I'm 24 and I just found out I need glasses

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…though I suspected I have for a few years, now. (well, “need” miught be too strong a word…“could benefit from” might be more fitting.) Having to squit and lean forward a lot whilst sitting in the back of the classroom trying to take notes, while those sitting next to me seemed to not need to, kind of clued me in that my vision went a bit downhill since my last vision test in high school. Upon graduation and going off to see the world, it didn’t matter, what with a lot less of my time dedicated to sitting in the back of a room trying to read what some old guy was writing on a projector. But, being back in school, I am once again reminded that I can’t see as well as those next to me, so I scheduled an eye exam and just got done with it today.

The result? I have mild astigmatism, which is a bit worse in my left eye than my right. When he started the test, I could barely read the last line on his little chart with my right, and barely read the next to the last one with my left. With the fancy vision-corrector thingy in front of my face, I was able to go three more lines down (it was projected onto the wall, so what was the last line when we started ended up being the third to last after he scrolled in some tinier lines.)

I don’t know anything about what an eye-presription looks like, but my OD is -.25 for sphere, -0.50 for cylinder, and 180 for axis. My OS is +0.25 sphere, -125 cyclinder, and 7 axis (anyone feel like telling me what these numbers actually mean?)

I still haven’t decided if I’m actually going to go ahead and get glasses. They cost money, I’d probably forget them places, and as said, the only time it’s ever a problem is a few times in class when I can’t read a few random words in the notes the prof. puts on screen. Though, on the other hand, I might look damn sexy in a spiffy set of frames, and that’s always a plus. :smiley:

2

A word of advice. For the first week or so after you get your new glasses, be very, very careful stepping off curbs, and especially when going downstairs. That seems to be the trickiest thing about new specs and, later, bifocals.

3

I can tell you, if it gives you any comfort, that your prescription is super low. I’ll leave it to that resident optometrist to explain the measurements, but generally they go in a negative direction according to some sort of logarithmic scale. I’m at -6.5 and -7.5, and even though that’s not very bad, they still don’t tend to stock contact lenses in-house at that level. My mom is -12 or -13 and basically sees a blob even if you’re sitting just across the table from her.

Anyhoo, with a really low prescription you won’t have much distortion of your eyes at all when someone looks at them in your glasses (the sides of my face pull in and my eyes get really small so I pray that nothing happens to my contacts). There are frames now that basically have no frames around the lenses and look almost like they’re not there.

4

One of us. . . One of us. . . One of us. . .

Actually it’s not bad. And with the right frames you can look quite spiffy.

5

I second that…didn’t get glasses till I was 42…started w/ biFocals, dang they were hard to get used too…for me (as mentioned) stairs, curbs and my instrument panel on my car…the bifocal thing was (is still)way weird. I’m gonna try contacts as soon as I get a round to it.

tsfr

6

Think of glasses like “face jewelery.”

7

The good news (aside from the fact that you’ll be able to see better ;)) is the fact that right now, glasses are about as “in” as they’re ever going to be. See also Fey, Tina.

8

Yeah! What Lissa said!

I’m an optician and I own 9 pairs of glasses (just because I get a rockin’good discount doesn’t mean I don’t spend lots of money on glasses). I love glasses, and I think I look weird without them now.

The human eye has something like 44 diopters of refractive capacity (or something, it’s been a long time since I learned all that stuff). The sph and cyl numbers indicate how many diopters of correction you need. Thing of your vision as a staircase of approximately 200 steps. Every 1/4 diopter is one step.

Your eyes really aren’t that bad at all. Minus prescriptions indicate nearsightedness (referred to as myopia). The “sphere” power is your “distance” prescription, the “cylinder” power refers to the degree of astigmatism, and the axis is nothing more than the direction in which the cylinder is set (there are 180 degrees, and the cyl is set to put light rays on your retina, and “straighten them out” so to speak). “Plus” prescriptions indicate farsightedness (hyperopia), which it seems you have a teeeeeensy bit of in your left eye.

You do have a fair astigmatism in your left eye (that’s what that -1.25 cyl is all about), so when you get your new glasses, things might seem a bit wonky at first. You will like the way you see with glasses though. Just make sure you actually like the way you look in the frames you choose. And, make sure they fit (don’t worry if they seem a bit loose behind the ear, lots of adjustment gets done there). If you choose plastic frames, make sure the bridge lays neatly on your nose, or no adjustment in the world will make them comfy. Give yourself a few days to get used to the power (again, the cyl in the left mostly), because going from no correction to full correction might alter your depth perception until you adjust to the idea. Basically, your brain is compensating for your astigmatism right now, and once you put lenses in front of your eyes, you’ll sorta have to “reprogram” yourself. I have a little more astigmatism than you do, and I’d be lost without my glasses. You’ll probably find yourself liking the glasses for stuff like driving, and functioning quite well without them (as you’ve been doing) for lots of other stuff. They’re also nice when you go to a movie or something.

If you decide you want contacts, you will need a toric lens for the left eye, and possibly a very low power for the right. They don’t make torics with a low enough cyl for your right eye, so a -.50 or so would probably work perfectly.

I hit the boards at least once a day if you have any questions.

9

I’m 20 and I just got my first pair of glasses. Nearsighted? Check. Slight astigmatism? Got it. LEft eye worse? Yeah, and I could hardly read any of the lines at first either. Are you me? I went and got them (since I’m still on mom’s insurance and all). The SO unit (bespectacled he be) thinks I look dead sexy in em and I’ve gotten many a compliment from less biased sources. I was bummed about it for a while, just because it felt a bit late to be getting these things, but it hasnt been bad so far. Then again, its hard even for me to lose/break something after 2 days…

10

What gigi said. I’m now -7.5 in both eyes. Your eyesight is not bad at all.

gigi, you don’t see a blob if someone is sitting across the table from you? I feel practically blind without lenses. We both see quite a bit “better” than your mom, but -7.5 is pretty bad all on it’s own, in my opinion.

bouv, for the record (most useless information), I started wearing glasses when I was in the 3rd grade, and by the time I reached the 9th, my eyes were at -4.25 and -4.5 so you are going to be just fine, I’m sure.

11

IANAOptometrist, but I did TA a class for physics non-majors in which those numbers were explained, sort of.

The first set of numbers has to do with how nearsighted or farsighted you are. It’s measured in diopters, which is related to the focal length of the lenses as 1/focal length = prescription in diopters. If you’re nearsighted, this number will be negative, if you’re farsighted, it will be positive.

If you’re nearsighted, -1/prescription in diopters is about the distance to which you can see clearly without your glasses. I have a prescription of about -3, so I can see something clearly without my glasses if it’s within about a foot of my eyes. Your -0.25 means you can see clearly for about four meters without your glasses, which isn’t bad at all. You can probably see your computer screen from your normal position sitting in front of it without your glasses, unlike me.

O.D means right eye (Ocular Dexter) and O.S. means left eye (Ocular Sinister). Everybody has some difference between their prescription in each eye, and it’s quite significant in some cases.

The second number has to do with astigmatism. A cylindrical lens is used to correct astigmatism, as opposed to the convex or concave lens that is used to correct nearsightedness or farsightedness. The cylindrical lens has a diameter, measured in diopters (I’m pretty sure your 125 should be 1.25). It also has an axis, measured in degrees (which is the third number), but I don’t know where the zero point is for that.

Astigmatism will mean that things appear blurry no matter how close or far away they are, unlike nearsightedness or farsightedness. Some spots in your field of vision might seem blurrier than others- that’s how things look to me through my left eye, which has a significant astigmatism.

If you have astigmatism and nearsightedness, there’s a neat demonstration of the distortion that astigmatism causes. Look at a fairly bright point source of light (like a distant streetlight) at night without your glasses, through each eye. If you’re just nearsighted, you’ll see the light fuzzed out into a circle (the more nearsighted you are, the larger the circle). If you have astigmatism as well, you’ll see it fuzzed out into more of an ellipse.

When you get your glasses and they tweak them to fit you, you will find out that one of your ears is higher than the other. That’s normal.

12

Had glasses since I was five years old, needed them since waaay before then, but Mum couldn’t figure it out. Don’t know my numbers but I do have an astigmatism in the right eye, left eye is better, and here’s a story about reading the letter chart:

I applied for the army (and later changed my mind because it was Dad’s choice not mine) and had a medical exam, including an eye check. The doctor sat me in the office, about two by four metres. I sat in a chair on the long wall, so the eye chart was above the sink two metres away. He told me to cover my left eye and use the bad eye to read the third line down. Haha, yeah right. Okay, top line?

Me: Ahhh…P…I think…
Doctor: concerned noise
Me: E?

It was an F. I honestly couldn’t see it at all. But do not fear, for Nerd Girl is here!

Clearly glasses are sexy.

13

Well, I just took the lens out of my worse eye and yeah, it’s pretty darn blurry! But I can still see the general shapes of things. Mom said she could see a tiny bit of red for my red-headed friend across the table, but really no sense that there was a person shape to her at all.

Hey, Nerd Girl! (Although it may be the push-up bra that’s attracting the attention) My mom memorized the eye chart when she was really small and couldn’t even see where it was across the room. I guess they were fooled at least temporarily. Of course she lost her eyesight through emotional trauma* so they sent her to a psych doc first and then finally got her glasses!

*she couldn’t see but her eyes had no deformation to suggest it. Now they’ve actually become out of shape and physically don’t work. She’s not sure if they changed or if she was misdiagnosed as a kid.

14

One of our new co-op students (he’s probably about 19) is in major denial over his nearsightedness. I think he was convinced that an entire conference room full of people were pulling his leg about being able to read the text projected on a screen at the front of the room.

15

I was in major denial about needing glasses all through secondary school. There was a compulsory medical at age 13(ish), and the examining room was quite small, so for the eye test the student had to stand in the open doorway. I memorised a lot of the chart based on the people who went in before me, and escaped a note home recommending a trip to the optician. A silly thing to do. By the end of school I could only read things on the board by pulling back the corner of my eye!

At University, with the much larger lecture halls, I bit the bullet and got some. Luckily, The Smiths were around at the time, and glasses were fashionable enough. I’ve tried contacts, but I just couldn’t get used to them.

16

Nice goin’, four-eyes.

17

I should mention that, in case you’re worried, this isn’t a sign of getting older. You have astigmatism, which is more common in older people than in younger people, but it’s not rare even in children- a study showed that 28.4% of American children have significant astigmatism, which means it’s more common than either nearsightedness or farsightedness in children. The condition that people get glasses or bifocals for when they get older is presbyopia, which is completely different.

18

I would consider Lasix. I do not know that you are a candidate,but when you consider new glasses every 2 yeats from the age of 24 ,you would save a ton during your lifetime.

19

So how do contacts work with astigmatism? From what I understand, the cylinder part needs to be at an angle (the axis numbers, yes?), so how would I know the right way to insert the contact lens? :confused:

20

I am not an optician, but I am an astigmatic who wears contact lenses. Toric lenses are shaped in such a way that they will move into the right place on your eye after you put them in. They’re weighted to do that, if I remember rightly. They’re not any more difficult to put in than other contact lenses.