Why Can Wrong Glasses Weaken Your Eyesight?

Ancient mathematicians, monks, astronomers and chemists all contributed to their creation, Benjamin Franklin improved them and later the movie industry laced them with 3D capabilities. Today an estimated 75 percent of adults in the United States wear glasses, contact lenses or a combination of both, according to the Vision Council of America. More than half of America's women wear glasses and about 42 percent of men. There are several myths, truths and fallacies about with glasses and their effect on human sight.

Negative Effects of Glasses

• Adults wear eyeglasses to correct one or more vision conditions including nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia. The glasses temporarily correct these problems to improve the vision of the wearer, but do not provide any long-term improvement. Instead, the eyes grow dependent on the corrective lenses, similar to the way paralyzed people depend on wheelchairs. There are exceptions to this rule; glasses given to children to treat crossed or lazy eyes are meant to yield improvements, and not wearing them can cause permanent damage.

Negative Effects of the Wrong Prescription

• Imperfections in eyesight are caused by refractive errors, and prescription glasses alter the light that the eye receives. Lenses that are too strong or too weak are less effective at temporarily improving vision, but they do not cause long-term defects, because they affect the light and not the actual eye. Lenses of the wrong prescription may partially correct vision whilst causing blurriness, which can lead to short-term side effects like headache, dizziness or nausea. Non-prescription glasses found in retail stores can help older people suffering from presbyopia, or the declining ability to read small print.

Other Myths about Eyesight

• Just as wearing glasses of correct and incorrect prescriptions will not ruin your eyesight, neither will any of the following practices, though they may cause a headache:

  - Reading a book in dim light

  - Holding a book close to or far from your face

  - Staring at a computer

  - Sitting too close to a television

  - Crossing your eyes

  The only way to weaken your eyesight is to damage one or more portions of the eye through direct contact.

Importance of Regular Check-ups

• Though wearing the wrong prescription eyeglasses is not linked to permanently weakening your eyesight, avoiding regular trips to the eye doctor is. In a "New York Times" Health article Dr. Paul R. Lichter, director of the University of Michigan's Kellogg Eye Center, states that it is not only crucial to update your prescription, but to regularly screen your eyes for diseases such as glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy that could cause permanent eye damage or even blindness if not detected and treated.