Can Glasses Hurt Your Eyes?
Glasses can not hurt your eyes if you are an adult. They may be harmful to children. In adults, wearing glasses will not cause any permanent changes to the eye. Glasses can neither permanently correct vision nor damage vision. Children with developing vision should not wear glasses that are not prescribed to correct an individual vision problem.
Jump Ahead
- Wearing the Wrong Prescription
- Children Under Eight Are at Risk
- Can You Grow Dependent On Glasses?
- Resources
Wearing the Wrong Prescription
Glasses are shaped to correct specific eyesight problems. Though wearing glasses that are not personally prescribed to correct a unique vision problem will not damage your eyes, it can cause eyestrain and headaches. [1]
Children under Eight Are at Risk
Vision in children generally develops in the brain between the ages of seven to nine. Because of this, not wearing glasses when necessary or wearing the wrong prescription habitually could cause a condition known as amblyopia, more commonly known as ‘lazy eye.’ [2]
Amblyopia occurs in the central vision of one eye when the nerve pathway does not develop correctly. Wearing the wrong prescription will present an out-of-focus image to the brain, which could cause it to ignore the images from that eye during the developmental stage. [3]
The risk for damage to the eyes depends on the use time and the child’s age. [4]
Can You Grow Dependent on Glasses?
Since glasses do not cause permanent eye changes, you cannot grow physically dependent on them. It may seem you are growing dependent on your glasses because you become accustomed to seeing more clearly. [5]
Resources
- [1] Mayo Clinic Health Care System – “Ophthalmology Myths & Facts.”
- [2] [4] New York Times – “Taking a Dim View.”
- [3] National Eye Institute – “Amblyopia – Lazy Eye.”
- [5] The University of Utah Health – “5 Vision Myths Debunked.”
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