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Reduced Prescription Lenses

If you are nearsighted, reduced prescription lenses will produce less eye strain when seeing in the daylight or looking at nearby objects. If you are farsighted, reduced prescription lenses will produce less eye strain while looking at distant objects.

Why Reduced Prescription Lenses are Important

Your examination for new prescription lenses is done in a darkened room. You normally will have been given atropine eye drops to paralyze the ciliary muscle to freeze the lens in a relaxed state. Because the ciliary muscle is energized by the same nerve that controls the size of your pupils, the pupils also widen or dilate and are prepared for the darkened examination room. This is why you need sunglasses when you leave your eye doctor's office on a sunny day.

For those with myopia or nearsightedness, the strength of your prescription is determined by viewing letters at a distance of 20 feet in a darkened room. For all intents and purposes, focusing at 20 feet is the same a focusing at a far distance object.

You probably already know that you can see better up close than you can see faraway objects. So, a prescription for seeing far distant object clearly will be too strong for seeing nearby objects clearly.

You may know that you see a bit more clearly in the distance on a sunny day than on a cloudy day. This is because your pupils are smaller when there is a lot of light.

You may be familiar with a pinhole camera. It is basically a box with a pinhole on one side. On the opposite side is a tissue for observation or film for recording. When light enters the pinhole it travels in a straight line to the opposite side. If the pinhole is small enough the image formed is a very good representation of the objects in front of the pinhole camera.

This is illustrated in the drawing below.

You eye operates like a camera. When the pupil is small on a bright, sunny day the amount of correction you need to see clearly is small. On a darker day when your pupil is open wider, your eyeglasses play a more important role in focusing properly.

Eyeglass lens strength which is determined in a darkened room is too strong for a brightly lit area. Thus, a prescription for seeing in the dark is too strong for seeing in bright daylight.

So, a prescription that is proper for seeing distant objects in a darkened environment is too strong for seeing under any other conditions. A too strong prescription produces eye strain and causes further strain on already chronically tight eye muscles.

For those with farsightedness or hyperopia, your prescriptions are designed to allow you to see clearly close up. For seeing distant objects while driving or doing anything other than close up work, your prescription is also too strong and produces eye strain.

Helping chronically tense eye muscles relax is why reduced prescription lenses is important. Otherwise, you eye muscles tense even more to try to compensate for the overly strong eyeglass lenses.

Where to Get Reduced Prescription Lenses

Your eye doctor can prescribe reduced prescription lenses. But, not all eye doctors will do this.

Check which your current eye doctor to see if he or she is willing to prescribe reduced prescription lenses. If not, you can look on the Internet for eye doctors who practice natural vision therapy. They will normally be happy to prescribe reduced prescription lenses.

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