Hi,
I went to the opticians the other day (my 1st eye test in 4 years) and I've always known that I have an astigmatism in my right eye, which is pretty blurry, but always been told that my vision with both eyes is fine so no need for glasses.
But at the end of this consultation the optician said that I need glasses for any concentrated work (so I guess computer work, reading etc). Je said that te asigmatism in the right is quite bad, and that i have one in the left also (not as bad). I'm collecting my glasses in a couple of weeks, but I'm just worried that the optician has made a mistake and that I don't need them as I feel like I can see fine. I'm concerned that as I can see words fine when reading, and the computer fine, that when I put my new glasses on it will make it all blurry? I do find sometimes however that if I've been playing computer games or something for a long time, that when I look at words it can have a bit of a blur around it, but I just assume that's because of my eyes refocusing or eye strain or something? I do also find that when I go to the theatre or something, there is also a bit of blur around people, but when I squint, it brings them into focus.
I was just wondering if anyone else has been suggested to have glasses when they thought they didn't really need then, but then actually found that once they got them , they did actually help their vision. Might be one of those things where I don't realise I need help with it, until I realise what it should be.
Just seemed like the optician rushed my appointment a bit.
Probably worth pointng out that I am quite a worrier. 😞
Also, my prescription was cylinder: right eye T.50, left eye T.25 - Axis was 180 for both, and there's an 'x' for both eyes in the sphere. For distance acuity it says 6/6 for both eyes, and near acuity for both eyes looks like 'n5'. Is this a weak precription?
I've never had glasses so I am completely confused.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Just realised I read the prescriptin wrong. The cylinder is -1.50 for the right eye, and -1.25 for the left eye. I read the opticians writing wrong.
Stop worrying. You will likely take a few days maybe to adjust to your new glasses but if you already knew you had astigmatism, and that your vision is blurry means that clearly your vision isn't "fine"! You just were able to compensate for it. It will take maybe a few hours or days for your eyes and brain to stop compensating entirely but believe me, you will realise that you can see far better once you're wearing them. You don't often notice the gradual change until it gets fixed. And a simple eye test with minor changes to vision doesn't take long - it doesn't mean that it's inaccurate.
My understanding is glasses correct in two ways - Sphere (SPH value) is correcting for overall long or short sightedness whereas Cylinder (CYL) and Axis is correcting for astigmatism, where the cornea or lens isn't perfectly spherical. The Axis is measured by imagining a protractor, that semicircular thing from maths class, over your eye through the centre of your pupil - so 0 degrees is near the outside corner of your eye, 180 degrees is near the inside corner, in a horizontal line through your pupil, and 90 degrees is vertical.
The X in sphere for your prescription presumably means no change so you aren't short or longsighted. So these glasses are solely correcting your astigmatism. The Cylinder is the part that determines the correction needed to fix your astigmatism - in this case, the "-" value means you have shortsighted astigmatism so that will be corrected with a convex cylinder - so while your vision is in focus in part of your vision, the uneven shape of your eyeball (think rugby ball shape instead of pool ball shaped) parts of it are shortsighted because of the astigmatism. The right eye is slightly "worse" than the left eye. The axis says what angle the astigmatism correction should go - 180 degrees means that the cylinder of correction is literally placed horizonally across the middle of your eye. However, anything under 2.5 to 3 dioptres is generally not regarded as severe, so you're in the milder end of things.
In other words, don't worry about it. Give it a few days to adjust, if you're still uncomfortable, go back to the optician to make sure the prescription was made correctly etc. But persist with wearing them, if you keep taking them on and off it will just take you longer to adjust. Wear them all day for a few days and all being well you'll be amazed at how much you are compensating.
Sorry my bad - I mean concave not convex... *smh*
Also, 6/6 means the same as 20/20 vision - so yes, no short or longsightedness for distance. N5 is like 6/9 or 20/30 when up close - so you struggle a little to focus up close making you a teeny bit short sighted - but not enough to warrant overall correction with a SPH prescription.