Can Wearing the Wrong Prescription Eyeglasses Damage Your Eyes?

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If you are purchasing prescription eyewear for the first time, you may initially find the process confusing. Not only does your prescription comprise of a seemingly random collection of numbers and math signs, but you must ensure that your new pair of eyeglasses contain the appropriate prescription. Even more frustrating is the fact that you need to handle this task in addition to the other duties, responsibilities, and errands that you likely have throughout the day. With worse eyesight and a feeling that you are wearing the wrong prescription eyeglasses, you may start to wonder whether your eyeglasses are harming or damaging your eyes.

We are all human. Because of this, you or someone else may come across a situation where you purchase a pair of prescription eyeglasses that you love. You are excited to wear them and are looking forward to seeing clearly for the first time in a long time. But nevertheless, after wearing your new pair of prescription eyeglasses, you may think that something is off. You aren’t seeing as clearly as you expected. In fact, your sight could be worse.

If you are particularly anxious, you may simply decide to not wear your glasses, which can potentially lead to all sorts of other problems.

Ultimately, we are writing this article to discuss the question that we have heard from some customers. While we don’t hear this from many of our customers, it comes up enough that we wanted to take the time to clear the air.

So what is the bottom line? It all centers around good news. Wearing the wrong prescription eyeglasses will not damage your eyes. While it may be uncomfortable for the time that you spend wearing these wrong prescription eyeglasses, you are not going to damage your eyes or go blind.

Wearing the Wrong Prescription Eyeglasses: Not as Bad as You Think

As we referenced above, your actual prescription is going to have a collection of numbers and math signs. Every single character is important and provides information that can sufficiently correct your vision. Because of this, there may come a situation where either your eye doctor incorrectly writes out your prescription or you incorrectly input your prescription when purchasing eyeglasses online. Things happen.

Wearing eyeglasses with the wrong prescription, however, is not going to weaken or damage your eyes. To understand why, it is helpful to get a better sense of how prescription eyeglasses actually work and how they correct your vision. While you don’t necessarily need to know or remember all of the details here, describing this process in more detail can give you more context on why having the wrong eye prescription isn’t going to damage your eyes.

To start, it is important to note that prescription eyeglasses change the way that our eyes receive light rays. This is because the retinas in our eyes react to incoming light and relay that information to our brains. As that light enters each of our eyes, the lenses and corneas reduce the size of the image to fit on the retina, focuses the light on the surface of the retina, and matches the curve of the image with the curvature of the retina. Numerous factors may cause the eye to be unable to focus properly on these images. The inability to focus on these images, in fact, may lead to vision problems such as myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism.

This is where corrective lenses come in. When these lenses are placed in front of your eyes, the focal point of your vision is adjusted. It is adjusted in order to compensate for your eyes’ inability to focus on incoming images onto your retina. While the placement of the focal point depends on the particular issue that you are encountering (like nearsightedness or farsightedness), this is generally how corrective lenses help you see more clearly.

Even with this introductory knowledge about how prescription eyewear works, it is easy to come to the conclusion why using the wrong prescription eyewear isn’t going to temporarily or permanently harm your overall vision. Ultimately, prescription eyewear changes nothing inside the eye itself. By putting on glasses, your physical eyes themselves are not being tangibly affected in any way. Instead, your prescription eyewear is changing the focus point so that your eyes naturally self-correct.

This should be reassuring if you have been concerned about the wrong prescription causing some short or long-term damage to your eyes. Granted, there aren’t zero side effects. By wearing the wrong prescription eyeglasses, you may notice several annoying things. For instance, you may get a headache due to heavy and repeated squinting. You may also start to get uncomfortable because of blurry vision. These are the two most common side effects, but it isn’t out of the question that you may experience something else.

But having said this, these side effects and symptoms are often temporary. While you may get a headache from wearing the wrong prescription glasses, that headache is not going to last for an extended period of time. And as far as any potential blurry vision? This blurry vision will also self-correct once you take off the glasses with your old prescription and start wearing glasses with your correct prescription. It may take a few minutes, but you will notice that your blurry vision will disappear.

In sum, wearing the wrong prescription eyewear is not going to cause actual damage to either of your eyes. You are going to be fine, even if you suspect that some type of damage is occurring.

In fact, instead of being worried about potential harm to your eyes, spend your time confirming your actual prescription. With that correct prescription in hand, you can purchase prescription eyeglasses with the correct prescription and move on with your day.

Ensuring That You Have the Proper Prescription

When we are dealing with eye health, it can be easy to get anxious or concerned about preventing further damage to our eyes. This is not an incorrect or insignificant concern. Your eyes are one of the most important parts of your body. Increasing damage to your eyes can lead to scary health consequences—including blindness.

While it is right to be vigilant about your eye health, there is no need to be worried if you are wearing the wrong prescription. The simple fact is that, whether due to a mistake or something else, wearing the wrong prescription lenses is not going to inherently damage your eyes. From this question, you can move on and focus on other important matters in your life.

At Rx-Safety, we are focused on delivering the highest quality prescription eyewear—whether you were given glasses with the wrong prescription or not. By browsing our online store, you will find a wide selection of prescription eyewear that will certainly correct your vision. With brands ranging from Wiley X, Smith Optics, Nike, Lacoste, and more, we are confident that you will find the perfect pair for you.

If you have any questions about our eyewear collections or how wearing the wrong prescription eyewear won’t damage your eyes, don’t hesitate to contact us. You can reach out by clicking here or by calling (888) 245-6638. We look forward to hearing from you!

  1. Dale says:

    Most nearsighted people like getting a stronger prescription.
    You can ask the doctor to give you an extra -.25, or -.50 above what your test results are.
    With the new glasses you will have incredibly sharp vision.


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