Help - struggling with my glasses

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi all

I have worn contact lenses for 23 years and never had any problems. I have basically worn monthly disposable soft contact lenses all day every day and only worn my glasses in an emergency.

Now I am having problems with my vision and my optician has said that I have slight astigmatism. I got some new glasses last year and I am trying to wear them a bit more but really struggling. I am aware of them on my face all the time and when I look up or down it feels like it takes a second or two for my vision to adjust. I dont feel confident walking around or driving in them. Yesterday I wore my glasses for 6 hours and by the time I took them off I felt light headed, sick and head-achy.

My optician says my glasses are fine and I just need to persevere building up the time that I wear them but I am not convinced. I am going to see another optician next week for another opinion but wondered if anyone on here had any thoughts?

nedmundo

Assuming there is nothing wrong with the specs, your visual system has to get used to magnification or minification (depending on whether you are long or short sighted) of your everyday world. There's little you can do other than take the time to adapt to them.

Janepig

I think you're wise to get a second opinion - if you've had the glasses since last year then you should be well used to them now. It is a bit of a shock to the system when you get new glasses, but it only usually takes a day or two for your eyes to get used to them (in my experience anyway).

Jx

YORKSHIRELASS

Thanks. Although I have had them a while I haven't worn them much because I just keep going back to my contact lenses but I have worn them so it seems odd to be having such a strong reaction. I am wearing them now and they do make me feel ill!

jenniewb

I have an astigmatism, it's quite a strong one and I used to wear contact lenses, there is a difference between your eyes adjusting to contacts and to specs, it does take time for your eyes to get used to either if your used to using the other. When I get new lenses it takes about a week or two to get used to them, not so long with contacts but it is still an adjustment.


The difference with specs and contacts is that with contacts, astigmatisms are hard to get contacts for so you get a sort of rough estimate, with glasses you get a far more precise lense and this can feel odd if you go from one to the other. It's the reason I sadly can't wear contacts now- they just aren't precise enough for me and gave me headaches as my eyes worsened and I sat between two prescription levels (and with different prescriptions in each eyes it was just literally a headache!)


If you don't like the glasses and can't get used to them that is your choice, but do bare in mind that it would likely take quite a few days if not a week or so of consecutive wear of your glasses to get used to them before you can hope to chop and change so frequently, but it maybe is an idea to ask if there is a difference between the precise prescription of your glasses and the more rough prescription of your contacts.

YORKSHIRELASS

Thank you, thats really helpful and makes a lot of sense. I will see what the optician says when I go next week.

This feeling of not quite being able to see properly is really getting me down and I just want to get it sorted, one way or another.

SmarterNotHarder

In addition to the contact lenses not correcting the astigmatism completely, don't forget that with glasses you won't get the whole "range" of vision you are used to. Once you've worn glasses for a long time regularly, you'll get used to having to turn your head to see things in your peripheral vision. If your eyes (and brain) haven't adjusted to this yet, this will cause some of the discomfort. You have to actually look at whatever you're looking at.

Also the design of the glasses will affect this. if your lenses are smaller, the increments the prescription goes up in will be steeper, hence the difference when you look around the lens, whereas a bigger lens will allow a more gradual change.

Hope that helps.

nedmundo

SmarterNotHarder wrote: »

In addition to the contact lenses not correcting the astigmatism completely, don't forget that with glasses you won't get the whole "range" of vision you are used to. Once you've worn glasses for a long time regularly, you'll get used to having to turn your head to see things in your peripheral vision. If your eyes (and brain) haven't adjusted to this yet, this will cause some of the discomfort. You have to actually look at whatever you're looking at.

Also the design of the glasses will affect this. if your lenses are smaller, the increments the prescription goes up in will be steeper, hence the difference when you look around the lens, whereas a bigger lens will allow a more gradual change.

Hope that helps.

Sorry - that is completely wrong for single vision lenses - the prescription should be the same whichever part you look through, with the exception of peripheral distortions, which increase with lens size.

With Varifocals however, the more 'compact' designs for shallower frames do have a steeper change in focus as you look down the lens.

jenniewb

nedmundo wrote: »

Sorry - that is completely wrong for single vision lenses - the prescription should be the same whichever part you look through, with the exception of peripheral distortions, which increase with lens size.

With Varifocals however, the more 'compact' designs for shallower frames do have a steeper change in focus as you look down the lens.

I think she was talking about lenses for an astigmatism which I can say from experience is right- what you see is not the same whichever part of the lense you look through unless the prescription is done correctly and fits the astigmatism perfectly.

nedmundo

But the prescription is optimum at the optical centre of the lenses, which is where the presciption is measured. If vision is better towards the periphery, that is a result of aberations (distortions) and means something is wrong with the presciption/dispensing in the 1st place.

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi all, I just thought I would come back and update this as it may help someone else.

I went to a small local optician for a second opinion after going to Specsavers for about 10 years. The optician said that my glasses prescription was too strong which is why I was struggling so much.

He suggested getting new lenses put in my existing frames (which I only got last year). I was a bit apprehensive as this was going to cost me £55 but in the end I agreed.

It turns out that he was right and my vision is so much better. I can now wear my glasses, although I still dont find them as easy to wear as my contacts. I suspect this is just because I am just not used to them.

My new optician also changed my lenses prescription and gave me a new brand of lenses to try which are really comfortable. He said that my astigmatism is so mild that it shouldnt cause me any issues at all.