Glasses vs Contact Lenses

Prodigious

Does either damage your eyesight more than the other?

I find that wearing glasses can sometimes strain my eyes, whereas I'm comfortable in lenses. However , I thought it was bad to wear glasses for short distance things when they are not needed, such as reading.

My prescription is around -2.5

My question is, if I were to wear either glasses or contact lenses for the 9 - 5 day, which one would do more harm to my eyes?

Thanks

Mousewar

Officially it is considered a myth that wearing your correct prescription has any negative affect on your eyesight.
Your prescription is similar to what mine was and I generally avoided reading when wearing any type of lense as I was able to read comfortably without it. But again, officially, I don't believe there is any indication that it will weaken your eyesight.

Many people with stronger prescriptions than you are forced to wear their glasses and contact lenses for near work as they wouldn't even be able to see that far without them and I don't believe they are all having their sight deteriorate as a result. So it shouldn't make any difference to you either.

Prodigious

I take it you got laser? How did it go? Any night glare or dry eye?

It's just after a day of wearing contacts everything seems extremely blurry compared to what it had been - although that could be purely psychological. What about the whole monovision thing, wearing one contact in one eye? Did that today and had no trouble, but is there any point?

Pawwed Rig

Your optician will be best to advise you. I wear contact lenses mostly but have been advised that ideally I should not wear them for more than 10 hours in the day and should also take days off fairly regularly. I wouldn't think either will make your eyesight better or worse but I have found depth perception to be different between the lenses and glasses.

Mousewar

I had one eye lasered to create monovision.
No side affects at all so far. They say to expect one month of glare/halo's for every diopter of your prescription. Mine was -2.15 so that should have meant 2 months of these side affects but I had zero. Although the eye does feel a bit dry in the morning but you're meant to be on dry drops for several months anyway and I'm only three weeks post surgery. I had Lasek which has slower recovery so I'm not quite 20/20 yet.

Monovision is only really applicable to someone in their forties and over.
Take someone who has had perfect sight their whole life - they will start to need reading glasses at some point in their forties as their lens hardens and prevents the eye focusing up close. Likewise, if someone this age gets laser they will need reading glasses like someone with perfect sight (because that's effectively what they now have). However, a person with a prescription up to about -2.5 or -3 may never need reading glasses. Obviously they need glasses to see in the distance but their up close vision will work well past their forties and possibly until very old age. (Although they will no longer be able to read up close with their distance glasses/or contact lenses, they would need to take them off to see up close, or use one contact lense to create monovision). And people with higher prescriptions will find they need bifocals to see up close and far away when they get into their forties.

Monovision works by adjusting one eye to 0 and the other eye to about -2. The 0 sees in the distance and the -2 reads. However, this is only relevant to someone in their forties and beyond as younger than that and the 0 eye will be able to see far and near as the lens hasn't hardened yet.

So monovision is useless to you now. If you do it with contact lens, the eye that's wearing the lens is probably doing the reading as well. Heck, as it's stronger it might be doing all the reading and the other eye is doing nothing. I am only 29 but the doc suggested I give mono a try since I have the perfect prescription for it. If it doesn't cause me any problems then when I hit my 40s, my untreated eye will take up the reading when my treated eye begins to struggle as the lens hardens. But, I can just go back and have them do the untreated eye if it does cause me any issues. I'll wait and see.

Prodigious

Fair play, thanks alot for the reply.