I always struggled with school work when I was younger. The words just seem to swim in front of my eyes, and I found it hard to concentrate on the page. It wasn't until much later that I realised that I was long-sighted. As soon as I got prescription glasses, I suddenly found it much easier to read and actually started to enjoy reading for relaxation. I wish I'd gotten glasses so much earlier. This blog is all about getting glasses for long-sighted kids and has some tips on knowing when a kid should be taken to the optometrist for an eye test.
Sometimes your sight degrades equally across both eyes; sometimes the sight in one eye degrades while the sight of the other stays the same. This can become a problem for people who wear contacts or glasses since they can end up seeing well through one eye and poorly through the other. Unfortunately, people often fail to notice this disparity in eye strength since the eye that has remained at the same strength still allows them to see clearly, but favouring one eye can be problematic and isn't a long-term solution.
Here are just three signs that your vision has degraded in one eye but not the other.
1. Headaches
Changes in vision often occur slowly enough for them to be imperceptible, but headaches are one of the most common early warning signs that a prescription change is necessary. When one eye is weaker, your brain will be having to work with two disparate inputs, and this can easily lead to headaches and feelings of disorientation. Headaches can also occur when both eyes are seeing through underpowered lenses, but you're more likely to experience an accompanying sense of disorientation when the sight of only one eye has degraded. You may even find yourself feeling slightly nauseous, especially when you're moving around a lot instead of simply sitting still. In any case, a visit to your optometrist is going to be appropriate.
2. Difficulty with Depth Perception
One of the main reasons why animals have two eyes is to enable depth perception. Essentially, your brain is able to compare the small differences between the input of each eye in order to gauge how far away certain objects are. This is why people with only one eye often experience problems with depth perception.
If one eye is now using a lens without the right prescription, you may notice that you also have issues with depth perception. This is likely to occur when you need to take in lots of visual information, such as when you are driving or walking.
3. Double Vision
If the prescriptions for both eyes have become too weak, it's likely that you will experience blurred vision; if only one eye requires a stronger prescription, it's likely that you will experience double vision instead. The difference is that you will still be able to see an image clearly with double vision, but that image will appear to have a blurrier image surrounding it — it will look somewhat like a shadow. Even though you can still see the object clearly, the presence of double vision indicates a problem with your prescription.
Most people will already see their optometrists once a year to keep track of any changes in their vision, but it's always worth going more frequently if the signs above present themselves so you can get the right prescription lenses.
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