Does glasses worsen your vision over time?

[sillymofo]

Originally posted by: PipBoy

Originally posted by: Roger He forgot the apostrophy.

apostrophy?

Don't worry, I just let them dig themselves further into their clowning holes.

 

[alkemyst]

you both need to stop masturbating.

 

[Eli]

Many people believe they do.

 

[imported_Tomato]

I have astigmatism in both eyes, and I know my vision's gotten significantly worse over time. I want Lasik. 🙁

 

[tcsenter]

I'm told by optometrists that if I don't wear glasses, my vision will get worse, but that has not been true in my case. So I wonder, is it a fact or is it myth that if you don't wear glasses, your vision will get worse or vice versa.?

I actually discussed this with both an ophthalmologist (M.D.) and an optometrist (O.D.) several years ago after reading a blurb about the mechanism behind correction dependency somewhere.

There is no simple answer to this that will be true for everyone. There is some scientific merit to the notion that correcting vision artificially will make the eyes more dependent upon that correction. That is, your vision is kinda like a muscle, and if you aren't exercising it because most of the work is being done for it, it can atrophy somewhat over a long period of time.

However, its more complicated than that. Using the muscle example, if you overwork or overstrain your muscles, it can cause problems. No less true for the eye. If too much strain is placed on the eye to correct for a deficiency it isn't capable of correcting for due to a defect, that's no good either.

At what point the line is crossed between 'good' and 'bad' exercise (work vs. strain) is the threshhold in question. Its unique to every individual and impossible to measure (at least for now).

An obvious compromise would be to make the eye share a greater burden of the full correction. I asked my optometrist how that might work, and he replied that he would not have a problem with reducing the 'strength' of the correction in my lenses by 50% of what is standard/advised for my acuity deficit.