Eyeglasses and retail optometry are scams

[Tippit]

Why would anyone start wearing glasses if they didn’t need them?

I literally just explained why optometrists sell people glasses they don’t need in the paragraph you quoted. I can’t make it any simpler.


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[Darat]

I literally just explained why optometrists sell people glasses they don’t need in the paragraph you quoted. I can’t make it any simpler.


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I’ve had my eyes tested every two years for about 35 years, its only a few years back that I needed glasses. Why was I never prescribed them before?

 

[Tippit]

I’ve had my eyes tested every two years for about 35 years, its only a few years back that I needed glasses. Why was I never prescribed them before?

If you read the thread, you might get an idea as to why. Since it sounds like you may have been prescribed reading glasses for age-related presbyopia, its unrelated to the topic of progressive myopia.


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[Matthew Ellard]

Don't be silly. Sean Connery is a time traveller whom Umberto Eco sent back to the 13th Century, in Name of the Rose, to start the Evil Optometrist Conspiracy back then.

14th, sorry.

Would you believe Sean Connery had to arrive a century earlier to set up the legend of his own fame, before he actually arrived?..........got to go now.....um... er... the cat needs worming!.....

 

[Modified]

Quote feature not working, Darat wrote:

I hit 50 before needing glasses at all. Which apparently isn’t too bad considering I have read for hours every day of my life and have also been stuck in front of a screen since I started working. I’m shortsighted and it isn’t that bad that I need glasses for driving but that is the only time I do wear them. Strangely my last prescription found one eye to no longer need correcting, whilst the other had got worse. I asked the optician why it had got “better” and she had no idea.

Age 50-60 is exactly when you would expect nearsightedness to improve. Both my eyes improved by .5 diopters just before age 50, and astigmatism also reversed. This generally happens at the time you lose what is left of your focusing ability. For those with severe myopia (which I have), it generally happens a few years earlier than average.

 

[Modified]

Age 50-60 is exactly when you would expect nearsightedness to improve. Both my eyes improved by .5 diopters just before age 50, and astigmatism also reversed. This generally happens at the time you lose what is left of your focusing ability. For those with severe myopia (which I have), it generally happens a few years earlier than average.

Edit feature not working for this post, so I'll quote myself to add:

Did the eye that got worse also lose more focusing range? Most likely your two eyes have aged at slightly different rates, and the bad one will see some improvement soon.

 

[CORed]

I developed myopia in my 20s when I began doing close computer work for many hours a day. However, it never seem to get much worse. So much for progressive (in my case). Since the virus I have barely used vision correction as I need it only to drive. I can't say the nearsightedness has gotten any better, but then I spend a fair amount of time staring at screens.

Recently but pre-virus my workplace solution was to wear one contact lens correcting myopia in one eye while leaving the other one out so I can still read up close. This isn't exactly optimal, but works fine during daylight hours. When driving at night I stick to full myopia correction - glasses, or contacts in both eyes. But when wearing two contacts for distance vision, I need readers to see up close. The one-contact solution is OK during daytime, not so much at night.

Anyway the glasses industry hasn't gotten much out of me. I get by as long as I can with one prescription, until I'm either out of semi-disposable contacts OR the dog chews up my myopia prescription glasses. I've recently met an eye surgeon forced out of her practice by progressive glaucoma, and she's urging me to go in at least for glaucoma screenings.

I have a significantly myopic right eye and a nearly normal (just a bit of astigmatism) left eye. I started using glasses in childhood (getting my first pair of glasses was a memorable event, as prior to that, I had no idea that it was possible to see so clearly.). However, as I have gotten older, and lost the ability to focus close, the myopic right eye has become an asset. I have a pair of bifocals (I haven't updated the prescription in the last ten years or more) that I use primarily for two activities -- fishing and driving. For driving, having fully corrected distance vision in both eyes is desirable. As for fishing, I mostly fly fish for trout, which means I need to tie flies tied on very small hooks onto very small monofilament line -- much like threading a needle plus tying knots in the very fine line. This requires close-focused binocular vision. Using one eye, I find I just can't get things lined up properly. For everything else, including reading, using a computer, using a smart phone, eating, and all, I do very well without my glasses, using the left eye for distance vision, and the right for closer work.

ETA: my personal experience (i.e, anectodal sample of one) doesn't support the notion that using corrective lenses caused any progressive impairment of vision. IIRC, my prescription changed once or twice during childhood, but has been pretty stable for all of my adult life. As age robbed me of my former ability to focus closer, I found that for many things, I did better without corrective lenses than with them.

 

[Darat]

If you read the thread, you might get an idea as to why. Since it sounds like you may have been prescribed reading glasses for age-related presbyopia, its unrelated to the topic of progressive myopia.


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Wrong way around, as I said I am shortsighted in one eye.

 

[Darat]

Edit feature not working for this post, so I'll quote myself to add:

Did the eye that got worse also lose more focusing range? Most likely your two eyes have aged at slightly different rates, and the bad one will see some improvement soon.

I don't need glasses for anything close up, but I do know my near focus is not as good as it was, very small text, say 4 point has me sometimes squinting and having to get more light, most noticeably with certain colour combinations, yellow on blue background seems the worse.

 

[Pixel42]

I started using glasses in childhood (getting my first pair of glasses was a memorable event, as prior to that, I had no idea that it was possible to see so clearly.).

Likewise. I was about 12 when, out walking with my older sister, I expressed surprised that she could see something on a distant hill clearly because, for me, the further away things were the more blurred they were. I had no idea this was not true for everyone. My sister told my parents, who took me to the optician, who prescribed glasses, which were a revelation.

My distance vision has gradually improved throughout my 60s, though I still need some correction when driving and watching TV. I don't need glasses at all to use my laptop, but I do now need reading glasses. My optician says both eyes are pre-cataract, but I shouldn't need cataract surgery for a good few years.

 

[Steve]

Likewise. I was about 12 when, out walking with my older sister, I expressed surprised that she could see something on a distant hill clearly because, for me, the further away things were the more blurred they were. I had no idea this was not true for everyone. My sister told my parents, who took me to the optician, who prescribed glasses, which were a revelation.

My distance vision has gradually improved throughout my 60s, though I still need some correction when driving and watching TV. I don't need glasses at all to use my laptop, but I do now need reading glasses. My optician says both eyes are pre-cataract, but I shouldn't need cataract surgery for a good few years.

Seems your optician is scamming you and you should not believe what you are told. I understand there are some YouTube videos that will enable you to resolve any vision issues on your own.

 

[CORed]

Likewise. I was about 12 when, out walking with my older sister, I expressed surprised that she could see something on a distant hill clearly because, for me, the further away things were the more blurred they were. I had no idea this was not true for everyone. My sister told my parents, who took me to the optician, who prescribed glasses, which were a revelation.

My distance vision has gradually improved throughout my 60s, though I still need some correction when driving and watching TV. I don't need glasses at all to use my laptop, but I do now need reading glasses. My optician says both eyes are pre-cataract, but I shouldn't need cataract surgery for a good few years.

I was a little younger when I first got glasses (between 8 and 10 is about the best I can pin down the age). IIRC, the school did some read the chart type vision screening and my parents were advised to have me see an eye doctor based on the results of that. No doubt the schools get kickbacks from those dastardly optometrists.

 

[Puppycow]

I actually stopped using my glasses this year after wearing them for decades after it got to the point where I had to take them off to see anything up close like my phone. All they did was help me see far away things, but whereas in the past they didn't really affect me for near stuff, now I found myself constantly needing to remove them. I realized the small improvement in distance vision just wasn't worth it so I stopped wearing them altogether.

 

[Trebuchet]

I actually stopped using my glasses this year after wearing them for decades after it got to the point where I had to take them off to see anything up close like my phone. All they did was help me see far away things, but whereas in the past they didn't really affect me for near stuff, now I found myself constantly needing to remove them. I realized the small improvement in distance vision just wasn't worth it so I stopped wearing them altogether.

Having my previously terrible vision greatly improved by presbyopia was awesome. But then I got cataracts....

Post surgery, I don't NEED glasses for anything, but I have a pair of distance-only prescription glasses that make driving a bit more comfortable; and low-diopter drugstore readers that make the close stuff a bit better.

 

[Tippit]

An update on my own vision progress: My right eye is still slightly astigmatic, and my vision has actually gotten slightly worse as I think it's actually getting better, for a couple of reasons. Previously I had slight double vision which manifested as "ghosting". Initially the "ghost image" was on the right, but it's shifted over the months to the left now, and the double vision is starting to abate and converge into one image, causing a bit of bluriness as a result. In addition, I think my eye dominance is changing as my right eye has improved. Previously the left eye was dominant, but now as the right one comes "online" and isn't being suppressed as much, when I do the eye dominance test it is shifting to the right. It will probably take a while for my visual cortex to adapt to this, maybe a month or two.

 

[Chanakya]

Glasses are a scam, for sure. Drink straight from the bottle instead. Your vision will improve, and you'll see two of everything, and gain a deeper perspective on life.

 

[Naval Diplomat]

Glasses are a scam, for sure. Drink straight from the bottle instead. Your vision will improve, and you'll see two of everything, and gain a deeper perspective on life.

Exactly. They don't call em beer goggles for nothing!

 

[Myriad]

Apparently, "eyeglasses are a scam, so we should buy twice as many of them so we can have fully corrective lenses for hazardous situations like driving and also undercorrected lenses for therapeutic adaptation" didn't turn out to be a persuasive line of argument.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Apparently, "eyeglasses are a scam, so we should buy twice as many of them so we can have fully corrective lenses for hazardous situations like driving and also undercorrected lenses for therapeutic adaptation" didn't turn out to be a persuasive line of argument.

Just don't buy them from the Evil International Secret Society of Optometrists but from the rack in the drugstore.

(I was amused to see that the drugstore glasses now come in versions with different strengths for each eye. -- But then I am easily amused.)

 

[Tippit]

For anyone who is open minded, and wants to eliminate their dependency on artificial lenses, I encourage you to read this interview of a man who went from -2 diopters to 20/15 natural eyesight:



In other news, I am improving on a daily basis again, my right eye astigmatism is abating.