Are Cheap Glasses Bad For Your Eyes?

When you are shopping for your first or next pair of glasses, one of the primary factors that you will inevitably consider centers on cost. While it is more exciting to closely examine the features and designs of the glasses you are considering, the price may be the final determinant of choosing one pair of glasses over another. This may lead you to think about purchasing cheaper glasses over more expensive glasses. But when considering those cheap glasses, you may pause due to worries about whether cheap glasses are bad for your eyes. These fears may lead you to purchase a more expensive pair of glasses—even if they place some serious strain on your budget. In this article, we want to explore the question of whether cheap glasses are bad for your eyes.

Are Cheap Glasses Bad For Your Eyes? Generally speaking, the answer is no. Cheap glasses are not going to cause any permanent damage to your eyes themselves. While you may experience some temporary side effects by wearing cheap glasses that do not match your prescription, they are not inherently bad for your eyes. With this understanding in mind, you can make a better decision when purchasing a pair of glasses.

Why Cheap Glasses Will Not Physically Harm Your Eyes

Let’s start with the good news. Regardless of whether you purchase cheap glasses or expensive glasses, the glasses themselves are not going to physically affect your eyes. This is due to the way that glasses help you see more clearly.

To put it simply, glasses correct our vision by ensuring that incoming light rays are focused on the retina. If you are nearsighted or farsighted, for instance, these incoming light rays are focused either too far in or too far back. This off-centered focus results in blurry vision. But with the proper prescription, your glasses refract incoming light so that it is directly focused on your retina. With the proper focus, your brain interprets the incoming light into images that appear clear.

It is with this understanding of how glasses work that you can understand why cheap glasses are not bad for your eyes. Simply put, cheap glasses are not physically affecting your eyes. Rather, they are refracting light differently. Through this refraction process, your brain can more clearly interpret people, objects, and text in front of you. Therefore, just because your glasses are “cheap” doesn’t mean that your eyes are going to be physically harmed. The same is true if you purchase the most expensive glasses on the market today.

Cheap glasses are not going to cause short or long-term damage to your eyes. But having said that, cheap glasses may create some uncomfortable symptoms. This is especially true if your cheap glasses contain the wrong prescription. If you purchase cheap glasses from your local pharmacy, for example, there is a real chance that these glasses do not contain your precise prescription.

Upon wearing these cheap glasses, you may experience some annoying symptoms. Blurry vision is one thing. Along with this, you may start to experience some headaches. While your blurry vision and headaches will go away after some time, these are real symptoms that you may experience. Nonetheless, while these symptoms may cause some discomfort for a short period, they are not going to be “bad” for your eyes.

Cheap glasses may also be made out of lower-quality materials compared to other glasses. These lower-quality materials make your glasses more fragile. As a result, they can break more easily, forcing you to purchase another pair. However, cheap pairs of glasses still leverage glass in their lenses. And there is nothing inherent to cheap glasses that are going to cause damage to your sight.

Making Your Decision

In sum, purchasing cheap glasses is not “bad” for your eyes. By sacrificing on cost, you are not putting your future health at risk. Yes, you may experience some temporary side effects if you are not using the right prescription. Those symptoms, however, will fade away after a few minutes.

Therefore, when you are shopping for a pair of glasses, don’t let the fear of permanent eye damage stop you from purchasing cheap glasses. As always, do your research and reach out to an eyewear professional if you have any further questions.