I have ok (not perfect) eyesight, and finally got glasses a few months ago. I don’t wear them very often (usually only when I’m driving after dark), but I think my eyesight is getting worse. I’ve heard that your eyes can become dependent on the glasses. Is this true? Should I wear my glasses as little as possible?
I don’t think your eyesight is getting worse – you’re just getting used to seeing things clearly with your glasses, and it’s more noticeable that you’re near/farsighted when you’re not wearing them.
I thought the same thing, when I got my glasses – “I couldn’t have been able to read that blackboard without these… it’s all blurry! My eyes must be getting worse!” – until my next Dr. visit showed no changes in my vision. Scary thing is, I still pass the driver’s vision test without glasses.
You’re just spoiling your eyes. 
lovelee
No, that’s just the natural aging of your eyes. Everyone’s eyesight changes as they get older, regardless of whether or not they wear glasses. In fact, since most people tend to become farsighted with age, you could find your vision improving, not weakening. The farsightedness kind of “evens out” the nearsightedness.
I think the same thing happened to me, but it wasn’t really a bad thing. I suffered from nasty headaches, mostly from reading, when I was in high school. I was told by an optometrist that I wasn’t inherently near-sighted or far-sighted, but that my vision was slow to adjust. I got glasses, and that fixed my vision as being near-sighted. I think my distance vision really did get worse, that was just a result of getting my vision fixed in one way.
I think the “subjective” argument has a lot going for it. When I first get up in the morning, until I put my glasses on, I can see “okay”.
However, after I’ve put on my glasses for the day, if I take them off I feel like I can’t see worth diddly.
I don’t think I’m really seeing any better in the morning, because I still can’t read the clock on the other side of the bed, but my mind doesn’t go “Hey! I could read that a few minutes ago and now it’s all blurry!”.
There may be a slight component of truth to it (maybe my lens muscles get used to not trying to compensate for my oblong eyes), but I don’t think this is more than 10% of the effect.
Forgot to mention this: it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go back to your doctor anyway. If your eyes really are getting worse rapidly, you want to have it checked out as soon as possible.
Could it be you are taking your glasses off at night when it’s harder to see anyway? Just like a camera lens, your own iris is pushed open a couple stops as it were and you are losing the depth of field you had when you were glasses during the day?
At least that seems to be the case with me.
I am severely near-sighted. To give you an idea of how severely, take a 35mm camera, turn the focus to the closest setting (2-4 feet), now look through the lens, that’s what I see without glasses. My eyes started to go bad when I was a kid, but I didn’t how bad until the 4th grade (I’m 35 now). When I was in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades, the teachers would place the shorter kids (me) at the front of a row of desks, so I was able to see the board fairly well. However, my 4th grade teacher opted for the alphabetical method. This placed me at the back of a row and I had to squint to see. I ended up getting stronger glasses every year until I was about 25. My eyes appear to have “levelled off”. I tried contacts for a while, but I got lazy with them and went back to glasses and even though my current glasses are substantially stronger than my first pair, they are about 1/3 the thickness thanks to modern lens technology.
Strangely enough, the first person to call me “four-eyes” also wore glasses!
Yea, I’m thinking that my deteriorating eyesight is just my brain “forgetting” what my sight is like w/o the glasses. I really only wear them a few times a week (when I watch movies and drive at night.) They also make me look significantly older, which helps at job interviews (I’m 25, but got carded at an R rated movie the other night…) I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to start to really need the glasses all the time if I wore them too often.
I derive great pleasure in telling my 40 year old co-worker about all the lovely things he has to look forward to in the next 10 years (I’m 51). Bugs the hell out of him! LOL! Like, how his eyes are going to “freeze up” when he hits 45, and wherever the natural focus is (luckily for me, it’s about 2 ft., just right for computer work), that’s what he’ll be stuck with the rest of his life. This year was the first time I wasn’t able to pass the driver’s eye test without my glasses (I only use them when driving at night, as bright daylight constricts the pupils, sharpening the focus).
Gary
“Basses do it lower”
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