New glasses + eye strain

daywalker

I received new glasses yesterday and was wondering, since I am feeling tight muscles/eye strain in my eyes, does it take long for the eyes to get used to the changes. its been so long since my prescription has changed that i can't remember how long it took for the old pair. would it help to take off the glasses and rest my eyes for a while or would that just prolong the problem?

thanks,
daywalker

Squiggle

Definitely takes a few days to get used to the new prescription. I changed in September and it was a week before I felt fully comfortable with the new prescription.

carveone

Depends on the glasses I guess but I will say that the labs aren't infallible. They get stuff wrong all the time (my last three glasses have been wrong in some way - wrong PDs, inverted cylinder angles, wrong cylinders. Pathetic).

Keep all your prescriptions. Your optician is required by law to give them to you. That way you can discuss each change with your optician and your optician will also be able to see if they screwed up making your last glasses. You'll also know if your eyesight has stabilised if you ever want laser done.

If you are unhappy bring your glasses back (or to another optician if you're the suspicious type) and get them measured (with those cool machines, not the little eyeglass thing which can be rather inaccurate and takes ages). Make sure the prescription is right and the PDs (pupillary distance - the distance from one pupil centre to the other) are right. Specsavers used to get the centres wrong all the time; in fact I don't think they used to even measure them. Wrong PDs will cause eyestrain even though things look ok. On prescriptions greater than -3 I'd get the pantascopic tilt checked too. This is the angle the glasses make to your face. If it's too flat, reading can be difficult (not to mention walking down steps!)