A couple of years ago, I suffered a scratch to the cornea of one eye. Immediately afterwards I went to my optometrist and we didn’t detect any change to my prescription at that time. I’m preparing to get new glasses so I went back in, and this time the prescription in eye improved from -4.25 SPH to -3.50, which the optometrist has attributed to the injury. Upon reflection, I’m a bit concerned that something went wrong during the appointment – I was wearing a mask, for instance, and that had me holding my head at weird angles at times trying to avoid fogging up the lenses. The root of what has me worried is that feels like a big change in the prescription – the optometrist called it out as a big change – but I’ve been wearing my old glasses for years without noticing a major issue. I’m wondering how likely it is that I wouldn’t have noticed that my prescription was that off.
IANAOptometrist but “I never noticed any problems” is a big reason to get your eyes examined on a regular basis. Last year I had a checkup (first in three years or so) and the ophthalmologist says “you have cataracts”! Of course I hadn’t really noticed them, but it made sense after the diagnosis - now I realized that some things were really fuzzy! I just had the corrective surgery a few weeks ago - what a difference!
I can’t tell if your diagnosis is a big change, but can you get a second opinion or a retest?