4 ms·
Having moderately mild myopia, I stopped wearing glasses/lenses except for driving, and my vision steadily improved over the weeks and months. To make a long st
by strait 11y ago
Having moderately mild myopia, I stopped wearing glasses/lenses except for driving, and my vision steadily improved over the weeks and months. To make a long story short, I've concluded that glasses are a nasty crutch for most people. With wearing lenses for every waking activity, people never realize that their visual acuity is actually substantially variable, depending on their latest mode of visual activity. Too much reading and computer work, and the distance vision becomes worse (for myopia). Start examining details in the mid/far distance, usually outside, and the acuity immediately begins improving, though very gradually.
After a few years mostly without my glasses, all visual situations have greatly improved, even at night. However, I do a ton of reading, so the prospect of 20/20 or even 20/40 will probably always be elusive, even under the best conditions.
- gst 11y agoI had exactly the opposite experience: I always was a little bit short-sighted but never wore glasses / contact lenses. A few years ago I decided to use contact lenses and suddenly my short sightedness quickly got worse and I need much higher Dioptre lenses than when I started using them.
- blisterpeanuts 11y agoI will forever regret wearing glasses beginning in 2nd grade. Each year the optometrist gave me an increasingly strong correction until it finally leveled off around age 30. This despite going outdoors nearly every day after school, and for many parts of the school day as well--it was a campus of many small buildings rather than the typical monolithic compound. Quite possibly I could have had much better vision, had I resisted. But who knew? It may be possible to correct it somewhat through exercises, but to get the eyes back to perfect vision is probably beyond reach.
- drpgq 11y agoCouldn't you just get laser eye surgery?
- blisterpeanuts 11y ago"Just"? Lasik is not free of complications. From the Mayo Clinic: As with any surgery, LASIK eye surgery carries risks, including: Undercorrections. Overcorrections. Vision returning to pre-surgery vision. Visual loss or changes. Astigmatism. Glare, halos and double vision. Dry eyes. Flap problems.
- mikeash 11y agoI don't understand why everyone seems convinced that glasses cause vision problems. Is there any evidence for this? To me, your comment sounds like blaming the barber for how your hair keeps growing, or saying maybe you wouldn't be so hungry if you ate less.
- blisterpeanuts 11y agoJust a hunch.
- mikeash 11y agoSeems like way more than just a hunch if you "forever regret wearing glasses." Maybe you trust your hunches way more than I do.
- jsnell 11y agoIt's an obvious hunch, so it should perhaps not be surprising that there have been lots of scientific studies on this. The results are the opposite of your intuition: undercorrecting childhood myopia causes the myopia to progress more quickly than when it is properly corrected. So good news, you've been freed of one eternal regret.
- XorNot 11y agoIt's absolutely made up. I didn't wear glasses at all till I was 27, still mostly don't, and still have -1 short-sightedness despite all those years of trying to ignore the problem.
- scarmig 11y agoEveryone I know who wears glasses has bad vision.
- TillE 11y agoWhile we're sharing anecdotes, I had (reading) glasses from the age of 8, but I never once wore them in school all the way through to the end of high school. My vision slowly deteriorated until I truly couldn't read normal sized text without glasses. I genuinely don't know the science here. But I've never heard such a thing from a doctor (glasses hurt your vision), and it smells like folk wisdom BS to me.
- lucaspiller 11y agoI wonder if wearing weaker lenses would work? I'm -3.75 in both so can't really see anything without glasses other than rough outlines.