Does wearing glasses make your vision worse overall [when you're not wearing them]?

[AmandaYVR]

Have you found, or heard from others, that wearing glasses makes your vision worse overall when you're not wearing them?

Do you become dependent on glasses?

My husband is finding this. I am finding this. But ophthalmologists keep telling me it isn't possible. "Because eye muscles are not like other muscles of the body which can be strengthened through training." It feels like the eyes relax and get used to having the glasses, and then when they're gone, it's harder to transition between distances, without them.

Do you agree or disagree? (Ophthalmologists have a reason to deny this. They are in the business of selling glasses.)

This is so sexy. I keep using this photo again cause I like it so much. I want to be there, in another chair, doing the same.

Squinting is sexy, lol. (Male models never get to smile.)

Writer/Philosopher Aldous Huxley

Yes, this is true! Wearing glasses makes vision worse!

No, I've never found or heard that wearing glasses makes your eyes dependent on them and overall worse.

I have no idea, haven't heard either way. Just here to see the poll, please.

[pers0n]

I could write a long answer but why don't you visit the same place I did in 2017 to shift from -2.00 to no glasses in a year? It was

https://endmyopia.org/

Although it changed a lot in 5 years, I think you can still find what you need.

Here is his channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEhYxefHylpSgoiXDWcBrlA

The answer to your question is yes but you need to keep a lot of other things in mind.

Myopia is the inability to see clearly at far distances because your eye is focusing up close. Like a scope needs to elongate in order to bring the focus closer, and shorten in order to focus further away... our eyeball elongates as we look close and normally shrinks back when we look far away. Problems begin if we have been looking up close for such long periods of time that the muscles start to spasm and get stuck... as if in a bad posture, or like clenching your hand for so long that you're unable to relax and open it. All you need to do is stimulate relaxation and even antagonize the muscles that cause myopia. To do this make sure to keep your screens (or books or whatever you're focusing on) as far from your eyes as possible while being able to read the text. Keep them at the blur horizon, which is just a slight distance further than you're used to. The eye will be stimulated to focus a little further (which means to shrink the length of the eyeball) and doing this bit by bit you will get to no glasses needed. Many people do with crazy high adopter prescriptions. I skipped a lot of important information but I hope this got you interested.

What minus lenses glasses (myopia glasses) do is push the light deeper into the eye. So that even though your eye is elongated and can only focus up close, the light is directed deep enough for you to see the objects clearly. That's how they make things appear as if they're close... now think about it... do you need the same prescription of glasses to look 20 feet away as you would need 1000 feet away? No. And it is definitely not the prescription you need to look 10 feet or 1 foot away from your face. The further the distance the stronger the correction you need... so there is part of your answer, wearing distance glasses for seeing close up is pushing the light even deeper into the eye than you're used to, which stimulates the eye to elongate even more. Yes it does make your eyesight worse. But that make sure you lower your prescription very gradually and slowly, because a bad place to be in is called "blur adaptation" where if you lower it too fast, you see things blurry and you go on with it, you stop paying attention to details, and you forget what it's like to see clearly, the vision improvement will 100% stop. Because the eye is ok with blurry vision and is not estimated to shrink.

Anyway I received several MHOs sharing this small piece which you could learn from the linked Jake Steiner, from a number of users whose names i forgot. I know @EmyyWolf and @letuswaltzforthedead found it helpful. You're in Canada, zennioptical and another similar company sell prescription glasses for as low as 10$. Or if you have no need to correct astigmatism, go somewhere like Ebay and search myopia glasses and sort by price... it can be as low as 1$ or less.

Also astigmatism is caused by the same thing as myopia, it is caused by myopia. When the eyeball elongates, the surface is warped, causing double vision and all that.

So.. wear glasses only strong enough to se fine details but no stronger. You absolutely need a lot of pairs of glasses but you can get them cheap... the strongest pair should be for driving at night, wear your full prescription. Driving during the day you need a little less, walking outdoors even less, and anything indoors see if you can go without them (depending on how bad your myopia is, if you're just starting, maybe you even need reading glasses, plus lenses, which make things appear further away and make the light not penetrate the eyeball as deep) but most importantly, keep looking at details, if you work on a computer, sit near a window and make it a goal to look outside and read a road sign or something as far away as you can. Focus on it. Also hanging a snellen chart at home is helpful.

Anyway just go to that guy whom i learned this from over 5 years ago because i forgot a lot of it myself.

[Guy___]

Make it a goal to take breaks every few minutes from computer work and look far away for a few moments*

Also it is not recommended and looks stupid but I used to put a finger on the skin at both sides beside the eye and pull it apart, which manually presses the eyeball to get shorter, and actually corrected the vision for me even better than the full prescription of glasses. That was my method to see fsr away when taking breaks from the screen.

[zeitgeist057]

My optometrist (as you pointed out, perhaps biased, but also perhaps a rational and honest scientist?) said that glasses do not negatively impact vision.

Some other anecdotal tidbits regarding my experiences with vision. I was myopic as a child, but broke my only pair of glasses and we couldn't afford to keep buying me more so I was just myopic until 28 when I purchased Lasik corrective surgery to improve my vision to 20/20 R, 20/15 L (which is "better than perfect" Google: "Most people are familiar with 20/20 vision, but 20/15 vision is even better. If you have 20/15 vision, you can see things at 20 feet that people with normal 20/20 vision can see at 15 feet. ")

I also tried disposable contacts in my early 20s, but I would forget to take them out, or forget to put them in, and they were generally a hassle, so I stopped buying them. I couldn't make out leaves on trees, and often waved to people that I thought were my friends, but turned out to be strangers (and sometimes became friends). I would drive past streets because I couldn't read the sign until it was too late to turn, or sometimes not at all. I did the math on the cost of Lasik vs. replacing broken glasses or contacts, and optometrist visits. It's cheaper to go the glasses/contacts route, even after 5-10 years, but I thought what the heck, my vision is worth a couple paychecks.

I then enjoyed better than perfect vision for about a decade, until I started getting eye strain and headaches and found out it was because my near vision was fading. Optometrist told me this more or less happens to everyone eventually, as our eye muscles slowly fatigue and get longer and longer, it's harder for them to contract fully into focus on close things. So I got my first pair of reading glasses, @ +1.25.

Based on what the optometrist said, I think we could reason that you can continue to go without glasses and strain those eye muscles, and they will be stronger than if you gave in and got glasses. But then you are going to have that constant strain, and I don't think they will get strong enough to not have that adverse effect. I wasn't planning on getting glasses, but I had been experiencing this strain for months not knowing what it was (and it was progressive). So my eyes were losing strength without glasses. Maybe even faster with glasses? But I'm more comfortable and I don't think I'm going to be investing my time in going to the eye gym and pumping some eye muscle exercises daily so that's where we are at. I have enough on my plate without adding eye workout to the list lol.

[musicbrain5]

No, I have not noticed that. I have been wearing glasses every day since I was 2, so for 30 years straight now. I have a lot of problems with my eyes, but that hasn’t been one of them. I have become more nearsighted as I get older, however, that is a symptom of one of the conditions I have, and not from glasses. Wearing glasses regularly and having surgery done has LITERALLY saved my sight and the physical condition of my eyes.

Corrective lenses alone do not physically change your eyes or the strength of the ocular muscles or the iris. That’s not how they work. They work by bending light to meet your retina at an appropriate angle, since people who need prescription lenses usually have one or more of the following physical conditions: misshapen corneas (astigmatism), hardened lenses, elongated eyeballs (nearsighted or myopia), shallow eyeballs (farsighted or hyperopia), strabismus, or amblyopia (which can only be corrected through surgery). Sometimes people also need prisms on their lenses, as I did at one point.

As you age, the lenses in your eyes become much less flexible and a condition called presbyopia usually emerges. Noticeable changes in vision start to manifest in the mid 40’s for many, and for sure as you approach your early to mid 50’s. This is why so many people need to start wearing reading glasses, or choose larger fonts, or even get bifocals on their existing prescriptions.

Ophthalmologists where I live are regulated medical doctors - they have gone to medical school, while optometrists are not MDs and they do not attend medical school. Ophthalmologists are doctors who treat more serious conditions of the eye. It’s not some big conspiracy just to sell glasses - that’s LensCrafters or Pearle Vision, lol. If you don’t want to wear glasses, you don’t have to.

[pers0n]

I'm baffled by how you can jump around the obvious while mentioning what should debunk it... as I stated in my opinion, the eye adapts to whatever stimulus you feed it. If the light is slight deeper in the eye, the eye will elongate and you will need stronger prescription. If it us slightly too far to see, the eyeball will shrink and your myopia will improve, given that you're not doing it too suddenly and become blur adapted.

There are millions of people include. g myself who have taken off adopters. As bad as -9 to no glasses. It is real simple science.
Do you want me to send hundreds of pubmed links to published scientific studies affirming what I just wrote?
Or do you want me do sell you a thousand d pairs of glasses for 50$ which is how cheap they really are in wholesale?

[pers0n]

Dumb autocorrect

[pers0n]

Though one thing I thought about, if it wasn't invented yet we should give it a shot... maybe there is a way to artificially shrink the eyeball real fast? Like getting rid of a diopter a week or something. Naturally it takes months to lower a diopter if you really try.

Similar to electrical muscle stimulation or helmets that stimulate the brain, maybe something can safely work eith the eye?

[musicbrain5]

@pers0n Look, I’m not interested in debating my personal eye health with somebody over the Internet. All I did was answer the question at hand to the best of my ability and related it to my own lived experiences. If you disagree with what I said or how I stated things, that’s fine.

[pers0n]

Nothing to do with health... it's like saying a fist is unhealthier than the open hand.
It's just a refractive error.
If you can't reach something while sitting down, it does not mean you have to sit on top of a ladder, it means you have to stand up, and sitting is not a disease and ladder is not a cure...

And the answer on whether or not you will be able to reverse your myopia is answered when you say that glasses work for you.
This is how I see it: if you can see both far and near while wearing the same correction (and it is not bifocal) that means your eye can both focus and defocus. And also since your myopia can progress, it means hyperopia can also progress (and it was shown in many scientific studies) as opposed to if your eye was stuck at a certain focusing position and you needed to adjust the prescription according to the distance...
Do what you want but honestly you are misinformed. Not anymore though.

[musicbrain5]

@pers0n I never asked or mentioned if my own myopia can be reversed. I’m not worried about that, because I wear the correct prescription I am able to see near and far with clarity. The main focus has always been keeping my strabismus and diplopia corrected. Have a nice day.

[pers0n]

I can easily get strabismus in a second, our eyes are movable. And if you align you eyes just as easily as you can misalign them, as well as shrinking the eyeball where the cornea isn't warped to cause astigmatism, the diplopia will be no more.

[musicbrain5]

@pers0n You don’t always need to have the last word. Please leave me alone now.

[pers0n]

No I don't and it is not my goal to. I even apologize for answering what you haven't asked me for.
But I will keep getting triggered when I see misinformation, because I don't want to be completely apathetic.

[pers0n]

Also I misunderstood your opinion and thought you called optometrists educated lol. But even ophthalmologists shouldn't be expected to have gotten the full truth poured into them during their education... similar to how antidepressants were proven to be dangerously ineffective and detrimental, yet they keep prescribing them.

[musicbrain5]

@pers0n You also misunderstood “please leave me alone”. Move along.

[SecretsofKB]

Have you ever driven on a really long drive on the interstate, then you pulled into a town and the speed limit is slower? Doesn't it feel like you're crawling along and going sooo slow at that point?

I feel like it's kind of like that with glasses. You have them on all the time and you get used to seeing the world clearly. Then you take them off and it really looks blurry.

I wear my glasses most of the time unless I'm at work (then I have contacts in). This is just how I equate the feeling.

[AmandaYVR]

This is a very interesting analogy. Thanks!

[Truthatanycost]

Glasses are a useful invention misused and turned into scam just like everything else related to the health system. Instead of being recommended for temporary / emergency use while the underlying problem is discovered, resolved or at least everything done to try to address it... instead the root causes are ignored and you're left using glasses for the rest of your life which is a nice cash cow for opticians. There may be some issues where glasses could be needed for life, but I bet those are the exceptions rather than the rule.

I know someone that has been wearing glasses for over 40 years and has bad cataracts.. but they realised this scam about a year ago. Now their eyesight has improved, they need lower prescriptions and they don't always use their glasses. You can also get rid of cataracts without an operation but I bet no one is told about that. When they had an eye exam their eyesight improvement was also confirmed.

[AmandaYVR]

Wow.

[Truthatanycost]

In addition to what I said above, my friend is now also making use of subliminal audio affirmations to reprogram the faulty mindset concerning eye health. All of the bs we've been taught is picked up and remains in our subconscious. It's the same with a lot of Dental health as well.

Take a look at this. See how many studies there are on the eye drops I recommended my friend try? (she now drives in the dark and could see her own eye in the mirror for the first time up close).

https://www.can-c.me/current-research-on-cataracts

[NamerOfStars]

Possibly- but does it really matter? It's not like there's a way to make your vision STRONGER (that I've heard about, at least), and there's not much point in keeping your vision at "lousy" instead of "good, but worse when uncorrected".

As a parallel case, consider central sleep apnea. Not *obstructive* apnea, where the soft tissues of your throat collapse and block your airway, but CENTRAL, where your brain doesn't send the signal to breathe to your lungs. Central sleep apnea is usually only seen in cases of brain damage or serious head injury, but there's one other common source- use of CPAP machines. People develop obstructive apnea, start using CPAPs, then develop central apnea as their brain starts slacking off. Central apnea's much more dangerous, but that won't matter if obstructive apnea kills you first.

[AmandaYVR]

Yes it matters, because I'm trying to figure out the ways to optimize my vision, or it not to feel worse; actually, not only my vision, but eye fatigue, headaches, ability to focus for long periods of time, etc. I'm also very interested/concerned about the relationship between distance and close-up vision. And going from light to dark mode on screens. (I need both.) These contrasts are a real problem. But my ophthalmologist said there is no solution in a prescription.

A key point I didn't mention above is that my vision isn't always better with my reading prescription glasses. Many times, I put them on, and it looks no better (sometimes even worse), so I just leave them off (and try again later, sometimes.)
Particularly in the morning right after getting up, or late at night after a whole day on the computer, the reading glasses make no improvement. So maybe my eyes are just watery or irritated or something. (I have allergies and sleep issues quite often.)
But lately I've found that the more I wear the reading glasses, the worse my vision is overall.
This doesn't happen with the distance glasses, which I wear just occasionally. (For long distance text definition.)

I don't know anything about apnea but it sounds very interesting.
The body/brain does lots of things on its own. It's amazing how delicate a system it is. Introducing medications, such as antidepressants for instance, over long periods of time shuts off the natural serotonin production.

[Grond21]

I don't know for sure if it's true or not. But I do know that your eyes can get worse as you age. That's usually what ophthalmologists are referencing. However, there is distinct evidence against them claiming that glasses do not affect your eyes. Namely that they warn you not to hold books or phones too close to your eyes because it can damage your vision. Directly because you are forcing your eyes to focus on something close for long periods of time. If that is true, then glasses, which overtly change how your eyes focus, would obviously change your eyes over time. So logically it seems that the answer is yes

[AmandaYVR]

They do worsen as they age, but not that quickly, typically. Eye tests being paid for every two years is actually very fair.
My vision hasn't changed in several years, according to those tests.

Yes, I remember the ophthalmologist saying that reading in dim light is bad. I don't recall book-reading distance being mentioned. I didn't know it damages them. ?

[Grond21]

Right. That pace is too rapid.

It's good your vision is the same.

Dim light, and now people holding their phones too close. My opthalmologist mentoring it can damage vision

[BlurryHaze]

I wear glasses as my eyesight got noticeably bad over the years to the point where I was squinting at a whiteboard I was sitting closest to back in school. As soon as I got glasses boom suddenly it was like seeing everything in 4k, literally never seen the world so clear in my life. But the times I took them off my eyesight was much worse than before, but only for a few days before they went back to their original squinting condition.

In short your eyes have gotten used to seeing through specialised glass overtime and as soon as they are off have to get used to seeing without them again, but some people confuse this with their eyesight being worse due to wearing glasses.

I ranted a bit I know lol but hope this helps! 👍

[AmandaYVR]

That was very helpful, thanks!

[BlurryHaze]

Most welcome!

[Lionman95]

I would say wearing all my life my vision without glasses is bad. For me the problem with your theory is that your ability to see doesn´t just rely on your eye muscles but also on nerves, the bending of your eye lense and many other factors you can´t train that easily.
I personally tried unvoluntarily to live for a week without glasses and it wasn´t a happy time because it gave me headaches and my sight didn´t seem to improve. It could work for people that are not completely depending on their glasses like people that just wear a glasses but don´t necessarily need one but I don´t think it works for everyone.

[Dazed0N0Confused]

I've had to wear glasses since I was in middle school & even then I probably should have had them a year or two before I got them.

I'm near sighted, just like my mom & grandma. I, for the love of all that is good in this world, cannot read anything that's more than two feet away from my face without my contacts or glasses.

I've never heard that glasses make your vision worse, but there is no shame in needing to wear glasses/contacts. If you need help seeing, why fight it? You look stupider trying to squint to read or see things than you do putting on a pair of glasses.

[devilish-cutie]

Yeah i assume its probably true, people close to me that wear glasses said it to me and its cause the eye gets lazy appraently. You should trust ysf, even if its not true for some people it may be true for others. Eg. my body hair definitelly is ticker after shaving even tho that is not true for everyone and scientists and doctors deny it, but i know it to be true for me and many others.

[AmandaYVR]

I went to cosmetology school and we were taught it's not true. I've seen an explanation confirming it since, as well.
Here's why it seems thicker:
Because when you shave with a blade, it truncates the hairs, leaving a blunter edge which doesn't taper on the end. As hair grows longer, it has more time to grow and thin out.

But thanks for the "trust yourself" advice. I do think more people should. Others (even professionals) do often have ulterior motives.

[devilish-cutie]

I've heard that explanation about body hair and trust me, no, my hair IS ticker.

[ShadezMcgee]

Actually I am near sighted and am supposed to wear them when driving or doing something that requires me to look at things from a distance, but I don't use them. I can see shit, I just can't see it like HD TV. Plus, it is just tedious to have one extra thing for a small task that I need to carry or deal with.

[AmandaYVR]

That's like me. I totally agree.
(Though the DMV told me that if I were to ever get in a car accident, and I wasn't wearing them, insurance may not cover it. Booo. But I can still see. I just read the itsy bitsy street name signs blocks away. That doesn't affect my driving, really.)

[sheenagwapa]

i only use my glasses when i'm having headache... i like the look aesthetically but I don't know i just wanr nothing on my face no mask, no glasses. sorry if this is all about beauty but i loke glasses because it makes my eyes look larger not that i'm complaining my small eyes i love my small eyes but for a change i want it bigger

[AmandaYVR]

Yes, I'm trying to avoid headaches but haven't found a pattern yet. It's not just 'wear the glasses = no headache.'

I like the look of glasses too. I love accessories, actually.
But I 100% agree with you about just the annoyance of having stuff on my face. Plus, they can fog up if you drink hot tea, or it rains.

[Blackcupcake]

I disagree…


it’s not that the glasses make your vision worse… you just had bad vision from the start which you had adapted to. but then when you start using glasses regularly, your vision gets better and you get used having a better vision with the glasses. so when you take them off again, you go back to your poor vision, which you now, are not used to anymore, so you notice it more now than you did before you started using your glasses.

[AmandaYVR]

I was starting to believe this was the answer, but today I am experimenting again and right now I see no better with my prescription reading glasses on, than off. They don't always improve my vision. Sometimes they make things look worse.
I've been tested multiple times over years, though, and I don't the prescription is wrong.

[MrJMM]

It can unless you have a specific condition or something. But new studies have shown that people who wear glasses but don't wear them very often like around the house or doing basic tasks can give them symptoms of dizziness, nausea, failure to focus correctly, increased tripping and falling hazards, and weakening of the eye muscles.

[AmandaYVR]

I was told some of those things would happen shortly after receiving my prescription glasses. Thought they were supposed to subside.
Weakening of eye muscles is the really interesting one, though.

[sunflower00]

No I don’t think so. I have pretty bad eyesight and used to just deal with it, didn’t even realise it was bad until I got glasses and i could see clearly. It was insane. And then when I wasn’t wearing them everything seemed so much blurrier than usual but that’s because I saw what it was like to see clearly so I had something to compare it to? But I didn’t wear my glasses because I didn’t like them and one of my eyes got so much worse so quick

[Dinklex3]

I don't wear my glasses because i feel blind whenever i DO wear them and take them off.

I can see/read things without them just fine. When i put them on, I'm like "holy shit I was blind!" But when i take them off I can't see what I was able to before... So I just don't wear them unless driving.

[bubblegunnn]

I voted a
I also heard bout that tho.. and it happened to some of my friend, like they stopped using it and for long period their eyes got better..
But my friends also got their eyes better after wearing glass everyday

For me im not wearing it often, but sometimes only when i go hangouts or driving

[AviatorTom]

I've worn glasses since I was a kid and my vision with glasses has slowly gotten worse over time. That's why I occasionally go around the house without my glasses, to force my eye muscles to try to focus on their own without the crutch of lenses... and it makes a difference.

[SomeGuyCalledTom]

I think people should be more concerned about exposure to unnatural blue light from phones/tablets/TV monitors after daylight hours. I have astigmatism which isn't gonna magically get better by leaving the glasses off. Even if wearing glasses has a somewhat 'deconditioning' effect, I'd still rather be able to actually see properly, rather than having "well conditioned" eye muscles yet not being able to see shit

[AdithyaR]

Generally if you have a condition that requires glasses, not wearing them causes your eyes to deteriorate.
I have a long vision problem so if I'm out without glasses, I'm straining my eyes in order to read things far away. Wearing the glasses provides ease, it doesn't worsen the condition.

[Apulu_Imback]

No, it actually improves I guess. My friend who used wear glasses of high power now wears glasses of comparatively low power.

[AmandaYVR]

Interesting.

[Adam1978]

No not having glasses will just worsen your eye sight since you will strain your eyes more. There is a natural ageing affect too. And if you keep switching you might notice this, while you probably won't if you don't.

[menina]

I've never heard this, but I find it interesting, and it makes sense to me. I wear glasses since I was little, and I hate it. Reading your post made me think, but it seems that I'll never get rid of them.