R: -1.00
L: -1.75
Not too bad at all, but I can certainly tell a difference if I don’t have my contacts or glasses.
-7.5 and -8.0 here…
I have been wearing contacts for over 20 years, no trouble at all. I am currently on the Day & Night type which I can (and do) wear for a month continuously and throw them away. No cleaning, no solutions… and I can see the damn clock when I wake up in the night, for the first time in 20 years… wahay! 
Wow. I’m getting off easy. I’m very mildly myopic and pretty presbyotic. I wear bifocals. I can see pretty decently for distance without them, but it’s pretty hard for me to read or do fine close-up work.
I can’t remember the numbers, though. My vision is pretty stable, and it’s been more than a year since I had an exam or a new prescription.
I could never stand contacts (tried them when I only wore glasses for myopia). I’m happy with my glasses.
And, by the way, progressive lenses suck. On my most recent visit to the optometrist, he talked me into trying them. I couldn’t stand them. He said I had to give them more time. I did. Still couldn’t stand them. I’m back to bifocals and quite happy. I’m not so vain that I’m bothered by people seeing the line in the lens and knowing I’m over 40.
Let’s see here…
Contacts:
-5.00 (right)
-6.00 (left)
Glasses: (going from memory here, as my prescription is at home)
-6.75, -1.25 (right, astigmatism)
-7.25 (left)
Yes, I’m wearing a normal contact lens in an eye with astigmatism: we weren’t able to find a lens that worked reliably in that eye, so we went with a regular one. (Not perfect vision, but at least it’s predictable! When the lens is new, it’s almost perfect and when it’s getting time to replace it there is definate clear/blurry fields of vision with that eye.)
With the contacts, I get between 20/10 and 20/20 vision. (Depending on how fresh the lens is.) 
<< Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil. >>
Well, I might not beat the record, (OD -7.5, OS -8.5), but I do have the advantage of having already torn my retinas!
Not badly, I’m happy to say, and they repaired themselves pretty well.
Now, for anyone who is oogy about eyes, please stop reading now.
Really, I mean it. You’ve been warned.
OK. A myopic eye elongates, IANAMD so I’m not going to try to explain how or why, but it does. Eyes are filled with this jelly-type goo. Eventually, if the eye elongates enough, the jelly-goo can sort of scoosh off of the back of the eye. (Think jello in a sealed container turned upside down - scoosh!) This is usually not a big problem. But it is one of the reasons why they have to look at your retinas very carefully during an eye exam.
My left retina tore first, out at the very far edge where it has no impact whatsoever on my visual function. Then, it cunningly re-attatched itself and no-one knew about it until my next eye exam. We caught the right one sort of in progress during an exam several years later, but also at the far periphery of my retina and seemingly under control.
My eye doctor has a really cool camera that takes color pictures of my retinas, and stores them for follow-up visits.
Now, to be a good citizen - warning signs of retinal detachment, and good reason to see or at least call a doctor ASAP:
[ul]
[li]Light “flashes” and blurred central vision.[/li][li]The presence of a “veil,” or shadow, over part of the field of vision.[/li][li]Large “floaters” or spots that travel across the field of vision.[/li][/ul]
Of course, if you have any questions or concerns, talk to your own opthalmologist or optometrist.
My soft contact lenses are:
-7.0
-7.25
so I guess I’m not doing too badly in the context of this thread. I’ve been functionally blind without lenses/glasses since I was nine or ten, so the number getting worse every year doesn’t seem to matter much. I’ve actually been stable for close to two years, and have been thinking about thinking about Lasik. (Ie I’ve been playing with the idea, but not seriously.) On the one hand, it’d cost about as much as the twenty years of lenses and glasses as I’ll need to get me to my early/mid-forties, when I’ll presumably need reading glasses anyway, and it’d be extremely nice to see the clock at night, not need to stick my finger in my eye and wiggle my lenses around to get rid of some dust fleck, not have to constantly push my glasses up. But on the other hand, it’s my eyes, and I’m leery of screwing around with them - there are occasional horror stories from Lasik, plus you never know what side effects are going to crop up a few decades from now. I’m planning on keeping these eyes for a while, I’d like to make sure they stay working!
See, i always thought that my vision was bad, (R - 4.75, L - 5.0) but after reading this thread, i look (no pun intended) at my vision in a whole new light - it could be worse :D.
–scotcho
Am I the only one with strong astigmatism (1.00 R; 1.25 L) without severe myopia (-0.50 R; 0.00 L) around here? Is it really that uncommon?
My eyes aren’t that bad – but they are very different.
Right: -.50 (I don’t really need correction on that side, but with the difference from the left, it feels much better if I have a bit.)
Left: -3.50
Perhaps a touch of astigmatism, but I’m not sure on that – I was told that at one exam out of the many I’ve had.
I wore contacts for years because of the difference between my eyes, but last year my eyes just gave out; they got really, really dry no matter what I did. And since I spend a lot of time on a computer, that was going to make it even worse. So I went ahead and got glasses. After a few days of everything looking very strange, I was fine. I thought it was going to be harder to adapt than it was!
I’m actually much happier with the glasses. It’s cheaper in the long run (for me, anyway, I know the worse your prescription the more they tend to cost) and I don’t have to deal with all the cleaning stuff.
I’ve been told I’d probably be a good candidate for surgery but NO WAY IN HELL. Uh-uh. Glasses are just fine by me. Or being blindish on one side. No lasers are getting near MY eyes.
Right eye: -10.00
Left eye: -11.50
However, I wear disposable soft contacts, and the highest they go is -10.00, so my left eye is left somewhat undercorrected. MrBlueSky seems to be the only one blinder then I am, and I cannot even imagine wearing glasses that heavy anymore. I have not heard anything bad about LASIK, and my opthamologist says I’m a good candidate, so I have been inching my way toward that procedure for awhile now. Incidentally, I have heard the pre-op, no-contacts period is only three days.
I’m -12.50 in both eyes. Only Mr. Blue Sky is worse than me, hah!
I wear soft contacts these days, and used to wear gas perm until they started tearing up my corneas. Every time I removed them at the end of the day, I’d get a few seconds of awful pain, which was the result of a layer of cells sticking to the contacts. If I’d kept it up, it would have resulted in permanent scarring, so I wore glasses for awhile until the eye doc gave me the good news.
I have a new appt. next week and the receptionist told me they’re now making big strides every few months, so I can expect new contacts that work better.
Being this nearsighted isn’t actually that bad, IMO. As long as I have my contacts, I’m very happy. My brother (whose eyes aren’t nearly so bad) and I were talking yesterday, and he said he’d do LASIK if he had the money–which I would not. I figure, they come out with new and improved surgery every 10 years or so, why not wait till the next one? Besides, it’s quite likely that my retinas will fall apart, or I’ll get cataracts or something, and then I’ll need corrective surgery anyway. (My dad’s retina first detached at about age 35. :eek: He’s had several detachments and cataracts now, and his correction is much better than it was.)
Did any of the other people here go through techniques designed to keep their eyes from getting worse in their youth? We all had our eyes dilated every day for several years, and had to wear photogray lenses–a from of torture that was not appreciated. It didn’t help me at all, but my brothers, who started younger, seem to have benefited.
Well, when I was in my teens (mid '70s) my doctor had me in bifocals for several years because the theory was that would keep my myopia from progressing. I had photogray lenses (no dilation, thank Og!) because in Panama sunglasses were a must and IIRC, there was a belief that the UV might be making the myopia worse. I really appreciated the photogray; that tropical sun was bright. The bifocals didn’t work though; they were dropped in my twenties.
Now I have progressives; they sold me on them because of the “middle zone” which was supposed to be good for middle distance things like computing. I don’t know if it makes a difference; I have no problems with the progressives though; adapted right away. Maybe it was all those years of bifocal wearing.
Here I am, guilty about feeling slightly better for myself now.
Age: 22
R: -4.75
L: -5.00
I have small floaters, but my retinas are fine. My mother’s eyes before LASIK were about the same. I’m not doing the laser thing until they figure out how to fix both near and farsighted. I’d die if I couldn’t see things up close anymore. (I’m an artist, and I enjoy working with teeny inking pens) I wear either contacts or glasses, depending on how lazy I feel in the morning. Always contacts at the movies though, there’s nothing worse than trying to clean off a fingerprint at a critical scene.
I just got new glasses, in fact. They tint when I go outside. I love that.
I’ve worn vision correction of some type for about 35 years now. My mom noticed me squinting to read the hymn numbers in church when I was in grade school. I am myopic and have astigmatism (although this has improved somewhat over the years). My first contacts when I was 20 were for correcting the astigmatism as well as the myopia. They were weighted on the bottom so they wouldn’t move around, and believe me, you could tell if they did!
Now, in my forties, I have also begun to experience the joys of presbyopia! I have to wear glasses at work and have bifocals there. My “regular” glasses are strictly myopic correction. And my contacts, that I only wear once in a while (if I’m feeling vain), are one weak (-.75), presumably so I can see closeup somewhat, and one with my regular correction (-2.00). My poor eyes never know what they are doing! I still see the best for closeup work with no correction whatsoever, and I hope that holds true for a while.
I’m the person you see looking out from under their glasses when reading a label while grocery-shopping or writing a check, or if I’m home, constantly misplacing my glasses because they are off as much as on!
-1.00 on both eyes and I’m 20 years old. My prescription hasn’t changed since I got my first eye exam at 15.
I’ve actually had the bad eyesight earlier than that but I didn’t tell my parents because my dad always told me not to read in dim lighting, sit too close to the tv, etc. or my eyes would go bad. I knew my dad was against my getting glasses at a young age (he felt that it would be confirmation that I’d damaged my eyes).
Well, eventually I ended up telling my mom when I would only take down about 60% of class notes because I just couldn’t see most of what my teachers wrote on the board. My dad didn’t say anything. He did laugh at me though. 
I am resurrecting this to announce that I hereby am the winner of this thread for Worst Eyes. I went to the eye doctor today, and now rejoice in the correction of -14.25 in each eye.
Um, woohoo?
Just for informational purposes, I asked about LASIK. I’m not a very good candidate for it, though it might be possible–but he thinks a better idea might just be to take the lenses off my eyeballs and replace them with implants, thus fixing most of the correction and preventing the inevitable cataracts with one fell swoop. eep!
Mine aren’t too bad:
Right: -2.5
Left: -2.75
However, my eye doctor tells me that the colour is leaking from my eyes, and I have a pretty big risk of developing glaucoma, since fluid won’t drain properly. Ergo, I’m smoking as much marijuana as humanly possible. As a preventative measure, of course. 
Mine:
Left: -10.5, astigmatism 1.75
Right: -10.75, astigmatism 2.0
I’ve worn bifocals since I was 22.
The only contacts I can wear are the super-duper-expensive Toric lenses that correct for astigmatism AND high prescriptions. (Yes, I’ve tried the gas perms and couldn’t STAND them).
Checked into LASIK, but since one of the common side-effects can be that it completely trashes night vision, and DogDad already can’t drive at night, that’s out. sigh
I’d LOVE to be permanently able to ditch the glasses. No go for me, I guess.
Is it mostly people with myopia that post on this board? Is this Board causing myopia?!?!
Me? Around –2.00 in both as I recall.
R: -4.25
L: -6.00
I’m surprised more people aren’t more different between each eye.