Do glasses heal your eyes?

If you need glasses but choose not to wear them, some people assume that such a decision will make your vision worse, but that's not the case!

Corrective glasses help to compensate mismatches in corneal shape, thus helping people to see clearly and reduce the strain on their eyes.

 Not wearing glasses doesn't make your vision worse, but it does force your eyes to work harder! 

Having "poor eyesight" isn't a clear diagnosis of a single condition, as there are dozens of situations and scenarios that can lead to impaired vision. 

Growing up, blurred or unclear vision may be evidence that you are nearsighted (myopia) or farsighted (hyperopia), have an astigmatism, or perhaps a lazy eye. 

Myopia and hyperopia are most common forms of vision problems, but astigmatism is also quite a common problem. 

These vision impairments are caused by the shape and size of the cornea in relation to the eyeball. The cornea is where the light and image are focused allowing us to see, but when the light doesn't focus properly, the images will not be clear.

In the past, people considered vision problems to be genetic in nature, but research has shown that our vision is a combination of genetics and behavioral factors, such as reading, excessive screen time, and eye strain.

For most of these basic vision problems, glasses can help to compensate for differences in the corneal shape, helping us see in clarity and without straining our eyes. Without glasses, one would be forced to squint to see clearly, leading to headaches and an inability to focus. 

However, forcing your eyes to work harder doesn'tmean that you are making your vision any worse, despite the negative and uncomfortable side effects. 

Beyond the basic problems of blurred vision this answer gets more complicated.

With conditions like lazy eye (amblyopia) or crossed eyes (strabismus), corrective glasses can force the eyes to "work" and bend back to their appropriate shape, which can normalize your vision. In this case, choosing not to wear corrective glasses can make the problem worse, or make the condition permanent.

Other types of vision problems tend to occur as we get older, such as cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration. Similarly, these issues, which make it hard to utilize central and focused vision, can be compensated for with images, but they won't advance or worsen at a faster rate without glasses.

Choosing to ignore such problems will lead to eyestrain, just as it does for blurred vision in children , and that eyestrain can cause headaches, double vision, and trouble focusing, all of ehich make it harder to see. 

It is important to note that most vision problems are anatomical and physiological in nature, so glasses and contacts correct our vision, thus preventing strain. However glasses don't fix the root of these problems; they merely act as an eefective tool to mitigate the symptoms. 

Conditions like cataract and glaucoma can also be treated by various procedures and medications, while more invasive procedures like laser eye surgery can be a nearly permanent solution. 

Basically if you don't feel like pulling out your reading glasses to read the menu at dinner, a bit of straining might give you a headache, but it certainly won't damage your vision any further!