If you wear glasses, how long have you been wearing them?

For the record, I consider most of the babies in this video "severe" and/or "too young" cases.

Pretty sure I've been wearing them younger than you. I have extreme astigmatism.

r2 Do you have problems seeing/driving at night?

Since I was in 5th grade, so about. The optician I went to was a perv. I never realized I was older. He would grind his junk into me as he examined my eyes, fit my glasses, and whatever else he did. I could tell he wasn't wearing underwear. It was creepy but I couldn't figure out why. I can still feel his weiner on my thigh. Gross.

I started wearing glasses around age 2, when I had a strabismus that was corrected via a patch and surgery, was glasses-free for a few years, and then started wearing them again just after my seventh birthday. I tried wearing contacts in my teens -- first, gas permeable (rigid), then soft -- but I couldn't bear having something sitting on my eyeball.

My eyesight is terrible and macular degeneration runs in the family.

R3 No, because glasses corrects it. Without them everything is totally blurred though, can't see anything clearly at all.

Began wearing glasses when I was 55...13 years ago. Still only wear them for reading. I first found that I needed glasses when it was a struggle to open my combination lock at the gym. Had my eyes checked, and have had glasses ever since.

Is your non-optometrist prone to exaggeration, OP? I can’t imagine why anyone would make a fuss over the age at which you were prescribed glasses.

r6 I'm starting to have problems seeing while driving at night even with my glasses. I've got an eye appointment tomorrow and definitely intend to bring that up. I've never been diagnosed with astigmatism.

You're reading that book upside down.

I'm doing no such thing.

Not you...the book.

I think since I was 12. I wore contacts for about 25 years. But then I got old and developed presbyopia and needed multifocal glasses. And they make multifocal contacts, but I also have astigmatism and multifocal toric contacts SUCK!

So I had to give up contacts about five years ago and go back to glasses full-time. I looked into Lasik, but they told me it wouldn’t treat the presbyopia, and I’d still need to wear readers. And for a period of time, I was wearing contacts and readers, and that was just stupid. I hate readers. I hate taking them on and off and losing them. I’d rather just wear glasses.

But, if I have to wear glasses, I’m gonna wear the nicest glasses I possibly can. I have a very elaborate system that is bordering on ridiculous. I get my eyes examined at the cheapest place possible (America’s Best. $99 for two exams a year for three years. Can’t really beat that).

Then I go into luxury optometrist offices and browse the designer frames. I’ll try them on, tell the sales person I’m thinking about it, and then, when I find a pair that I love and fit, I’ll snap a quick pic of the size and model on the inside of the stem.

You can buy almost any of those frames on eBay for a couple hundred bucks instead of $1000+.

Then I go to a local place called replace-a-lens and get their equivalent of Crizal lenses. I usually buy two pairs of frames at once and I’ll get one or both lensed at the same time, or one, so I have a pair to wear while the other is getting made.

Then the final step is, I’ll send in one pair at a time to a place that makes custom clip on sunglasses and will match the color of the frame.

it can cost around 700-800 bucks for two pairs of glasses (which is still a bargain compared to the $3000 or more that the optometrist wants). and then, if I really like them, I’ll wear them for maybe three or four years and just keep getting them relensed.

I’m a cheap but stylish bitch.

Wait. No. I’m a cheap and blind but stylish bitch.

r8 The logic train they seemed to be following was that eyesight, in general, gets worse as we age. The topic of people who already wear glasses came up. Then I was asked how long I'd been wearing them, and it took off from there.

I’ve been told I needed to wear glasses since I was 14 I didn’t start periodically wearing them until I was 28, and I didn’t start wearing them full-time until I was 35.

r11 Thank you for this. Your elaborate system is oddly helpful considering my appointment is tomorrow and I need to get new frames. I love a bitch that can bargain. Not mad at it!

Oh yeah! And at my last fucking eye exam, I discovered I’m at the start of developing cataracts!!

So maybe eyeball replacement surgery is in the future and then maybe I won’t need glasses at all.

You’re welcome, OP. Replace-a-lens is an online store as well and I used to live in another city and actually trusted them to replace the lenses and mail them back to me. You just have to put a piece of tape over the blank lenses and have a friend use a sharpie to put a dot over your pupils, and then they will have your PD and know exactly where to cut them. I never had a problem. Then I moved across the country and they’re actually IN the city I moved to, so now I can just go to their store.

I definitely recommend clip on sunglasses. I tried prescription sunglasses for a very short period of time. But I was constantly leaving them behind. For some reason, the clip-ons are easier to keep track of and then you don’t need a second pair of prescription sunglasses.

Plus, I don’t care what people say.

Clip-ons are fucking cool. They make me feel like a 1960s movie star.

Why don't you run the non-optometrist's opinions past your actual optometrist, OP, and get the facts instead of the equivalent of social media advice?

r17 Are you one of those precious souls who believe people who post things like this are looking for genuine medical advice from DLers? I'm just making casual conversation/discussion, dear.

I distinctly remember when I was about 12, the optometrist did the exam, and then looked at me and said “wow! Your eyesight is really not very good. You shouldn’t be driving!”

And I remember looking at her and saying “I’m only 12. I don’t drive.”

I believe babies can benefit from glasses. Every time you get your eyes examined, when you look into the weird machine with a hot air balloon, they’re already measuring your prescription. By the time you go in to see the doctor and do the “which one is better, one or two? One or two? One or two?” they already know basically what your prescription is in they’re just fine turning it.

Why make a little kid suffer if they can’t see? Just let them wear glasses.

Oh, I'm sorry, OP. I didn't realise this was just a WAA! GIVE ME ATTENTION! thread.

In that case, yes, you really are Helen Keller and you will probably be blind soon, at which point you will at least not be here.

And OP, if it makes you feel any better, not only have I been wearing glasses since I was a kid, I have to wear one hearing aid. I have close to 80% hearing loss in my right ear (or 80 decibels. I’m still not sure if those mean the same thing.)

So when I was a kid, I had a really cool big hearing aid. Now they’re very tiny and discreet and it’s so small that most people don’t even notice it. It’s just in one year, so I am not deaf (but I’m very easy to sneak up on).

When I take the glasses and hearing aid off I have called it “Helen Kellering”.

Probably got it as a kid from a viral infection. It’s nerve damage. There’s no damage to my inner ear structure and something like a cochlear implant wouldn’t work.

But imagine how cool and popular I was as a kid! 😜

R17 needs to fuck off

I have been wearing glasses since I was 12. I really needed them at 10 1/2 but my parents wouldn’t take me to the optometrist because they thought I just wanted glasses because other kids had glasses.

I could no longer see the board in the classroom, movies were blurry in the theaters, and road signs were just a blur.

I’m in my mid-thirties now.

I think I must have been about 4. I'm now 30. Everyone in my immediate family wears glasses.

My mother scared the shit out of me when she showed up at school unannounced and I was called to the principals office. She just decided that she was taking me to the optometrist in the middle of the day, but we hadn’t even discussed it.

Her sister was dying of breast cancer when this happened, so walking from my classroom to the office was the scariest walk ever. I was absolutely convinced she was pulling me out of school to tell me that my aunt died.

Since I was in my early 50's I've needed glasses to read fine print - basically anything closer than a metre I need glasses to see clearly, anything further away I can see fine, so dont need them for driving or in general, just for reading

I started wearing glasses about age 4.

Have a lazy eye. And am near sighted in my good/strong eye.

Wearing glasses is part of who I am.

Don't really have much problem driving at night. But I also eat lots of carrots. That helps tremendously with the night vision. Vitamin A supplements and other foods rich in Vitamin A didn't make much difference with my eyesight. So, apparently it's the beta-carotene in carrots that helps with the my eyesight.

R28, I’m sure you’ll be fine but a friend of mine got a juicer and started juicing carrots. Every day. Until she turned orange. 🤭

[quote]When I take the glasses and hearing aid off I have called it “Helen Kellering”.

I love this.

R30, well, 99% of the time it sucks. But 1% of the time, if I’m on a plane with a crying baby, it’s fucking awesome.

I started with reading glasses at about age 45 and bifocals at age 65. I have astigmatism which seems to have gotten a bit worse. So far, my night vision is still pretty good.

I got mine at age 14. I will be 64 in September.

R32, I think you’re the second person to mention astigmatism and night vision. I’ve had astigmatism my entire life and I hardly ever get any different results when I get my eyes examined. Like maybe one or 2° off the previous prescription, which I just chalk up to standard error.

But I’ve also never had problems with night vision, so I googled it, and was surprised to find out that it’s a problem. I guess maybe I do have problems with night vision? And I’ve had it so long that I just didn’t even realize it?

I definitely see starbursts around lights at night, but I thought everybody did.

The more you know 💫

Oooh, but I do have a terrible, dangerous, horrifying secret, that would freak all the optometrists out.

When I used to wear contacts, I was able to wear multi day contacts. They were FDA approved to wear for up to a week without taking out, but every optometrist said DON’T DO THAT! Take them out every night.

They were supposed to be good for a week. Sometimes I didn’t take them out for a month. Rewetting drops and I was good to go. I never got a corneal ulcer or any of the other problems like an eye infection that they warn you about. But even I know that wearing weeklong lenses for 30 days without ever taking them out or cleaning them was a really bad idea!

Any contact lens wearers ever take a lens out and put it in their mouth to moisten it? I’ve seen plenty of people do that and that’s where I draw the line.

OPs fine, it’s the “friend” who’s the EST.

First grade. Had no idea I wasn't seeing normally. Of course being a kid parents don't tell you anything but as a teen we passed a medical building and said to my Mom, I remember going there for my eye exams and then the truth came out. My eyes got so bad so fast they thought I had cancer and that building was where the specialist was. Luckily I was fine, just terrible vision with the classic astigmatism to boot. I remember getting the glasses on a Friday night and when the optician put them on, it was like I had been living in a different world. Never could go to the one hour glasses place, always had to order them, and Inquired about laser years later but was told twice that they couldn't correct enough, so I'd always wear glasses, so what's the point?

I started about age 10 or 11. The quack doctor actually prescribed me BIFOCALS at that age. Probably I'd been complaining that I couldn't see the blackboard clearly. Anyway, I wore them until my last year in college. Then I got hard contact lenses. Loved them for the ease of inserting and taking out. However, they definitely were sensitive to any bit of dust or grit, You could feel it scratching your eyeball. I moved to NYC when I was 21 and almost immediately the amount of dirt and grit in NYC made hard contacts impossible for me, but I was a "mind over matter" person and just wandered myopically around NYC for the next 2 1/2 years. Finally I started dating someone and realized that if was going to be able to find him in a bar, I'd need to be able to see him, so I went to the eye doctor and got soft contact lenses and a pair of glasses. Soft contacts were more comfortable than hard, but still not pain-free, and a pain to get in and out- plus disinfection, solutions, etc.

Finally at around 30, I went back to glasses full time, except when going out to the bars on a Saturday night. By the time I was 40, had completely stopped using contacts. Like most near-sighted people, I take off my glasses to read small print. But I need a modified pair of distance glasses to read on a computer or to read music an a music rack. I guess I have worn glasses for decades. Sad, because my eyes are probably my most attractive physical feature. I generally get rimless frames for my glasses. They are more fragile and prone to getting lost or breaking, but I don't like the limits that rims put on your full field of vision, and the right kind of rimless frame can be flattering for my face and eyes. My prescription has been very stable for the past 20 years. I save old glasses when I'm retested, and I can still see clearly with my old pairs.

Freaky stuff does happen with time - (take note, young DL readers). I have the very beginnings of cataracts, but surgery is probably a decade away. I have also been diagnosed with something called pigment dispersal syndrome. Apparently little bits of the pigment of my iris have been flaking off or flaked off in the past and just float around in my aqueous humor. This only becomes a problem if they collect at the point where fluid enters or leaves the eyeball. If they collect there, they cause eyeball pressure to increase greatly, like glaucoma, and you can go blind fairly quickly at that point, unless they recognize it happening and if eye pressure relieving drops work for you.

[quote]I remember getting the glasses on a Friday night and when the optician put them on, it was like I had been living in a different world.

Did you have the “holy shit! You mean you can actually SEE the leaves on a trees??” moment? I remember being kind of unnerved at HOW much detail I could see. Didn’t like it at first. It was disturbing.

Yes, it's amazing how I had no idea what the world really looked like.

Since 7th grade. After I got fitted for my typical boys' glasses and frames of that moment (dark brown on top, translucent on the bottom), my mother took me out for lunch and then shopping for records. I've always liked wearing glasses. I look more like myself, IMO, with glasses on. I tried contacts once, and hated them. When I lost one in the bed of someone I'd gone home with one NYE, I went back to glasses as soon as I got home.

Today, I have 3 pairs: a thin black wire across the top for the computer, a clear plastic "preppy" frame for everyday, and dark tortoise with dark green lenses for sunglasses. I LOVE my Rx sunglasses in particular. Things look so nice on sunny days.

I got my first glasses at 47. I am now 60. For the first several years I only wore them while driving. I then bought cheap Kroger reading glasses. Just before the Pandemic I visited an optometrist. When I looked thru my records I thought my glasses were about 6 or 7 years old. It turns out they were 11 years old!. So I got new glasses and was told I had the early development of cataracts. Within the last year I started wearing them while watching TV. I could not see the scrolls very well on a 32" TV from less than 10 feet away.

Started with reading glasses (1.5) when I was in grad school.

Now I am in my 60s, and my reading glasses are 3.25. I also wear 1.75s that I need when driving and when watching TV.

I'll likely need cataracts surgery in the next 3 years. The eyes are generally getting less focused (as if I need to clean the lenses on my glasses every day or so).

Fortunately, I can still buy over-the-counter lenses. My husband, on the other hand, has been wearing glasses since he was 2 and his numbers now are 7+. His glasses are quite expensive.

My Trumptard brother boasts that he hasn't had his prescription updated for 30 years because it will "weaken his eyes" "those optometrist just want to steal his money and make him go blind" He's spent over 10K in bodywork to repair his car from multiple accidents just this year. Can't argue with a "critical thinker".

I needed them in 7th grade because I remember sitting in the back row in Math class with a quiz written on the blackboard. I went up to the teachers desk to turn mine in and I noticed the numbers were different and my answers were wrong. I was an A student so failing a quiz might have triggered something. As it was, being a complete moron, didn’t make the connection that I needed glasses. It wasn’t until the next Fall when I had my annual basic eye exam in the nurses office (do they still do that?) that it was discovered. Now that I think of it, I never had an annual doctor’s visit/physical exam when I was a kid. It just wasn’t a thing. Between a doctor visit for an ear ache when I was six and then a physical for university when I was 17, I never went to the doctor.

Being near sighted, I just take off my glasses to read. I did finally get some prescription computer glasses for that arms-length distance. The only times glasses are annoying is when they steam up in the winter (masks made it worse) and a time when I was doing a lot of sailing. Salt spray is very sticky.