runormal Wrote:I just put a bunch of money into new glasses luckily i held off ordering contacts.
I have -3.25 Left and -2.75 Right
I've been told to use a weaker presciription, for when i "need" glasses.
I "need" them for driving and playing hockey, but i need contacts for hockey.
What do i do about this?
Hi Runormal,
You're in a bit of a bind. Basically, you should never, ever wear full strength prescription glasses. Not if you want to improve. Throw your full strength glasses in the bin.
You can wear contacts but they will have to be weak enough for you to retain whatever improvements you've made but strong enough to be useful. Nancy has experience with contacts, she could probably tell you which ones to order. With your current contacts, can you see 20/20 out of them?
If you can see about 20/40, they'd be perfect. I have no idea where you could order reduced strength contacts though. From previous discussions I've read here, you can't get them as easily as reduced strength glasses.
Take charge of your vision yourself, using the doctor as a consultant -- they're YOUR eyes. Try each set of contacts and see which ones give you 20/40 on the chart to help you decide which to wear. Like glasses, too weak and you'll strain; too strong and you won't improve. Glasses are better than contacts because you can easily take them off unless you really need them. You can get very inexpensive glasses at http://www.zennioptical.com/ with just the prescription and PD (pupil distance, measured between the centers of your pupils when looking straight ahead, in millimeters). I got several pairs of different strengths to step down with, or drive in different light conditions. Always make sure you can see well enough to drive safely!
When I'm sure I'll never need a pair of glasses again because they're too strong for me, I have a personal celebration, then give them to my behavioral optometrist for someone else. I also did this with all my many strengths of soft contacts a few years ago when I moved to only glasses.
You should be able to tell if you're straining, "trying to see". A big discovery of people new to the Bates Method is how much they've been straining their vision, often for decades -- over time you want to learn to let this strain go and relax your visual system. Keep glasses and contacts to a minimum if you can do so without straining -- if you're straining, you're not helping yourself.
Only you can tell if wearing your contacts for a short time is hurting you. See how you feel when you take them off (Whew! My eyes are giving a sigh of relief...). You may find that you can use glasses for part of this time later on. Don't try to do everything at once.
The only contacts I've seen over the internet are also in boxes of 6, but they're so cheap I didn't care. You could get single pairs from an eye doctor but it would probably cost more. As I said, I gave a lot of unused boxes of different strengths to my behavioral optometrist for other people when I stopped wearing contacts for good.
Look at your life and your habits honestly, then decide how you want to proceed with NVI now, and refine it as you go along and find what works and what doesn't. Everyone is an individual so what worked for me might give you some hints, but you'll have to fine-tune it for yourself.
Sarah, hi -- I've written my vision story (which is still evolving) many times, here and on Effortless Vision and on my blog. I wore hard contacts of -10 or so until 2001, when I first saw a behavioral optometrist. He started me on soft lenses with no astigmatism correction (I had been wearing -1.25 for this) and I came down to about -5 or -6 before I stopped wearing contacts altogether. He told me it was possible and started me on the path, and I will be forever grateful. So yes, the original hard contact lenses I had came from an optometrist, as did the later successive pairs of soft ones, before I started ordering them myself. Hope that helps -- find a behavioral optometrist to work with if you can.
