This article is Day 149 of a long term vision improvement experiment. To get the full value of what I am learning, be sure to check out the introductory article which also has links to all of my updates.
Yesterday was a pretty good day. I had my annual eye exam. Normally I don’t look forward to any kind of medical appointment. Since I’ve been trying to improve my vision naturally since March 8, 2010, I was especially nervous. Did my vision improve or at least stay the same? Or did it get worse? Did taking off my glasses accomplish anything? Are the eye exercises a waste of time?
I went through the exam with all of those questions swirling in my head. When it was done, the doctor told me that my vision “stayed about the same.” That was a relief. I wanted to see improvement, but I couldn’t complain. He kept asking me if I was happy with my glasses. The ones I brought in to the appointment were made with my last prescription, which was -3.00 diopters in each eye. I don’t wear these any more, except when driving. They look brand new. I bet he would have loved to sell me another $400 pair of glasses. When I need distance vision — aside from where the law requires more correction — I wear my first pair of glasses, which at -1.75 diopters, provides me with the under correction I believe I need to reverse my nearsightedness.
I left the appointment feeling good. I was glad that my vision didn’t get any worse. As I drove home, I thought about how I would write this article: “My eyes are still at -3.00, but this is the first time it didn’t get worse, so I’m still hopeful.”
When I got home, I looked at the bill, which had my new prescription printed on it. It wasn’t -3.00 like I thought. It was -2.75! The only thing that increased since last time was the exam fee!
So I am excited. Scientifically, I can’t come to any firm conclusions from these results. -2.75 is probably well within the margin of error. However, this is the first time since I started wearing glasses seven years ago that my annual exam showed an improvement in my vision. My vision is finally moving in the right direction. I couldn’t be happier.
I am disappointed that this optometrist seemed to have no problem with my -2.75 eyes staring through -3.00 lenses all day. Although I don’t wear them much at all, the vast majority of people with my vision do wear their glasses all the time, so it’s safe to assume that the doctor would take this into account. He kept reminding me that I didn’t need a new prescription, but if I “felt like a change of frames” he could help me out. Under the theories of natural vision improvement that I’m testing, too much correction would make my eyes worse even faster. He probably doesn’t put any stock in those ideas, but what reason is there to let someone with -2.75 vision walk out of there with -3.00 glasses? I truly doubt that is good for your eyes.
Will I keep up this experiment? You bet. An improvement of 0.25 in five months — if this is for real — is better than I expected. It’s a slow process, but I promise to keep posting updates on right here on Tod.FM.
22 Comments
Good job! Keep up the thinking for yourself! I think it’s about time to search for a new optometrist..
Definitely!
-2.75 diopters. I am so jealous! My correction is currently -8.00 diopters. Thanks, mom.
I hope your vision continues to improve.
Hi I enjoyed reading this. I too have extremely strong doubts about wearing glasses 24 7. I started wearing glasses at 8 all day every day and my vision went downhill every year catastrophically. I feared I would go blind. I am now 18 and my vision has stabilised at -5 and -5.25. I have applied to join the royal marines but my vision was far too poor. I think it was about 20/140 or even worse. I am writing this the day after laser surgery and after my post day check up my vision is already at 20/10, the limits of human possibility. It didn’t go perfectly first time and it hurt – a lot! But it was a risk I was willing to take and i’m glad I did. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with only minor poor vision.
-hayden
It sounds like the surgery worked out for you — great! After watching my vision gradually decline for years, I hit -3.00 and decided I’d had enough and had to do something before it got much worse. I think almost anyone could benefit from wearing glasses less often, as long as you don’t do it in an environment that is unsafe.
My sister and I had the same vision in ca 1987. Both slightly blurry, but no big deal. We both got glasses. She wore hers all the time and I seldom wore mine. Much like yourself, I hate everything about them and only wear them when driving at night or in inclement weather, or when I need to read a whiteboard from a distance. Okay, sometimes I wear them to meetings to look smart and they do come in handy at the theatre. Other than that, I dislike the inconvenience of glasses and contacts dry out my eyes and are even more of a pain than glasses.
Anyhow, over 20 years later and my eyesight worsened by something miniscule. I don’t know exactly by what, but the optometrist (I have only gone once every 4-5 years), said that I could change my perscription if I wanted, but that the change was so small that it wasn’t necessary. The last pair of glasses I bought were in 1999 and this is only because I broke the old ones. I haven’t done any special exercises. In fact, I was thinking the other day that my eyesight might actually be getting a little better with age (I am now 42). I can’t say that I can recommend this for everyone. Glasses are a life saver for people who really need them. But it is interesting to think that there is a certain percentage out there that would be better off without. On a final note, my sister’s eyes are horrific and she is permanently addicted to her glasses. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Further good luck!
Lynn
Tod,
Yesterday (Oct 29, 2010) I paid for and picked up my first pair of glasses ever. I had an exam at the beginning of October because I noticed blurriness in my left eye. However, it was not a hindrance to using the computer, driving, doing my job, or basically anything besides reading very small type like the clock on my computer monitor.
They prescribed me a 1.5 correction in the left eye, and .25 in the right.
I’m 23. Never had glasses before. I don’t know what to do. I think I know in my heart that these glasses will go in my desk and be rarely taken out. I don’t want to be looking back 6-10 years from now realizing my sight has gotten progressively worse since this fateful day.
Well, your right eye sounds pretty healthy. I was somewhere around -1.5 in both when I first got my glasses. How I wish I didn’t take their advice and leave them on all the time. I spent hours doing close up work reading or using the computer staring through those lenses when I didn’t need it.
By the way, your prescription is based on how your vision is in a darkened room. Your vision will always be worse at night, because bright light during the day causes your pupils to contract, which has a side effect of improving vision slightly. So you really should have two prescriptions: one for nighttime, and one slightly lower for daytime. When we all wear those glasses prescribed with nighttime numbers, this causes overcorrection during the day, which I believe is very bad.
Hey, When I was 16 I got told by my optician to wear glasses just when reading or watching TV.
A few months later I started to struggle to see peoples faces and my eyes was just getting worse. I went back to the opticians and they told me to wear them as much as possible.
I’m 18 now and my prescriptions have just been getting stronger.
I am fed up of wearing glasses and your experience has made me confident that glasses don’t help my eyes. So im only going to wear them while driving and I will be doing eye exercises. hopefully in a few months i will see a slight improvement.
I wholeheartedly applaud this experiment. All of a sudden, wearing my normal scrip, I’m having trouble reading (seeing the letters up close). With my glasses off, I’m fine to read anything or do any fine work. I just need them for distance. Before, I could wear them all the time, read whatever. Now I’m told I need bifocals. I’m holding off for sure and going to try some of your exercises.
It really would seem contact lenses are a scam – a tiny piece of plastic costing about $1.00 each. And the optometrist charges you for the ‘contact lens’ fitting but will in some cases not even give you the scrip for said fitting unless you ask him for it, preferring to keep it on file so you’ll not take your business elsewhere. I’m now told I need to pay for a special bifocals assessment too. There is chicanery in the corners of optometry.
i’m so glad i found this! i too am starting this journey of correcting my eyes w/out eye glasses or contacts. my common sense just told me to try it even if modern science speaks against it. it’s a bit hard to get used to (my visions at -3.25)… i’m walking around in a monet painted world. well, you have given me great hope to press forward. thank you and keep posting.
wow i respect you for having the willpower to go through this experiment, and this is the first believable one i have seen on the internet. I am nearsighted aswell and aboslutely hate wearing glasses. I try not to wear them, but my eyes start hurting til the point i cant have them open anymore. I stay on the computer quite a lot aswell(4-5 hours a day) so it might be because of that. But every time i try to stop wearing them i get a major headache the next day and my eyes start hurting. its stressful because i truly believe its possible to improve your vision.. altho i cant see it happening without saying no to tv,computer and reading which all are a big part of my life. hei did your eyes not start hurting without glasses?
Any time I made a major jump on or off lenses, I did notice eyestrain. My first pair of glasses was at -1.75 or so and it was very hard to adjust to. At first, I only wore them sporadically because it felt so weird. I didn’t understand why they told me I would want to wear them all the time — I could read and compute fine without them, so why wear them? But they had an effect almost like a crutch, and went from being uncomfortable for anything close up to being on my head all the time.
Taking the glasses off for extended periods caused some discomfort too. I started leaving them off before I did this experiment, and I don’t remember exactly how bad it was. I did adjust to it, and now it feels funny to wear glasses, even though the world looks a lot sharper through them.
You can start off wearing glasses at half the power of your present prescription. Maybe you have an old pair laying around. Another possibility is to order a pair of half power glasses without going through your optometrist. I’ll write a post on that in a few days.
Interesting blog. I just got yet another new contact lens prescription and am now at about -6.00 diopters in each eye… depressing. First got contacts 12 years ago at age 13 when my vision was about -1.50 diopters. From what I’ve read, genetics only predisposes you to nearsightedness, but environment is necessary to produce it. I’ve never been that big of a bookworm and believe it or not used a 15″ computer monitor up until a couple years ago, so I can’t beat myself up too much over what may have been simply inevitable, but I just wish I had tried to stop the progression sooner, when the coating of my eyes was still flexible (for a detailed theory on how the elongation occurs, read this page: http://www.myopia.org/ebook/15chapter10.htm ). Had I known then what I know now, I would have been using reading glasses and perhaps could have prevented the slide past -3.00 diopters. I’m looking at getting this book: http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Perfect-Vision-Prevent-Nearsightedness/dp/1556436777/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top One reviewer said he went from about -8 to -4 by doing the exercises, but I’d be happy just to get back under 3 where I don’t feel completely blind without my contacts. However, it seems to me that the only way that one could reverse myopia naturally is by putting pressure on the tops and bottoms of the eyeballs, and as far as I know, there is no muscle that exerts such a force on the eye, only the ciliary muscle that contracts around the lens. Prevention is key. Then again, every 3 diopters equates to just 1 mm of elongation which sounds really tiny.
I noticed I wasn’t able to comment on the day 364 article, so I came here to post.
Has your vision gotten any better?
I’m thinking of trying this.
Are you even still doing this experiment?
I didn’t see any details of your vision after the full year, you just talked about that site and the “training” glasses.
So yeah, can you answer my two questions?
I’ll be back.
~Anon
Anon,
I am still doing the experiment. I should have my annual eye exam within the next month. I haven’t been keeping my blog on a regular basis, because I’ve been too busy developing software lately. But I will write about my results, whatever they are.
Tod
Any word on the results from your annual eye exam?
I’m curious as to how this is progressing. Thanks for sharing your experiment with us and keeping us informed — it’s definitely interesting stuff.
I have the appointment reminder card but I haven’t scheduled it yet… I’ve been so busy! I’ll do it tomorrow.
Hi Tod! very good experiment you did. I’m so interested and looking forward to the results. I just bought my pair of glasses yesterday and I wore it this morning and when I removed it early this noon I felt like everything got even worst. Aside from the high cost of glasses replacements whenever my eyes gets worse I don’t like anything placed on my face. Although it looks formal to wear my glasses and looks nerdy I don’t want to risk my eyesight. Please tell us your exercise you’re doing. Goodluck Tod, I hope you can achieve your goal.
I know it’s probably cheating, but whenever I go to the opticians, I always say my glasses are too sharp. Being that I don’t have to pay for glasses, or i get contact lens, they are easily replaceable. I used to be -6.5, but after faking it through several exams, and demanding that i get headaches and that my glasses are too sharp, and handling the slight blur after weaker glasses, my sight is now -3.75 . i’ve done this for a couple of years.
i heard that a friend of mine improved her vision since she wear glasses…is that possible?
Tod, I know this is very difficult. But, however bad it may be, I suggest getting your own Snellen eye-chart, and checking your visual acuity yourself. I have seen TERRIBLE prescriptions. (You may be OK, but you never know.) So why not give it a try, and see what line you can read 1/2 the letters in bright light? Just a suggestion.