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Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)

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Re: Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)

#12
post #3

TLDR; no. Betteridge’s law at work

I mean... obviously. Beyond the age of 20-25 people go decades without having to change their glasses due to changed dioptres. If wearing glasses would weaken eyesight, then you'd expect everyone to have to run off every few years get new glasses with stronger lenses.

Re: Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)

#13

insufficient light intensity does that

Myopia, at least for children, could be the result of lack of exposure to sufficient light during the growing phase (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjdkbcOx05A).In the research, chicks with exposure to 10000+ lux had prevented myopia, while the other chicks which didn't get exposed to enough light developed myopia. The overall recommendation from the study was for children to get at least 3 hours of outdoor activity, even during school. The research showed no correlation of myopia and close work (reading, computer screen) or physical activity (exercise, play). Rather, myopia rate was lower among children who had spent more time outdoor, and also had more exposure to brightness of light.

I can testify that it seems true, at least for me, because I'm the only one in the family that has severe myopia, and the only difference between me and my family member is that I didn't go outside that much and stayed mostly indoor. Later in life, I had LASIK, but wearing glasses was awful.

Re: Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)

#14
Everyone in my family said to me as a teen why aren't you wearing your glasses? You know your eyesight will get worse.

Ten years later as a 27 year old I went to the opticians and they had got worse by .25 which my optician told me is so nelgigible that people drop by that in six months.

I know this is hardly a scientific study but I do get suspicious sometimes the advice to wear glasses is coming from the opticians industry rather than hard facts, a bit like how dentists work

Re: Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)

#16
post #7

> if they don’t have the right glasses they can develop so-called “lazy-eye” or amblyopia because they’ve never had a sharp image on their retina I am not a doctor but this sounds strange to me. (I had amblyopia so I have read a little bit about it.) One eye's vision needs to be significantly different from another, to the extent brain "decides" it cannot merge images and goes mono-ocular. This trivially happens with…

Scarred retina on one of my eyes here, due to blunt trauma as a child. If I close my good eye, everything appears as if through a heavy noise filter. Can read letters if super enlarged fonts though, with a bit of work.

My vision appears mainly monoscopic, with the damaged eye providing perfectly integrated peripheral vision.

It is never "funny" or weird - except if an eye feels tired it would have to almost always be the good one, and I have no problem driving or mountain bike riding. I'm slightly short sighted, wear glasses when out and about (contacts offer very little protection by comparison and are a pain to put on) - always buying premium polycarbonate lenses - but take them off when sitting at a screen (work) or just reading or engaging with anything in close proximity.

I was greatly surprised to find myself being able to experience 3d when watching Avatar at IMAX Melbourne - I'm thinking the largely exaggerated scale helped - the movie was not blurry, but I could strongly sense the depth; I'm very impressed by the brain's ability to make sense of things.

As for the prescription of my bad eye, I just set it to the same as my good - it really doesn't matter, so might as well have them be uniform.

Re: Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)

#18

insufficient light intensity does that

Myopia, at least for children, could be the result of lack of exposure to sufficient light during the growing phase ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjdkbcOx05A ).In the research, chicks with exposure to 10000+ lux had prevented myopia, while the other chicks which didn't get exposed to enough light developed myopia. The overall recommendation from the study was for children to get at least 3 hours of outdoor activi…

In contrast to your anecdote, my brother went outside far more often than I did growing up, and his nearsightedness is both much worse and getting worse more quickly than mine (mine has changed between .25 and .5 over the last 10 years, his has changed by something like 2 in the last 5).

Re: Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)

#19
post #11

insufficient light intensity does that

Interesting. Do you have links to any studies I could read on the matter?

https://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120

from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9227541

Re: Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)

#20

Everyone in my family said to me as a teen why aren't you wearing your glasses? You know your eyesight will get worse. Ten years later as a 27 year old I went to the opticians and they had got worse by .25 which my optician told me is so nelgigible that people drop by that in six months. I know this is hardly a scientific study but I do get suspicious sometimes the advice to wear glasses is coming from the opticians…

I'm pretty sure eyesight, if already bad, degrades the quickest in your younger years and flattens when you get older. That's how it happened when I was growing up, and the doctors assured me that I wasn't going to go blind as my experience was "normal."

I haven't had a significant change in eyesight for a while now. What's fascinating is how each doctor has a different interpretation of what a proper prescription is. Some like to give too strong, some too weak.

I switched doctors a while ago, due to a move. The new doctor told me my prescription and I was a little surprised by the difference. I asked her why such a change and she showed me what the world would look like if I was using the prior prescription and it was like seeing a massive blur.

She said she had no idea how I was able to see at all. I was using that prescription for one year, and I didn't have any problems seeing anything before.

(I wear contacts and I sort of need to know my prescription so I know what box goes to what eye as my left and right are different. When I wore glasses, I had no clue what it was)

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