I started having trouble seeing at night or reading signs from a distance, so I went to the doctor and he gave me a mild prescription for glasses. My eyes were still good enough that I could see ok without glasses and could legally drive. I asked the eye doctor if wearing glasses could make my eyes worse and he said no, I started wearing them occasionally and then all the time, after a couple months my eyes have got much worse to the point I can’t walk across the room without them. I can see fine when I am wearing them but without them my vision is all blurry. Is there anything I can do about this? I don’t mind wearing glasses occasionally like to drive but not all the time. My friend who wore glasses all her life, doesn’t wear her glasses at home and can see fine and she has a stronger prescription than me.
Have you had your vision retested to confirm that your eyes have gotten worse? It may be the case that you have gotten used to the improved clarity you have when wearing them.
That was the case when I first got glasses; I didn’t realize how bad my vision was until I first put them on. I’m fine without them as long as I’m not driving, but it’s just that much better with them. My prescription hasn’t changed that much over the last 20 years.
A quick google search suggests that, no, wearing glasses doesn’t make your vision worse.
Cite: http://mayoclinichealthsystem.org/locations/la-crosse/medical-services/ophthalmology/myths-and-facts
Glasses do not wreck your vision.
Have you contacted your eye doctor? There may be something else going on with your vision.
D’oh! Ninja’d!
I have had a somewhat similar experience. My uncorrected vision is still good enough that I can function pretty well without glasses. I find that the longer I go without wearing glasses, the better I can see without them. Up to a point any way. I still need them when driving, especially at night. I swear I could see a mouse run into the street at 100 yards but can’t read road signs until I get right up to them.
Ahhh, the old I didn’t realize I couldn’t see phenomenon.
The most likely explanation is that before you got the glasses, you were just doing the best you could, without knowing there was something better (Glasses). Now that you know how you are supposed to see, what was “good enough” before is now “unacceptable”.
In a sense, you are correct, your glasses wrecked your vision. But, your vision is probably just the same as it was before. Now, you just are aware how much better you should be seeing when you aren’t wearing them.
Have you had your blood sugar tested? Diabetes can cause changes in your vision.
My mother’s vision improved quite a bit post 70. Her eye doctor was like, “yeah, that happens sometimes.” She went from glasses all the time to just when driving.
I have the same experience that when I wear my glasses most of the time, I see pretty well without them; however, if I go a long time without wearing them, my vision gets terrible. It’s from fatigue. My eyes don’t have to work much at all to focus with glasses. They have to work without them, but when they don’t do it much, no eyestrain. After a certain number of hours, eyestrain.
I do have progressive myopia, so that every few years I need a slightly stronger prescription-- I didn’t need glasses at all until I was 18. My brother and two maternal cousins have the same thing. None of us needed glasses in childhood, but we needed them as young adults, and out vision gets progressively worse. I wear bifocals now, and one cousin wears trifocals.
It’s possible the OP was just used to working hard to see, and actually can see better without glasses than he or she realizes, but has gotten used to not working to see, and when the glasses come off, they way things look without any straining or squinting look worse than the way things previously looked without glasses, when the OP was straining to see, without realizing just how hard he or she was straining.
It’s not that at all, if I take off my glasses my vision is so blurry I have to grab hold the wall to walk across my bedroom. Before I got glasses I didn’t have to strain to see, I could just see better.
OK. That sounds like what happens to me sometimes when I get migraines. I also know people who have had visual disturbances along with inner ear infections.
I would see your doctor. I think something is going on that has nothing to do with getting glasses. Either something is wrong with your eyes above and beyond your need for eyeglasses, or you have some other problem that has coincidentally popped up close to the time you got glasses.
I just saw an eye doctor again 2 weeks ago, there is nothing (else) wrong with my eyes.
Is this a lead-in for a plug for the Bates Method? The claim that eye exercises can “cure” vision problems is often coupled with the claim that eyeglasses make vision problems worse.
The fact is that vision problems – nearsightedness and farsightedness – cannot be caused or cured by glasses or eye exercises.
Vision can be affected by subtle differences. When I went from wearing contact lenses full time to wearing glasses full time it took me weeks to get used to my glasses when driving, even though the prescription was exactly the same. I got motion sickness every time I drove with my glasses on.
I have two pairs of glasses with the exact same prescription. If I switch from one pair to the other, it takes me several minutes to get acclimated again, There’s a bit of blurriness and a perception difference, which I think is due to the lenses being a slightly different size in width/height.
Don’t forget that correlation does not equal causation. A probable explanation is that your eyesight started deteriorating, you got a mild prescription but your eyes continued to deteriorate so that you now need a stronger prescription.
Your theory involves an assumption that the point at which you got glasses precisely coincided with the point at which your eyes ceased to deteriorate, such that all subsequent deterioration is due to wearing glasses. This would seem a remarkable co-incidence.
The single most common error in understanding medical issues is the assumption that if one hadn’t done something, things would have been different.
It takes time to get used to bifocals too, especially since I don’t need them to read standard print-- but I need them to read pill bottles, and in dim light I also need them to read Hebrew, for some reason, and if I am trying to read cursive handwriting, I need them; and they certainly don’t impair reading regular print. I do take them off for long sessions of pleasure reading, though.
I also take them off the sit across someone at a table. That’s the exact distance I can see just fine, so I feel better without them. I don’t wear them around the apartment much. I keep a pair of cheap reading glasses in the medicine cabinet, though.
And “the glasses did it” seems like a sound and logical conclusion to you? 
Glasses wrecked your complacency with your defective vision before you got them.
That doesn’t sound good, I would investigate the possible causes of that as a matter of priority.
I’m with the others, in that I very much doubt your wearing glasses has made your vision worse. Of course we’re all built slightly differently, but for that to happen would be as rare as hen’s teeth.
I started wearing glasses around the age of ten, then contacts from about 14-years old as I hated wearing glasses. After around 25 years of wearing contact lenses my eyes said “Nope, no more thanks” and would dry up an hour or less after putting them in. So I got laser surgery after much research, and was more than pleased with the results.
My point is I’ve read and experienced a lot about vision, and wearing glasses doesn’t wreck anyone’s. There are other options open to you too; contacts are pretty cheap and laser surgery is very safe.
And THIS is why we developed science. The human brain is very very good at leaping to conclusions and believing them with complete devotion without bothering to check to see if they’re actually correct.
That sounds like symptoms of astigmatism. Most likely before you got glasses you were in a constant state of subconscious “straining”. Now that your brain has figured out it doesn’t need to strain your eyes to see clearly with glasses, it no longer does it subconsciously. But even then you didn’t see better, you just thought that was normal.