura) so the advice to wear your old glasses can actually be really bad for your health. So I wouldn’t take this advice lightly although I’d love it to be true as I’m very short sighted!

young myopic patients will often 'over accommodate' during a sight test and appear to want a stronger prescription they don't actually need. It's the job of the optometrist to only give an increase if improvement can be quantified, broadly speaking you would expect an extra line of letters to be read for every extra -0.25. If this was not happening I would be highly suspicious that it was not genuine change, but over accommodation.

However, the decisions by an optometrist made are often not explained. Some maybe, on balance, more cautious about undercorrecting. For reasons of a couple of (inconclusive) studies (Chung and Adler IIRC) The whole system is not entirely transparent.