6 ms·

Anecdote: I used to get new glasses/prescriptions every year. Every year my prescriptions would get stronger. Last couple of years I stopped renewing my glasses

by ysw0 6y ago

Anecdote: I used to get new glasses/prescriptions every year. Every year my prescriptions would get stronger. Last couple of years I stopped renewing my glasses and whenever I absolutely need to get new glasses, I have the store use my old prescription. For whatever reason, my eye sight stopped getting worse. I think by wearing stronger prescriptions, your eyes adapt to it and you get more and more myopic.

lucb1e 6y ago
Warning to anyone taking the above as medical advice: perhaps it might work for you, but do discuss with your doctor and check that you are not driving vehicles with worsening sight while believing it's fine. By all means try it, but get it checked so at least you have the data to know whether it works for you.
- war1025 6y ago
  > but do discuss with your doctor This requires having a doctor you trust. My experience with most doctors is that I can trust them about as far as a used car salesman.
  - RHSeeger 6y ago
    Start by finding an eye doctor that doesn't have a glasses shop attached, imo. Or one that isn't "attached" to such a shop in a way they would profit from it, I guess. Without insulting any doctor in specific, my thought is that making a profit from glasses being sold is likely to impact how likely the doctor is to prescribe new glasses.
    - lucb1e 6y ago
      > making a profit from glasses being sold is likely to impact how likely the doctor is to prescribe new glasses. And beyond that, following the logic from the recent surgery thread: they see their patients see better. They see all the good cases, where someone walks out more confident and with better sight. Their product helps people. But then so do homeopathic placebos (to a certain (measurable) extent), and that's the hard part to figure out. Of course, in this case everyone truly does see better when they walk out and what GP is wondering about are the long-term effects. This stuff is complicated, though I frankly have a hard time believing this claim of "just stop wearing glasses and you'll see better". Surely someone would have noticed that? But without doing a deep dive into the research here, it's all just speculation on both their part and mine.
      - moneywoes 6y ago
        Have a link to the surgery thread?
        ethhics 6y ago
        I believe they’re referring to this thread from December: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25472970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25472970
    - crooked-v 6y ago
      > Or one that isn't "attached" to such a shop in a way they would profit from it, I guess. Costco is set up this way: their optometrists are contractors who get a flat fee per eye exam, and they don't know or care about what else you buy while you're there.
    - astura 6y ago
      At my ophthalmologist office the glasses store is a different company than the ophthalmologist's office. They might have a revenue sharing agreement, maybe, but they don't even encourage you to use it.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    I meant that you can discuss it with your doctor to get their factual knowledge or pointers, and then draw your own conclusions. I didn't say, and didn't mean to say (sorry if it came across like that), that you should follow their advice to any degree. I trust the overwhelming majority of people (doctor or patient) to use their own reasonable judgement, and the rest won't be helped by this advice anyway. And for what it's worth, you may have had a string of bad doctors. I never had that feeling with any of mine (though I've only ever seen doctors in the Netherlands and Germany).
dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
How do you get stores to use your old prescription? I’ve had no luck with that.
- ysw0 6y ago
  I asked the optometrist. He was a little offended that I wasn't going to use the new measurements but I pleaded with him enough that he relented. One very interesting thing that convinced me to start doing this: if you get measurements taken at night (vs early in the day), your prescriptions will be stronger as your eyes are already tired. So your new glasses may be too strong for you but your eyes will adapt to it and become worse.
  - dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
    Was this in the US? I’ve tried and everyone told me filling an expired prescription is illegal. Even places that don’t do exams. I have an old prescription and don’t want to get an exam because of the pandemic.
    - astura 6y ago
      I'm assuming the optometrist wrote a new prescription for the old measurements.
    - Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
      That doesn't make sense. I'd recommend getting glasses online from Zenni [0]. They just ask for the measurements of the prescription. There's nothing about expiration dates. And they're super inexpensive! Glasses are a racket. I can't speak for the quality/durability of their frames, as I only used them to get some prescription lenses for my Valve Index so I can play in VR without wearing my glasses. [0] https://www.zennioptical.com/ https://www.zennioptical.com/
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - 6y ago
lern_too_spel 6y ago
Studies of deliberate undercorrection show a slight acceleration in myopia progression. Myopia progression slows and stops naturally after adolescence, whether you wear the correct prescription lenses or not.
- ant6n 6y ago
  I got myopic in my early thirties. It was annoying, up to that point I was the only one in the family without glasses. Still don’t like to wear them.
programmertote 6y ago
Your experience is similar to mine. I got glasses at the age of 13, but didn't like wearing the glasses, so never did. Both my late father and my sister (since she was about 12 years old) have to wear thick glasses. My sister started out about the same eye power as I did, but she wears her glasses everyday. My sister's glasses got thicker year over year, and finally she got LASIK a couple of years ago. My sister doesn't work with computers whereas I spend ~10-12 hours a day with computers/TV screens (when I use computer, I don't wear glasses and my eye doctor told me that's okay). For me, my eye power stayed about the same and never got stronger glass prescription over the last 25 years or so. Having said that, I started wearing glasses about a year ago when watching the TV between 10pm-12am (thanks to my wife who likes watching movies and I joined in). Turns out, my eyesight (near-sight) got a bit worse in a year and now I have a slightly thicker glasses. Again, this is all anecdotal and maybe age comes into play here with my eye sight (but the common knowledge--not sure how true that is--is that the nearsightedness gets better as people age, so what I'm experiencing is the opposite).
burmanm 6y ago
It's also your age. I kept having stronger and stronger glasses (until -9.5) but then it suddenly stopped and vision stayed at this one point. This was also what a eye doctor said to me ~20 years ago, although his prediction when it would happen didn't quite match.
andrewzah 6y ago
The same thing happened to me where I got continually stronger prescriptions, but I stabilized anyways at around 18. My optometrist told me that's very common after adolescence. I really wouldn't recommend using an incorrect prescription. In the US anyways shops won't let you use a prescription older than 1 year.
outworlder 6y ago
That is a trial with N=1 Your eyesight might have stopped getting worse on its own. As is the case for most people (myopia doesn't run away to infinity after all!). Which is why corrective surgery is only indicated after your prescription has been stable for some time.
pessimizer 6y ago
You're probably just getting old. Normal people get farsighted as they age. Myopic people stop getting worse, or even improve a little, and start developing astigmatism.
Solvitieg 6y ago
Me too. And to everyone saying "its just age"... well, it doesn't seem that way. I noticed this pattern and stopped going to the Optometrist for five years. When I finally went again, my myopia was -0.25 worse, so I got new glasses. Then I went again the next year and its -0.25 worse again. My myopia didn't worsen over a period of five years. Then suddenly worsened over a period of one year.
alliao 6y ago
so I have 2 pairs of glasses, one for clarity at infinity for driving, and another one that's clarity at arms length when I work in the office and staring at monitor all day. I do that because I want my eyes to relax, give it a try!

by ysw0 6y ago

lucb1e 6y ago

Warning to anyone taking the above as medical advice: perhaps it might work for you, but do discuss with your doctor and check that you are not driving vehicles with worsening sight while believing it's fine. By all means try it, but get it checked so at least you have the data to know whether it works for you.

war1025 6y ago
> but do discuss with your doctor This requires having a doctor you trust. My experience with most doctors is that I can trust them about as far as a used car salesman.
- RHSeeger 6y ago
  Start by finding an eye doctor that doesn't have a glasses shop attached, imo. Or one that isn't "attached" to such a shop in a way they would profit from it, I guess. Without insulting any doctor in specific, my thought is that making a profit from glasses being sold is likely to impact how likely the doctor is to prescribe new glasses.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    > making a profit from glasses being sold is likely to impact how likely the doctor is to prescribe new glasses. And beyond that, following the logic from the recent surgery thread: they see their patients see better. They see all the good cases, where someone walks out more confident and with better sight. Their product helps people. But then so do homeopathic placebos (to a certain (measurable) extent), and that's the hard part to figure out. Of course, in this case everyone truly does see better when they walk out and what GP is wondering about are the long-term effects. This stuff is complicated, though I frankly have a hard time believing this claim of "just stop wearing glasses and you'll see better". Surely someone would have noticed that? But without doing a deep dive into the research here, it's all just speculation on both their part and mine.
    - moneywoes 6y ago
      Have a link to the surgery thread?
      - ethhics 6y ago
        I believe they’re referring to this thread from December: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25472970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25472970
  - crooked-v 6y ago
    > Or one that isn't "attached" to such a shop in a way they would profit from it, I guess. Costco is set up this way: their optometrists are contractors who get a flat fee per eye exam, and they don't know or care about what else you buy while you're there.
  - astura 6y ago
    At my ophthalmologist office the glasses store is a different company than the ophthalmologist's office. They might have a revenue sharing agreement, maybe, but they don't even encourage you to use it.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  I meant that you can discuss it with your doctor to get their factual knowledge or pointers, and then draw your own conclusions. I didn't say, and didn't mean to say (sorry if it came across like that), that you should follow their advice to any degree. I trust the overwhelming majority of people (doctor or patient) to use their own reasonable judgement, and the rest won't be helped by this advice anyway. And for what it's worth, you may have had a string of bad doctors. I never had that feeling with any of mine (though I've only ever seen doctors in the Netherlands and Germany).

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago

How do you get stores to use your old prescription? I’ve had no luck with that.

ysw0 6y ago
I asked the optometrist. He was a little offended that I wasn't going to use the new measurements but I pleaded with him enough that he relented. One very interesting thing that convinced me to start doing this: if you get measurements taken at night (vs early in the day), your prescriptions will be stronger as your eyes are already tired. So your new glasses may be too strong for you but your eyes will adapt to it and become worse.
- dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
  Was this in the US? I’ve tried and everyone told me filling an expired prescription is illegal. Even places that don’t do exams. I have an old prescription and don’t want to get an exam because of the pandemic.
  - astura 6y ago
    I'm assuming the optometrist wrote a new prescription for the old measurements.
  - Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
    That doesn't make sense. I'd recommend getting glasses online from Zenni [0]. They just ask for the measurements of the prescription. There's nothing about expiration dates. And they're super inexpensive! Glasses are a racket. I can't speak for the quality/durability of their frames, as I only used them to get some prescription lenses for my Valve Index so I can play in VR without wearing my glasses. [0] https://www.zennioptical.com/ https://www.zennioptical.com/
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- 6y ago

lern_too_spel 6y ago

Studies of deliberate undercorrection show a slight acceleration in myopia progression. Myopia progression slows and stops naturally after adolescence, whether you wear the correct prescription lenses or not.

ant6n 6y ago
I got myopic in my early thirties. It was annoying, up to that point I was the only one in the family without glasses. Still don’t like to wear them.

programmertote 6y ago

Your experience is similar to mine. I got glasses at the age of 13, but didn't like wearing the glasses, so never did. Both my late father and my sister (since she was about 12 years old) have to wear thick glasses. My sister started out about the same eye power as I did, but she wears her glasses everyday. My sister's glasses got thicker year over year, and finally she got LASIK a couple of years ago. My sister doesn't work with computers whereas I spend ~10-12 hours a day with computers/TV screens (when I use computer, I don't wear glasses and my eye doctor told me that's okay). For me, my eye power stayed about the same and never got stronger glass prescription over the last 25 years or so. Having said that, I started wearing glasses about a year ago when watching the TV between 10pm-12am (thanks to my wife who likes watching movies and I joined in). Turns out, my eyesight (near-sight) got a bit worse in a year and now I have a slightly thicker glasses. Again, this is all anecdotal and maybe age comes into play here with my eye sight (but the common knowledge--not sure how true that is--is that the nearsightedness gets better as people age, so what I'm experiencing is the opposite).

burmanm 6y ago

It's also your age. I kept having stronger and stronger glasses (until -9.5) but then it suddenly stopped and vision stayed at this one point. This was also what a eye doctor said to me ~20 years ago, although his prediction when it would happen didn't quite match.

andrewzah 6y ago

The same thing happened to me where I got continually stronger prescriptions, but I stabilized anyways at around 18. My optometrist told me that's very common after adolescence. I really wouldn't recommend using an incorrect prescription. In the US anyways shops won't let you use a prescription older than 1 year.

outworlder 6y ago

That is a trial with N=1 Your eyesight might have stopped getting worse on its own. As is the case for most people (myopia doesn't run away to infinity after all!). Which is why corrective surgery is only indicated after your prescription has been stable for some time.

pessimizer 6y ago

You're probably just getting old. Normal people get farsighted as they age. Myopic people stop getting worse, or even improve a little, and start developing astigmatism.

Solvitieg 6y ago

Me too. And to everyone saying "its just age"... well, it doesn't seem that way. I noticed this pattern and stopped going to the Optometrist for five years. When I finally went again, my myopia was -0.25 worse, so I got new glasses. Then I went again the next year and its -0.25 worse again. My myopia didn't worsen over a period of five years. Then suddenly worsened over a period of one year.

alliao 6y ago

so I have 2 pairs of glasses, one for clarity at infinity for driving, and another one that's clarity at arms length when I work in the office and staring at monitor all day. I do that because I want my eyes to relax, give it a try!