I have never had a vision test other than the ones they gave in elementary school and the one I take every four years for my drivers license. I am thirty nine.
Lately when I am at work and I am reading things off paper to enter them in the system it seems like my vision blurs a slight bit. Like it takes a second or two to focus. That is not it either, more like there is blur in front of the number and I have to squint to make it go away. If that makes any sense.
The numbers or letters are about a 12 font so they are not really tiny.
I have vision benefits so I guess I should just bite the bullet and make an appointment.
I was just wondering what made others think that they may need glasses and if you went to the doctor did you actually need them?
I was in fourth grade, and although I could read since age 3, I was screwing up my penmanship assignments, which we copied off the board. I forget if my teacher suggested it to my mother, or what, but I did in fact need glasses.
Sounds like you might just need the reading glasses from the drugstore as you might have presbyopia, but I cannot more strongly emphasize that you should be seen by an eye doctor first, just to be sure.
I couldn’t see the chalkboard at school when I was in fourth grade. I’ll never forget the awe I felt when I put on my glasses, and discovered that the world had way more detail than I had ever realized.
I had really good vision and like most people who don’t wear glasses only had an eye test every 5 years when I got my driver’s licence renewed. When I was in my mid 30s my workplace introduced free health checks including eye tests. At the time I had great vision. My wife used to be amazed that I could read in bed by a shaded 40 watt bulb.
When I did the test I was horrified that I couldn’t read the bottom lines of the eyechart. I said as much to the optometrist and she told me my vision was excellent for someone my age. Then she added, “however you will need reading glasses in a few years.” I expressed my surprise and she said, “look around nearly everyone is wearing them by their late 40s.” This turned out to be true.
I went along and got my first pair when two things occured - I could only read normal print in really good light and sometimes I would pick things off the shelf in the supermarket and not be able to read the fine print. Once each of these failings started they progressed to the point of annoyance very quickly.
I have only needed 3 different pairs in about 14 years, each only slightly different from the previous script and they are trifocals since the original reading only pair.
I was in my early 20’s when I got a speeding ticket that I really didn’t deserve.
I’d been driving along in a strange neighborhood, having serious difficulty reading the street (name) signs and late for a party. I was so busy trying to read them that I was up to the ungodly speed of 32!!! mph in a 30 zone. A cop came screaming out of a side street, nearly hitting me (and scaring the holy hell out of me!) and gave me a speeding ticket. For two fucking mph over the limit. Guy was so belligerant about it that you’d have thought I was snorting heroin off a dead baby while driving 100mph in a school zone.
Given that he came at me out of a side street and nearly rammed me broadside, I probably should have challenged it in court, since I don’t believe that he could have gotten me on any radar unit and still approached me in that manner.
But in the end, after a day or so of calming down and getting over it, I realized just how bad my eyesight was getting if I couldn’t read those signs.
Couldn’t read the blackboard from my seat in the back in 4th grade. I kept writing notes to my teacher on my assignments, asking to be moved up. Eventually he told me that I probably needed glasses.
Now that I’m an adult, I have really terrible vision, but until 2004 my prescription hadn’t changed for years and years. I took a class at the local community college and it was like being in 4th grade again. This time I figured out that I needed new contacts all on my own, go me.
SomeUserName, your story reminds me of my dad. He occasionally mentions that he can’t see as well as he used to, but it’s all talk. I don’t think he’s ever done any thing about it, and I don’t think the DMV has made him renew his license in person in years. I recommend going to an opthamologist - being able to see clearly is a thing of beauty. (Take it from someone whose prescription is -9.25/-7.5…but better than 20/20 with contacts.)
As it turns out, you’re a lot smarter than I was. When I couldn’t read the board in second grade, I just thought I had something in my eye. I went around for weeks rubbing it and hoping I’d be able to see again (in my defense, it was just in one eye). When I had my next eye exam and was told I needed glasses, that’s the excuse I gave my mother for why I didn’t tell her.
Given such beginnings, it’s amazing I’ve made it this far.
I was in grad school, lining up a piece of optical equipment, and not doing it.
“What’s the trick?” I asked someone.
“Oh, you just adjust this until the circles are concentric.”
“What circles?”
That was a pretty big tipoff. I hadn’t noticed that I’d migrated to the front row of seats in lectures for a reason.
For a month after I got the glasses, I kept flippimng my glasses up and down at movies. I thought I was seeing all the details – heck, I could count the individual hairs on people. But there was even MORE once I flipped the glasses back down.
I don’t remember when I started wearing glasses, just as I can’t remember first learning to read. Both would have happened when I was about 4 years old.
Grade Five…couldn’t read the board. But I didn’t start wearing them all the time until Grade Six because I too self-conscious. I’d only put them on when there was a movie so no one else could see.
I got glasses because my brother had trouble reading.
My mother took him to the eye doctor, and decided to take me along. He had great vision (20/10). I have “typical family eyes” – nearsighted. I got my first glasses about a year later, in 6th grade.
A lot of people say that they realized (or that it was realized by others) that they needed glasses when they were having trouble reading the blackboard at school. I, on the other hand, started to realize it when I was about 8 and was having trouble reading the scoreboard at baseball games.
I thought there was something up when, as a teenager, I had trouble reading street signs. Not the big STOP and ONE WAY, but the little, green 1st Ave. signs on the corner. I kept telling my parents I thought I was nearsighted, but it wasn’t until I totaled my truck on a fishing trip with my dad that they took me to the optometrist. I was fifteen and driving on a learner’s permit and the guy in front of me on a quiet farm road went to make a turn, but just sort of coasted into it–didn’t hit is breaks, so I didn’t see break lights, and didn’t use his blinker to signal a change of direction. My depth perception was so bad that I couldn’t tell we were going to hit until we were right on top of him.
Shortly thereafter I got glasses. I remember like it was yesterday going to the movies to see Shakespeare in Love and being astounded at the complexity of the lace on one of the costumes. Also, trees! With leaves! I could see leaves, all the way to the tops of the trees!
4th grade. Same story - couldn’t see the board. I recall the day I got them, sitting on our back porch and being surprised that I could see individual leaves on the trees, instead of just a big green blob.
Now I’m 47, and I think I’m in need of bifocal lenses in my glasses, and stronger contacts accompanied by reading glasses.
When I moved to another city at 23 and couldn’t read the street signs. I didn’t notice at home, because I knew every street that was coming up by memory.
I only started driving at 20, so I had about three years of squeaking by. But I really really needed them.
First thing I noticed when I had glasses on? I felt shorter, because the ground at my feet had so much detail now that I felt closer to it. I actually had trouble walking for a day or so, it was a surreal experience.
