I was reading a story in which a young character gets a new pair of glasses

[conuly]

If you're actually writing for children, especially young children, then I guess you don't want to scare them off - but if you're writing for adolescents or adults you can afford to be honest.

So here's the thing. Every book or story in which a character gets glasses for the first time - or the second if their first pair is painfully out of date - emphasizes how clear everything is and how they can see so much detail that they had no idea they were missing. And yes, that's a thing. None of them point out that it's a thing that can be less "wondrous" and more "disorienting and distracting" until you've gotten used to seeing that much detail.

None of them mention that if your prescription is strong enough - especially if there's astigmatism involved - your perception will be wonky and you'll have a hard time judging how close and far things are for a day or two.

Definitely none of them mention that you will absolutely get eye strain every time you get a new prescription, and possibly headaches or nausea to accompany it. It goes away, again, in a day or two, but until it does you'll feel like you're cross-eyed at all times. (And with children, every year is a new prescription. They grow, which means their eyeballs grow, and just like that growth is unlikely to suddenly give them perfect vision if they already were nearsighted, it's also unlikely to keep them exactly where they were before.)

Absolutely none of them point out that if you've never worn glasses before you'll have to spend the aforementioned day or two learning how to not see the frames. This is also true if your old frames were much bigger than the new ones, but that, at least, is less likely to apply to children - their faces grow along with the rest of them, necessitating larger frames, so even if they choose a smaller overall style with the new pair the fact that it fits properly may even out.

Moving past the realm of accurate fiction writing, children really should have their first optometrist appointment, at the latest, in the summer before first grade (so, aged 5 or 6 years old). Ideally, they'll have it before they start school, at age 2 or 3, but you can't convince people on that point. They should have a new appointment every year until the age of 20 or so, or every two years if every year really is unfeasible, even if you don't think you see the signs of poor vision. They won't complain that they can't see, because they'll just assume that their vision is normal. This is true even if they wear glasses - you never notice how bad your eyes have gotten until you get a new prescription, and then it's like "whoa".

The screening done at school or at the doctor's office is imperfect at best. You really want the optometrist.

*******************

Humans use local dialects to communicate with honeyguide birds, research shows

The World's Longest-Running Lab Experiment Is Almost 100 Years Old

Does the temperature affect the sound of snow underfoot?

How WhatsApp Took Over the Global Conversation

Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

Comments

[lilysea]

Gosh, in the US schools do eye screening????

[conuly]

Yeah, and hearing checks. At least in NYC.

[lilysea]

Gosh.

In the 1970s/1980s the only health things Australian schools did was

dental check up van that went around all the public schools (primary school - it didn't do treatment, just a routine checkup)

and rubella vaccination for girls (high school, ages 12/13).

Also I've never heard of Australian general practitioner doctors doing routine eye tests on healthy babies/children (as opposed to eg conjunctivitis/pink eye/eye injury)

in AU the first point of call is the optometrist - but it's not routine, you only go if the parents/child/teachers have mentioned vision issues.

[magid]

Data point: I (US, Massachusetts, started grade school in the 1970s) got vision and hearing screenings that were quite basic at school in the first couple of years; they didn’t manage to catch that I was quite myopic by the time I got to 5th grade, well after the screenings had stopped.

I believe the school system required MMR (mumps, measles, rubella) vaccination before starting school at all.

No dental anything associated with school.

[maju]

I staarted school in Australia in the 1950s and these things were true then.

[kareina]

In the 1970's I attended school in Michigan, Texas, and Alaska. All three schools had screening for both eyes and ears. Every year I went home with a note to my parents saying "get this kid's eyes and ears checked", every year I got a new pair of glasses, and I spent an hour sitting in a box pushing buttons if I heard a beep, and trying to repeat words said, sometimes in a dialect of American I didn't speak myself. However, while I had a strong hearing loss, the military audiologist never suggested hearing aids, just reported to my parents how bad it was, and sent us home.

[brokenallbroken]

Data point: I did not receive a vision screening, even for color blindness, in school at any point. Phoenix, AZ in the 80's. Fortunately (?) I was born with good vision, and the myopia developed as I hit puberty, so I was able to articulate not being able to see as well anymore. Same thing had happened to my mom as a child, so she already had an optometrist and knew to take me.

The only health screening I remember the school doing was for scoliosis.

[conuly]

Colorblindness screening is bizarrely uncommon, which is why so many people make it to adulthood and never realize they are colorblind.

[gatheringrivers]

Definitely none of them mention that you will absolutely get eye strain every time you get a new prescription, and possibly headaches or nausea to accompany it.

Then I guess I'm weird, lol. With new single-vision "upgrades", I never did. Now progressives, OTOH....

[crystalpyramid]

Yeah, same actually. I wonder if it depends on the vision issue. I've got pretty pure myopia and every new prescription was just magical clarity, nothing else.

[cactuswatcher]

Yes, those of us with just myopia, are luckier than those with astigmatism. I think my sister had a few problems with new glasses, because of that... As kids, my brother and I just got sharper vision, like focusing a pair of binoculars. I went home from the optometrist with new glasses marveling at being able to see individual leaves at the top of trees.

I got contacts when in college. Having to go back to glasses from contacts briefly before cataract surgery, was a very different experience. Didn't have headaches, but things looked very weird.

[merridia]

Same, I've never had any of the mentioned issues beyond the initial moment of 'whoa...' when I first put on a new pair, and I've been dealing with myopia in the diopter double-digits for a very long time now. Worst thing I associate with getting new glasses is ear pain when the frame doesn't quite fit right and needs adjusting.

[conuly]

Well, screw you all, me and my intense new-glasses vertigo hate you all with the hatred of a thousand burning suns.

[gatheringrivers]

kyrielle has a possible point: did they do the prescription properly?

Sometimes medication side effects will make eyes go wonky during an exam (steroids, I'm looking at you harshly) and resulting in one hellishly weird prescription when the medication side effects wear off.

[conuly]

They definitely do all my prescriptions properly.

It's the astigmatism.

[vvalkyri]

maybe that's it for me too. I am -7 and not really anything else. I was about 20/200 at age 9 when i first got glasses.

[kyrielle]

Yeah, I'm very nearsighted with fairly significant astigmatism, and I don't remember ever having eye strain or a headache or nausea - except once, when I was an adult, and when they checked the glasses and then redid them because the astigmatism piece was wrong....

Things feel a little 'weird' or 'wrong' if I put a new prescription straight on the same day I was using the old one, but not like eye strain or nausea weird, just "something is off can't put my finger on it even though I know it's these glasses" weird. If I wait and put them on the next morning after I've gotten, usually I just shift over with no issues, these days.

[buttonsbeadslace]

I never had trouble with new glasses prescriptions as a kid, but recently I got both a new prescription and new frames with larger lenses, and adjusting to the weirdness of the thick part of the lenses in my peripheral vision really made me dizzy.

[crystalpyramid]

Hmm, we took S to my ophthalmologist when she was 4 or 5, because she'd said something was blurry, and they seemed to think it was mostly unnecessary. Myopia at least doesn't tend to show until later. I should probably schedule another one for her when I do my next annual checkup, since they said we could wait a couple years before the next one and it's now been that.

[conuly]

An opthamologist isn't an optometrist, though, and definitely not a pediatric optometrist.

[vvalkyri]

An opththamologist is, um, more than an optometrist.
Pediatric may be relevant tho.

And I've seen babies with glasses.

[crystalpyramid]

When I search in Philly for a pediatric optometrist I don't get any. I get paid ads for large optometry chains that claim to see ages 4+, and pediatric ophthalmologists.

[crystalpyramid]

OK I can see where the American Ophthalmic Association recommends a real eye exam at age 3. It's fascinating to me that they haven't convinced pediatricians about this. The dentists are doing much better at publicity for early visits.

[conuly]

Lots of people have it in their minds that if you don't see a problem, there is therefore no problem. Which... well, it doesn't work that way, but the corollary is that if the kid isn't reading yet, you can't possibly have a problem.

[crystalpyramid]

Right. And by the time the kid is supposed to be reading, if they're not because they haven't been able to see clearly, you have a big problem!

[dewline]

I vaguely remember getting my first pair of glasses at 10 or 12...?

[armiphlage]

It is extremely obvious that you can tell the temperature by how the snow sounds when walking in it!

[conuly]

Yeah, there's snow out, therefore it's cold.

[armiphlage]

I mean also there's squishing, crunching, and squeaking, depending on how cold it is.

[moon_custafer]

Maybe it was just my eyesight/glasses in particular, but I also remember that whenever I got a new prescription as a kid or teen, it’d take a day or so for the floor to stop looking wrong when I glanced down.

[conuly]

Yeah, it's the visual distortion that comes from correcting for astigmatism.

[pensnest]

I remember that when I got my first pair of glasses, as a tween-ager (I think), I felt as though I had shrunk by about 18 inches. Walking along the street feeling suddenly smaller was very strange!

I remember a friend's brother getting glasses, and being amazed that it was possible to see the leaves on the trees rather than an amorphous green mass.

[vvalkyri]

exactly that last.

[ethelmay]

My family had three instances in a row (my uncle, my sister, and me) of missing early, possible congenital, myopia. (I didn't get glasses until I was nearly ten, and am fairly sure that was either my first experience of seeing well, or the first since toddlerhood.) I was determined to break that trend and took my kids in as early as possible. Surprise, they had the normal onset in second or third grade. I did get my son's amblyopia treated early, anyway.

[althea_valara]

I remember getting a pair of glasses when I was a kid or teenager in which I had to hold onto my mom's hand for dear life, walking down the street, because the street suddenly looked about 2 feet higher than it normally did. I also recall taking big exaggerated steps until I got used to it.

Also, we used to drive down to Florida for vacation, and one year after I got glasses, I was AMAZED that I could see the petals on the flowering trees, because in the past they just looked like orange/pink discs. And yeah, I had no clue that meant my eyesight was bad. Why would I? It was my normal.

[maju]

I've worn glasses since I was three, and my overriding memory of getting new glasses is that they always used to hurt my ears for a while. (This hasn't been the case since I've been an adult.)

[vvalkyri]

I just remember being astonished to realize that trees have leaves.
like, I knew about leaves and all, but if i was far away enough that it was a tree and not individual leaves it was a green blur.

[vvalkyri]

And I remember NONE of those things you list. None.

[conuly]

Well, I did double check by looking up "common side effects new glasses" first.

[kareina]

I was a new/glasses every year kind of kid, and while I remember the wonder at the sudden clarity, and the "how far away is that? penomana, I don't recall ever having eye strain, headaches or nausea from a new pair of glasses, not even when I got the first new par after 15 years of not needing them after having laser surgery to fix my eyes. I think that part only happens for some people.

[conuly]

Well, I did double check by looking up "common side effects new glasses" first.

[cellio]

I don't remember most of those problems from childhood (I've had glasses since no later than age 3), but as an adult, I go through most of that every time. Very frustrating! (Astigmatism, aphakia, glaucoma though that last probably doesn't affect the prescription like the others do.)