New glasses giving me a headache!

MeepZero

So I got new glasses, I can see better and clearer than ever. Its great!

Except for the headaches.

According to my doctor, I have a particularly strong prescription in the way of my eyes having such a huge variance between them. Something about my right eye being much weaker and having astigmatism while the left eye is noticeably better. The only thing is after wearing the glasses almost all the time for the past 4 days I've been experiencing progressively stronger and stronger pain around my eyes. I had my prescription done by a guy (who had only been doing eye care pretty recently, maybe around a year or so) at Pearl Vision and then found a guy down the street that has DECADES of experience in glasses. I've been talking to the guy that did my glasses but I don't exactly feel like I'm getting my questions answered terribly well about the eye strain. He is recommending I go to some therapist for a consultation so I can find out if I need to do any kind of exercises with my eyes, which is OK I guess, but I really just want my head to stop hurting after wearing the damn things.

So my question, oh Arcadian Hivemind, is this kind of thing normal for someone who has never worn glasses? Is this akin to muscle fatigue and I just need to let my eyes strengthen to the point that it doesn't hurt so much? How cut and dry is the process of the prescription? Is it something that can be screwed up easily?

bowen

To a degree. If it's getting progressively worse it sounds like eye strain (I'm not a doctor though).

Talk to your doctor and find out if that's the case and go back to the shop and get them fixed under warranty. Headaches from new glasses usually mean someone fucked up, or your other glasses were just really, really, really horrible.

Bionic Monkey

You've never worn glasses before? Then yeah, this is pretty normal, especially if it's really that strong of a prescription. I've had new-glasses-headaches last upwards of two weeks before I got used to them. If it's only been four days, If you can hold out, I'd give it another week before really getting worried that something is wrong. Or at the very least, wait out the next three days.

bowen

Yeah that's what I was figuring.

Though, it seems like he's worn glasses before so it's a bit odd that it'd be that huge of a shift. But 1-2 weeks is a good period to do it unless the headache is especially bad.

Usagi

It's very possible it's muscle fatigue.

You don't realize it, but when you wear glasses you'll very often flex muscles in your face to keep them in position, especially if you go from not wearing glasses to wearing them all the time. I'll regularly get headaches like this if I go from wearing my contact lenses constantly to wearing glasses all the time, and after a couple of days of taking breaks I'm usually OK. Especially if you're using a computer, it's really important to look away and focus on something in the distance occasionally, and I like to take my glasses off every couple of hours and just let my face relax.

I'd still talk to the guy who did your glasses, mention that they get uncomfortable and he may be able to adjust them to fit better.

MeepZero

bowen wrote: »

Yeah that's what I was figuring.

Though, it seems like he's worn glasses before so it's a bit odd that it'd be that huge of a shift. But 1-2 weeks is a good period to do it unless the headache is especially bad.

Apologies, may not of made that part clear enough. I have not worn glasses before, or rather, I did for a very short time about 10 years ago, but got lazy about it and stopped wearing them.

bowen

Ah then yes, that's the case, give it 2 weeks and if they're either unbearable before then, or it hasn't gone away, talk to your doctor. But you can always call them up to put your mind at ease.