What If My Eyeglass Prescription is Wrong?

We at Rx-Safety wanted to write this article to address some of the concerns that you may feel if your glasses prescription is wrong. The bottom line? While you should certainly get the correct prescription, you should not feel any anxiety or fear about the wrong eyeglass prescription causing any short or long-term damage to your eyes.

Experiencing poor and unclear sight for an extended period of time can be frustrating and annoying. People and objects aren’t appearing as you expect them to appear, and to compensate, you may be squinting your eyes or reading at a closer or farther distance than usual. Ultimately, frustration with your sight may have led you to visit an optometrist or optician. There, in all likelihood, your optometrist or optician examined your eyes and asked you a series of questions about your eyesight.

From there, your optometrist or optician may have written a prescription so that you can wear eyeglasses. This sort of experience is well and good. It is quite common. But having said that, when you put on your glasses, you may suspect that your glasses prescription is slightly off. Yes, your sight is slightly better, but you still aren’t seeing as clearly as you would expect. While it is unlikely, there is a real possibility that your glasses prescription is wrong.

What Happens if You Have the Wrong Eyeglass Prescription

Even though the precise effects are different for every person, there are several common things that occur when you have the wrong eyeglass prescription.

First, you may experience several types of symptoms. Some of these symptoms include headaches, dizziness, or nausea. While you may be worried that these symptoms indicate that you are experiencing some damage to your eyes themselves, you can rest assured that it is not happening. To better understand why it is helpful to briefly explain how eyeglasses actually work.

To put it simply, no matter your prescription, glasses correct your eyesight by bending the light that is reaching your eyes. They do this in order to change the focal point of your eyes. For instance, if you are farsighted, for instance, your prescription glasses move the focal point forward. Your glasses aren’t physically affecting your eyes themselves.

Therefore, if you have the wrong prescription for some reason, you do not need to fear about any damage to your eyes themselves. Yes, you may feel some of these symptoms for some time. But these symptoms often go away after some time.

When you suspect you have the wrong eyeglass prescription, you will likely want to immediately visit your optician or optometrist. Before doing so, however, it may help to wait several weeks. This is especially true if this is your first pair of prescription eyeglasses. With any new pair of prescription eyewear, it takes several weeks to adjust. If after several weeks you still experience blurry eyesight or some of these other symptoms, it is then worth your time to schedule another visit with your optician or optometrist.

Walking into your optician or optometrist’s office, explain some of the symptoms that you are experiencing. Also, note how long they have been occurring. All of this information will be valuable for your optician or optometrist as they reexamine you.

If your optician or optometrist discovers that you had the wrong prescription, he or she will quite obviously write you another prescription. With that prescription in hand, you will find another pair of prescription glasses. From there, you will likely want to follow the advice above. Wear your prescription eyewear for several weeks and see if you experience any symptoms. If not, that’s great. However, if you are still experiencing issues like dizziness, blurred vision, or nausea, you may want to follow-up with your optometrist or optician.

Correcting Your Sight

Prescription glasses are obviously designed to help you see more clearly. Because of this, if you aren’t seeing clearly after obtaining your prescription, there may be a real possibility that you have the wrong prescription. Luckily, this isn’t the end of the world. If you are experiencing some of the described symptoms for several weeks, you will want to make another appointment with your optometrist or optician. They will be able to further work with you so that you can correct your eyesight.

At Rx-Safety, we want to ensure that you purchase prescription eyewear that helps you see extremely clearly. To learn more about this topic or to browse our collection of prescription eyewear, feel free to visit our website.