How the glasses you’re wearing could be making your vision WORSE, eye doctors warn

If you can feel your vision rapidly getting worse, it could be to do with the glasses you’re wearing, according to experts. 

There are a few possible reasons for this, say eye doctors from the UK and Australia. 

Firstly, when you switch between glasses on and glasses off, it can appear as though your pre-corrected vision has declined. 

However, this is simply because you’ve gotten used to good vision – and it will suddenly feel more noticeable when you struggle to see.

‘Once we are used to seeing clearly, our tolerance for blurry vision will be lower and we will reach for the glasses to see well again,’ wrote James Armitage, Associate Professor in Vision Science and Nick Hockley, eye health expert – both from Deakin University in Australia.

The second reason is that it is quite likely you are wearing the wrong prescription, Armitage wrote for the Conversation. 

This includes wearing prescriptions that are too weak or too strong – which could be the case for 72 million Americans, according to some studies.

This can cause you to develop worse vision over time.  One controversial study from 2004 found that as many as 19 percent of children may be unnecessarily prescribed glasses.

History has demonstrated this conundrum, Doctors used to prescribe children with poor distance vision, also known as nearsightedness, weaker prescriptions than they really needed. 

The theory was that that  doing so would stop their eyes from becoming reliant on glasses, and would help them stave off further vision problems in the future. 

But a series of ground breaking studies in the early 2000s proved these recommendations were misguided, as it was revealed that students wearing weaker prescriptions than they needed developed worse vision than those with correct ones. 

But when people wear the right prescription, their vision doesn’t get worse, studies show. And the benefits of optimum vision are untold.

A recent study  found that giving laborers in Bangladesh reading glasses was associated with a 33 percent increase in their income.

This is consistent with previous findings, like a 2018 study that found giving glasses to tea pickers in India yielded a productivity increase of 31 percent. 

‘It is a myth that wearing glasses can weaken your eyes, and it is potentially harmful to claim that people who have been prescribed glasses or contact lenses do not need them,’ Roshni Kanabar, clinical adviser at the Association of Optometrists previously told the Daily Mail. 

Experts say that regular eye exams are crucial for eye health

Over time, everyone’s vision gets worse with age, Armitage and Hockley wrote. But this isn’t worse for people with glasses, they wrote. 

Instead, the flexible lenses in our eyes which control vision stiffen with age, resulting in difficulty seeing up close, known as presbyopia. 

There is no treatment for this condition, except for correcting vision with glasses.

The researchers recommend annual eye exams to stay on top of the condition and keep your eyes in the best shape possible.