First Time with Prescription Glasses... Yowza! (1 Viewer)

[Mitch Stevens]

This entire thread is totally hilarious. I needed glasses when I was in the 3rd grade. My grades dropped significantly because I couldn't see the chalk-board at all. I kept on telling my parents, but they never did anything about it, until I started failing my classes. It wasn't until the 6th grade that my father finally took me to the eye doctor to get glasses. They costed $300 dollars at that time. I'm guessing it had something to do with the frames that we chose for them.

First impressions? Well, I remember that when I first put them on, the floor/ground was REALLY wavy. Kinda like when you're walking in the mountains, and you see little hills everywhere. I was afraid to step on a completely flat floor because I kept seeing little hills (even though they weren't there). It wasn't until the 3rd day, that this feeling went away, and I was able to see crystal clear. I get new glasses about 1 every 2-3 years, and everytime I get new ones, I re-live the "Wow" experience again. The world looks absolutely amazing when you get a new prescription.

 

[DonnyD]

Having perfect eyesight is certainly a blessing and one that some of us take for granted. Mine was perfect until an accident in the 8th grade (1963) left me with an out of round eyeball and astigmatism which made a slight distortion on some things. This didn't bother me until I went to college/pre-med and used a microscope a lot and then I got prescription lenses to correct the astigmatism. Then in the late 60's, I found out about "photogray" lenses and was the first guy around to have "those amazing changing sunglasses". I also found they came in useful in hiding bloodshot eyes ! Remember, I did say late 60's......

Then when I reached my mid 40's, along came the need for reading lenses and I got the progressive lenses. To this day I still wear photogray lenses although it is getting hard to get real glass. I've tried the plastic TRANSITIONS lenses but they DO NOT get nearly as dark as glass although at my age, hiding bloodshot eyes (from whatever factor) isn't needed nearly as much.LOL
Funny how new glasses make you pick your feet up a little higher for a couple of weeks, isn't it.????

 

[Holadem]

Yep

I must also agree with the leaves thing.

This whole business isn't as fun as it seemed at first. The glasses were actually free from work, and have to meet some safety standards, so they aren't they latest and greastest in light-weight technology. I am starting to find them quite heavy. I suspect I will be investing in different ones in a couple of months.

Sometimes, I simply feel better not seeing everything, so I take them off./ I know it sounds crazy, but the blur is more familiar. But then the strain on my eyes starts getting painful, and I have to put them back

Adjusting to this whole thing I guess.

And oh, thanks Ev and Phil

--
H

 

[JustinCleveland]

Holadem,

When I first got glasses in the 9th grade, I had to go home from school with a splitting headache. Next day I was fine. I just had to adjust... took about a week.

I just remember driving out of the optomitrist... And seeing the individual bricks on the wall across the street. I was amazed!

I'm like a lot of people here, where I don't NEED the glasses, but I'm right at the cusp, and prefer them. I just remember when I was in school yet, and was sitting at the back of the classroom. Teacher gave a pop quiz and wrote the questions on the blackboard. I failed because I was too stuborn to move forward, and couldn't read them from where I was. I never felt so frustrated in my life, I wanted to cry. I got glasses a week later, and my life has been better since.

However, I read for a living, and reading in glasses has become a chore. I have PERFECT near vision, so I have to take my glasses off to read. The issue is with the glasses themselves, so bifocals won't help. It's the major reason I'm even considering LASIK

 

[James~P]

i got my first pair in 1st grade.

i was very happy with them.. and i walk into the class room



class: "HAHAHAHA JAMES HAS GLASSES AHAHAHHA!!"

me: *runs out crying to his parents*

---


after that ordeal i got used to them.

my visions pretty bad. theres a coke can on my desk about 25" away, if i take off my glasses i can't make out the individual letters in the "Coca-Cola" logo.

during the day i'm a contact wearer though.. much clearer than my glasses. makes up for the slight discomfort they can cause at times.

 

[Cary_H]

I got glasses just prior to the start of Grade 3. Similar story; couldn't make out the numbers on a scoreboard on the right field fence.
I was one of those dorks at school with tape all over his broken frames from sports.
In no time I joined the "Coke Bottle Generation". I got contacts at 18, and didn't get another pair of glasses 'til my 30s. Never did shake the dork part, though.
I won't go the Lasik route 'cause I'll still need correction anyway. The biggest hassle now is having to leave my contacts in at home to read. My reading glasses are useless with my contacts out, and I struggle with just my prescription glasses.

 

[James T]

I got my glasses in 6th grade, but I realized I needed them in 4th grade. In 4th grade, I sat all the way in the back. With my regular teacher, I had no problem seeing the blackboard. When the substitute came in when my teacher went on maternity leave, she wrote small and I could only make up every other word on the board. For awhile, I was just copying off the person next to me, until we wrote a test where the questions were placed on the chalkboard...uh oh. I did pretty bad and got moved right up front. The next two years year and a half, I survived without them, hardly looking at my neighbours work. My parents didn't really want me to get glasses b/c they belived that as soon as I got them, my vision would just get worst by the year. But with a lot of "cool" people getting glasses in 6th grade, I jumped ship and got a pair.

Three years ago, I started wearing contacts. I remember the first time I put them on, it was a WOW experience. I went to the mall and everything just looked so amazing. Someone above mentioned that you cannot replicate the contact lense experience with frames and that person's right....although I do wear the specks whenever I feel lazy.

 

[James~P]

yup, contacts are far better in clarity than glasses.



also, when i'm doing physcial activity i cant tell they're in at all.



however, they're a pain in the morning after putting them in, and at night after ~12 hours

 

[Kevin-M]

One thing to keep in mind, if you need glasses and have them, WEAR THEM. So many people have glasses but only put them on when they need to see something specific. The more someone does this, the worse their eyes will get. Everytime you use your glasses, your eye changes shape slightly, as does the cornea. If your constantly taking them on and off, your eyes are going to fluctuate enough that over time, your eyesight degrades even more. This is why most people end up with new, stronger prescriptions every year.

I did this myself when I first got my glasses as a kid, although it was more out of not being used to them and I was constantly forgetting to take them with me to school. And like I said above, every 2 or 3 years I would get a stronger prescription to compensate for my worsening eyes. But when I turned about 12 I was basically at the point where I wore them all the time, only taking them off when i went to sleep. And now, 13 years late I still have the same strength of prescription as I did way back then.

Something that pisses me off is that most optometrists don't even mention this. They don't want to get bitched at by a client if they tell them to wear the glasses all the time, as if they can give the patient the glasses but they have no right to tell the patient what to do with the glasses.

 

[Francois Caron]

I got my first pair of glasses at 15 and it made as much of a difference to my eyesight as everyone else here. Since many kids in my school already had glasses, the "four-eyes" type of comments never materialized. When I got my second pair, I decided to get the photograde models. Instant sunglasses when necessary! It was also the last time I needed a perscription adjustment.

Believe it or not, I've had my current pair of lenses for eighteen years now. Because they're glass lenses, they're much less succeptible to scratches than plastic lenses. I've gone through three sets of frames, each one smaller than the previous set, and the lenses have survived the resizing procedure every single time. Somehow they never shattered from the abuse.

I don't like the idea of contact lenses resting directly on my eyes. I also don't like the idea of lasik eye surgery since I only have one eye that works properly. If I lost that one good eye, all I could see from the other eye is peripheral vision since the central vision is non-existant. I'll keep living with my glasses, thank you very much.

 

[Leila Dougan]

So many people have glasses but only put them on when they need to see something specific.

Well, that just depends. I'm far sighted and only wear my glasses for reading and computer work (or anything else up-close). With my prescription, wearing them all the time would only strain my eyes more.

 

[Kevin-M]

Totally makes sense Leila. Of course I can't make a blanket statement and say everyone should wear their glasses all the time, especially in cases like yours where wearing glasses full time would be harmful.

But then there's people like my sister, who really needs to wear her glasses, but never does. She only wears them for driving and occasionally other activities. And year after year, I keep the same prescription and she needs a stronger one. She's so damn stubborn that I swear she'll be blind before she hits her 50's.

 

[Cary_H]

Can't say I agree with Kevin's reasoning, and my own experience would say the complete opposite. I never took mine off since day one, and I needed a stronger prescription every year.
Your eyes don't change shape when you put glasses on. We wear corrective lenses because of the inability of our eye's muscles to shape the lens of our eye to put an image we're viewing into focus. Correction alters what the lens gets to give the it something within the range it is capable of working with. The whole high school physics thing around focal lengths, powers, image heights, blah, blah.
My little knowledge of the whole subject says the size, shape, and dimensions of all the parts that make up your eye tells the tale. As we grow, all these things change, for better or worse.
I recall reading somewhere, that as we age our corneas grow thicker and become less pliable which accounts for many of us needing correction for reading later in life.
Why some never need correction, why some like Kevin don't once past childhood, and many others continue to need stronger correction year after year, is greek to me.

 

[James T]

My dad has a perscription of 175 and he only uses it when he needs it. He's also had that perscription for as long as I can remember, and yes, he goes for his yearly eye check(I go with him).

 

[BrettB]

Rather than start a new thread... how are ya doing now Holadem?

I just got glasses last week. I can relate to all the *wow!* comments in the thread regarding color and clarity but there are problems I'm trying to figure out.

The first time I wore them driving in to work in the morning everything seemed fine mostly. There was a bit of a 'objects are closer than they appear' effect which I still have. The bigger problem I noticed first when I looked at my paycheck that had been left in my chair form the night before. Then as I looked at my computer screen it got scary. This is basically what squares/rectangles up close look like...



The few I've talked to who also wear glasses say that there is something wrong with my prescription so pretty much stopped wearing them for a few days and then called the optomotrist the other day. They basically said that my right eye is pretty bad (20-60; left eye is 20-30) and that there is nothing wrong with the prescription. They suggested I wear the glasses for a week and see how things are then.

I love the improved eyesight (and was shocked how bad it was when I did the exam ) but I want to know what's what. This is totally new to me and I'm not sure what to think.

PS Apparently I have astigmatisms.

Any help appreciated.

 

[Steve_Pannell]

Things can sometimes look a bit distorted when you're wearing glasses. Mine do that when I wear them but I wear contact lenses most of the time so I usually don't have that problem.

As for the first time I wore glasses - when I was a kid I got glasses but refused to wear them because I couldn't get the kind of frames I wanted. The ones I got were "nerd frames". But when I grew up and got beyond caring what other people said about me I got a pair of glasses and when I drove away from the optometrist's office I thought I was going to have a wreck. Everything was kind of "wavy" when I looked around. It didn't take long to get used to it, though.

 

[Jeff Savage]

Just keep wearing the glasses, your brain will figure it all out. I just got my first pair of glasses this summer as well. I had a lot of weird effects at first but after about 3 weeks all was good. Just keep them on.

Laters,
Jeff

 

[Brian Perry]

but I am still amazed at the ability of modern science to improve our lives

Think of how many billions of people throughout the ages had to go through life in a blur. We are cheating evolution...without the crutch of glasses or contacts, those with good natural eyesight would have a huge advantage.

 

[nolesrule]

I've been wearing glasses continuously since I was six due to astigmatism and later nearsightedness, and my eyes got progressively worse until around the time I was 16 or so when I had to get bifocals. Since then they have been steady, but everytime I get new frames and lenses (every 2 years, thanks to some pretty darn good insurance), it takes a couple days to get used to the new field of vision and slight change in lenses, generally resulting in some minor eyestrain headaches.

I'm not considering contacts or surgery. it just doesn't appeal to me. And the surgery wouldn't be a permanent solution for me anyway. Besides, I look much better in glasses.

Also, besides age affecting the flexibility of the lenses in the eyes, fluctuation in weight will as well. Having too much weight on the face will push your cheeks up into your eye sockets, putting pressure on your eyes in a manner similar to squinting. This can result in a changing vision rating with weight gain or weight loss.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Absolutely. Staring at a big old tree with a full set of leaves is my only lasting memory of the first time I got glasses. It just made it come alive...