Hi guys After yet another trip to the opticians which ended in the all-too-familiar "your prescription has really gone up quite a lot, lets give you even thicker glasses" I'm left wondering if perhaps spending hours reading music every day has had an impact? I'm now pretty short sighted (-5.75, -5.25) and have always worn glasses, but since becoming a more serious flautist, say in the past 2 years, my eyes have really gone up the scale. So, my question is - has anyone else experienced worsening eyesight as a result of playing a lot of music, or am I just trying to come up with a reason from thin air?!
Thanks

Maybe it's just one of those things, but I never needed glasses until I started seriously playing the violin... and the more 'advanced' I get - ie, the more notes per page! - the stronger my prescription gets.

Using a computer lots is somewhat associated with worsening eyesight, as is doing lots of close work and reading. So it could be having an impact.

More likely its to do with your age.

The other factor to consider is that having increasingly strong lenses can encourage your vision to become worse. This is why its definitely bad to wear lenses stronger than you need.

But rest assured, you're not that short sighted yet. I was about -5 when I was 7, and am up to -10 now. My vision is now so bad that I no longer worry about having stronger lenses all the time, I honestly can't see much difference between blurry and blurrier!


One thing I have found, however, is that having poor vision (even with my glasses it can't be perfectly corrected) makes sight reading that much harder! Or maybe that's just my excuse!

Thanks for you input Wow, -10 is very strong - that's nearly double mine! And I really can't see anything without specs! Is it common for prescriptions to go up a lot in teenage years? I don't think my glasses are stronger than I need, because I'm really struggling with my current pair which are 0.5 and 0.75 weaker than the new ones, according to the very friendly but statistic-loving optician Oh, and a note about the close-work - I've been given reading glasses as well, to wear when I'm studying (A-levels) to see if we can slow the progression, but I'm not sure I'll be able to use them for music because it's a bit far away - I'll have to see when I get them I'd not thought about using eyesight as an excuse for my terrible sight-reading! Do you think I qualify to do so?

I'm about the same as Tamsin and can't recommend it. Good quality specs cost me a bomb.

I focus about 2 inches beyond the tip of my nose.

Nice idea but I think my poor sight reading is down to poor sight reading, not poor sight.

Extreme myopia is amongst other things caused by genetic background and can lead to other delights. I now have glaucoma and will at some point develop cataracts. Luckily both are easily treated these days. So what am I doing on this computer? What a fool.

I'm about the same as Pushpull and Tamsin (c. -10). I hate it - but I've been pretty myopic since I was born. Certainly, prescriptions change a lot in teenage years. Lots of book reading and computer use is more likely to cause problems than music reading - I doubt that you are doing more than an hour or so a day of the latter.

Fixing your focus for extended periods is the problem. Anything that gives your eyes lots of variation in focal length is good.

And my sight reading isn't as good as it should be; I think this IS due to myopia - I'm just too slow on the uptake.

I'm just starting to be aware that when I'm tired and if there are a lot of notes squashed into a space, especially on leger lines , my eyes seem to blurr

Maybe it's time for an eye test......


But most of the time my sight is fine!

I was told by my optician that my poor eyesight was caused by me reading a lot.
I'm still a bookworm and have a prescription that's -16.something in each eye, and I have something else wrong with the retina of my right eye which essentially means I have no fine vision in that eye, i.e. I can't see to read out of that eye, so if you're sharing my music then I *have* to switch places so that you're on my left (try reading music with your right eye closed and check how difficult it is to share with someone on your right!). After a couple of times when I've explained it, most of the people I sing with will change places automatically (if we need to) when sharing music, which is really lovely of them! I think I need to train my flute teacher though, as he's usually a bit baffled if he picks up his flute to play something in a lesson and I trundle around so that I'm on his right and can see the music!

I'll confess that I can usually win most "I have the worst eyesight" competitions as I genuinely don't know anyone with a stronger prescription than mine (six-months, take-them-out-overnight contact lenses from France, glasses with high-index glass lenses from Germany and lenses about 5 times more expensive than the frames...) and only one eye that has correctable vision!

re: prescriptions changing when you're a teenager - mine jumped from -5 to -8 in less than a year when I was about 13, if that helps?

My last jump was from -8.5 to -10. And that was when I was 19, and had vision that was supposed to be settling down!

Re. the cost of strong lenses, I get free NHS eye tests, and a small amount of money towards the cost of the glasses (I think it was about £13 last time) by virtue of having a so-called 'complex perscription'. I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with my eyesight apart from the myopia, so surely everyone with vision as bad as mine here should be equally entitled?

I never used to worry about my vision being so bad, but lately I find that its now so useless, I live in constant fear of anything happening to my glasses. I'm also not looking forward to starting work and persuading someone to pay for perscription safety glasses... but I can't wear them at the same time as my normal glasses: They slide off the end of my nose because there isn't enough space!

Crikey, I feel bad now for complaining! Sorry everyone! I'm not too worried about my eyes in themselves, I just wondered if there could be an underlying factor that is making them get steadily worse, but I don't think I need to be too concerned, reading some of these posts Thanks for your input though, it's been really interesting

I found when I was growing up that my eyes would be realtively steady for five years-ish, and then they would go down hill rapidly for a couple of years, and then stabalise again, and so on. Having said that, I've just had an eye test and been told I can keep my existing glasses again, it turns out these ones are from 2005 which is amazing! My eyes had changed slightly so I will probably need new ones next time but by then I'll probably be ready for something new anyway, if they havent' fallen apart!

My eyesight is very bad but I don't know how much. I needed glasses after a couple of years playing the piano

Yes I get free eye tests but the cost of lenses is huge (due to the fact that I'm not prepared to wear something which look like a pair of bottle bottoms). If I didn't wear specs I could have a new macbook pro every couple of years or so..... seriously.

Heh.

After I paid my rent this year, I had £250 left of student loan. I thought it was a start towards paying the bills and buying food. And then I needed new glasses.

And I don't go for designer frames, or extra thing lenses with various coatings! (I got the cost down to ?120 in the end, but still!)

Good going. I have over 600 quids worth balanced on my nose at the moment (Zeiss Tital high refractive index plastic, coated, varifocals) and that was having them put into existing frames. I have to say, it annoys me a little.

This probably a coincidence but when I was 15/16 I started taking piano more seriously and when I was 16 I got glasses ( only -1 though, but still quite annoying)

i'm shortsighted, too (-3.75 plus a tiny bit of astigmatism), but thankfully my prescription hasn't changed for close to 10 years now. i usually wear contacts (on stage they were a necessity anyway), but i tend to wear my glasses more often during the hayfever-season.

as for declining eyesight through reading: i had the feeling for years that my eyesight went worse, but every test told me they weren't. my optician told me that strong, sustained focussing tires the eyes and therefore in return makes it harder to focus. usually this doesn't worsen the eyesight in the long run though - it is just muscle fatigue. he told me a few eye exercises and also recommended staying off books/pc/tv for at least one day a week. so when things start to get blurry now, i always remember these things, and i'm usually fine ...

I felt the same but I don't think it is necessarily true that reading a lot makes your eyesight worse. Mine is pretty rubbish at -5 ish on both eyes. However despite doing GCSEs/A levels and going through uni where I basically sit at a computer or read all day, my prescription has stayed about the same. Probably it helps that I don't just look at the computer solidly for an hour but have to check something in a book, so my eyes get some variation.

I always think it is quite amusing if opticians tell you to avoid/reduce reading/looking at computer screens. Since computers/mobile phones are everywhere it is pretty difficult to avoid this! Plus what about if you need a computer to do your job? Are you supposed to not use it?

One thing you can do if possible is just close your eyes for 5-10 minutes a couple of times a day to give them a chance to relax.

A number of people I know (me included) have difficulty with this. The problem is that it's neither close vision nor distance vision. Once I got so desperate that I seriously considered taking my music stand along to my eye test and saying "this is what I need to be able to focus on"!

I have to say, my sight is a bit odd. Cataract operations on both eyes (resulting in fixed focus vision) mean I am now long-sighted in one eye and short-sighted in the other - and have astigmatism. With a combination of contact lenses and glasses, I can get a reasonable level of vision most of the time, but - like elllie - can't share a stand with a student if I am on the wrong side.

One of my sons started wearing glasses a couple of years after he started playing violin. But I don't think it's because he played violin - more that playing it showed up the fact that he was short-sighted, but - like David - hadn't thought to complain that he was struggling to see!

Myopia is genetic: my grandfather's prescription was about -6, and all of his grandchildren are now myopic, the two worst of us at about -8, the rest mostly in the -5 range.

It is really difficult to decide if reading a lot or a lot of close work contributes to it, or if our myopia suits us better to close work: Japan has the highest incidence of myopia, I understand, and some of the finest miniature work also comes from that, both in art and technology. When my dad worked in the car industry, he remembers that vehicles destined for Japan had to be checked over extra carefully because of the fine eye for detail so many of their Japanese customers had.

One thing I do know- it is common for myopia to continue to worsen over childhood and into early adulthood. I started wearing glasses at -1.5 and -3, when I was ten, and steadily progressed to about -7 when I was a medical student, continuing to worsen right into my later thirties. I'm now static, and starting to experience the gradual shortening of my arms which comes with older age (those who've also got there will know what I mean), and can also expect to be somewhat prone to a variety of possible causes of blindness. (Cheerful, me?).

The one I'm sort of hoping I might get is actually cataracts: if I did, and they were fixed, then it is now possible to have a lens implant which also focuses, and I might actually have some hope of becoming relatively independent of glasses or contacts. Glaucoma is another, macular degeneration a third, and the final one I've already had a warning sign of: retinal detachment. I had a small retinal bleed about ten years ago, but recovered fully, phew.

Rather strangely, my son's eyesight seems to be improving. He's very longsighted, but the last couple of times he's been to the opticians, his eyesight seems to have got better.

I think I heard about something like this prior to having my cataract ops booked. But at that stage (2 years ago) it could only be done privately, and I couldn't afford it. It was also rather new at the time and long-term effectiveness hadn't been established. Like you, my plan was to become independent of lenses / contacts, but it didn't work as my astigmatism interfered with the surgeon's decision about which lens to use. And then a secondary cataract kicked in....

Hope you are more successful!

I'm about as long sighted as you are short.....

I've had glasses for nearly two years now (I'm 18), which roughly corresponds to when I started taking music more seriously (and when I joined the forums, so that's two possible causes), but I think my sight had been going downhill gradually for about a year before that. My numbers started off at -0.75 and -1, I think with some degree of astygmatism, but I can't remember tbh. For ages I only wore them for reading the whiteboards at school, until I scared myself by realisng I couldn't read road signs or number plates until I was passing them on my bike, at which point I figured it would probably be easier (and safer) to wear them all the time. I recently got new lenses which have increased in numbers (although they're nowhere near -5, I think they're about -1.50 or -2 now). The other day, I forgot to wear them when I went out for the first time (I'm at home all the time at the moment and all I really need to be able to see is a couple of metres to get around quite happily) and, for the first time really realised how much I can't see any more and definitely won't be doing that again!

Longsight though is hypermetropia, the opposite of shortsight. YOu'd expect this to improve over age, because that is the general direction in which eyesight seems to drift.

Just to clarify, because a lot of people do get this one confused - shortsightedness/mypoia is when you are able to focus very well at a short distance but not see far away, longsightedness/hypermetropia is when you can't focus up close but see better at a distance, and the so-called longsightedness of older age, or presbyopia, is when you can't focus on as big a range as you could because the lens is becoming less flexible.

My son was hypermetropic in both eyes when younger, then gradually shifted in a more shortsighted direction until he became hypermetropic in one eye and myopic in the other...

Well, I've now developed a real interest in this, so I googled myopia prevention, and discovered that, apparently, having increasingly stronger lenses means that the patient will continue to become more short-sighted and therefore need stronger lenses again, and that glasses for myopia shouldn't be worn for close work? I'm not sure about this one - I can't see writing on books etc from a normal sitting position on a desk, or the computer without glasses (have just checked). In fact, I'm struggling a bit to read a book at a reasonably close range without specs, so I'm inclined to think that maybe it's not possible for people beyond a certain prescription to remove glasses for close work. Just out of interest, can anyone else see to read without glasses for short-sightedness, and what is your prescription? Presumably there is a point where glasses are needed all the time - I certainly couldn't get by without mine! Thanks for all your thoughts

There's a whole "school" of people believing that you can train your eyes to an extent where you won't need glasses anymore (just read the books of Jonathan Barnes or William Bates), and that constantly wearing glasses makes your eyes lazy. I do every now and again read without glasses/contacts, I also do "eye-exercises" (focussing/de-focussing etc.), and I do believe it helps in a way (not to an extent though that I don't need glasses anymore). I am not one of the hardliners who believes that you can train away the genetic disposition.

To prevent a misunderstanding: My optician is one of the people who holds the belief that close-up reading/PC/TV does NOT make you shortsighted/myopic - it presumably just tires your eyes, which can make you believe that your eyesight has went downhill, because you don't see things that sharply. This is not to be mistaken for myopia though, were the eyeball is simply too long and therefore the image focusses in front of the retina (the medics on this board might correct me if I'm wrong). I am under the impression that if I focus very heavily for hours, my vision is slightly blurred afterwards. If I give my eyes time to relax etc., it usually clears again though.

I do believe it's possible to let your eyes relax when you e.g. are not in the office - nobody usually forces you to sit in front of the PC for 8 hours on a Saturday or Sunday

I think it's probably more due to spending time on the computer, such as on this forum!!!

I began wearing glasses for myopia when I was 13 and my eyesight got steadily worse through my teenage years as I was growing - I don't think it had anything to do with reading or close work (and we didn't have computers then). It varied a bit during my 20s and then in my 30s started to improve and definitely didn't get any worse. Now I've got the dreaded varifocals, and am seriously considering telling my optician that I need a pair of glasses for music playing distances.

I can vouch for that. I have severe myopia but my line of work requires a high level of attention to detail. I've been told that I have a 'good, reliable set of eyes' (with corrected vision)!

Having 20/20 vision doesn't equate to 20/20 perception - surprising what people can miss, even when it's right in front of them!

My myopia didn't settle until my mid 20's - and is now improving with onset of age One optician told me that contact lenses help to settle the myopia earlier - not entirely sure that's true...

I'm an Optometry student - and we are all as baffled by it (and most of our lecturers are as well I might add) as to the incidence of myopia and hyperopia and the genetic links. It has been proven that if both your parents are myopic, then any child they have is 90% likely to develop myopia.

Most children are hyperopic when young - it's because the eyeball is 3/4 of its adult size, unlike the rest of the body, which needs time to catch up! Theoretically, this means that everyone should end up with 6/6 vision (or better), but as we know this isn't the case! This can be due to any number of issues - however, myopia has been linked to increased IQ Optometrists are also far more likely to have worsening progression of myopia, due to the fact that during our working day we probably spend about at least an hour working at a 1cm working distance! Myopes will appear to develop presbyopia later (needing reading glasses to a reduction in the lens' elasticity).

In case you're wondering about overprescribing - we can't - unless there is a very important reason for it (none that I've come across so far). One of the first things you learn is not to overprescribe - as this can result in more complications!

I hope this answers some people's questions - like I said, no one really has any concrete answer as to why different people develop different degrees of myopia, but there are theories

Feel free to bombard me with any more questions and I'll have a dig around in my textbooks........

I was another one whose mum believed the tosh about "eye training" - she took my glasses away on holidays for a bit, to help "prevent" the myopia from progressing - and needless to say, it didn't work, and indeed made me miserable. When I first got my glasses, I couldn't believe what I could see - leaves on trees, and the patterned tiles on floors, sharp and clear, instead of a fuzzy blur: nicking me glasses just took all that away again...thankfully the phase didn't last long, and I was permitted to see clearly once more. It's plain dangerous to deny myopes their proper correction (well, all refraction problems, if it comes to that) - in young childhood, the brain won't programme properly unless the child can see reasonably clearly, leading to permanent difficulties with vision (amblyopia), and later on of course it becomes very difficult to judge things like the speed of traffic without good eyesight.
The bit about contact lenses slowing the rate of development of myopia seems to relate to hard lenses, and be particularly relevant to those suffering from the rare cause of extreme shortsight - keratoconus - but I am under the impression that soft lenses, which tend to be more commonly worn because they're more comfortable, won't do that to any significant extent. Gas permeable hard lenses are healthier than softs, but less tolerable for many (oh, and they're a better option in astigmatism too...).

I'd be interested to know - from music-mad perhaps - whether contact lenses for astigmatism are any use? I'm in the uncomfortable position of having a prescription of about -10 in each eye, which includes some fairly heavy astigmatism, -1 to -3. I'm also, at 52, well into presbyopia, so sometimes it seems like nothing is really in focus (unless I take the galsses off and press the item against my nose!)

So I'm wondering about lenses, or some other solution - with my script varifocals would be prohibitively expensive.

Any useful experience, anyone?

My contact lenses are in part prescribed for astigmatism. It works well for me. The only problem is that, unlike normal lenses, they have to go into the eye the right way round. Sometimes (but I think only because I have steeply curving corneas) they tend to drift round out of focus.

But I'm sure music_mad will be able to give you much more specific information as to whether they might be right for you.

Maybe you need to find a small, non-franchised optician? I never have had any problems with this one wherever I've lived, and see the same optician each time. He knows me rather well, and is well used to having to put up with my fussiness about how well I can see.

On the question of contacts for astigmatism: yes, they exist, but you'd need to go and talk to your own optician about them, because everyone is different, and presbyopia complicates things further. I see better with my gas permeable contact lenses - for one thing, they reduce the image you see by much much less than specs lenses do, and for another, you don't get those interesting but annoying blue and yellow fringes on everything at the edges of your vision, nor do vertical lines appear to bend when you move your head sideways...but they also make the emergence of presbyopia rather more noticeable, in my experience anyway.

I'd agree with anacrusis's approach, I've been seeing the same optician (small private firm) for 17 years, i.e. since I needed glasses. He also spotted that I have Type II Duane's (eye muscles aren't wired correctly, so I have double vision if my eyes point left or upwards) which explained why I'd been unable to catch flying projectiles for years. Sadly - for me, not him - he's just retired, so I'll have to go elsewhere.

(Still, at least eye tests are free in Scotland . )


Were they trying to sell you contact lenses at the time?

Oddly, I've just booked an eye appointment for reading classes.

I'd had opticians recommend hard contacts to help reduce the progression of myopia. Its never seemed a good idea considering how many allergies I suffer from.

I'd guess that myopia is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors: Rather like most condition to be honest. Explanation or no, I'm just glad I live in a time where my vision can be corrected!

I used to wear soft lenses for rock climbing and skiing and initally was prescribed "toric" lenses to correct astigmatism. Yes they have to be the right way round in your eyes but the early ones had a flat bottom which rested against the lower eyelid and modern ones are weighted to sit the right way. Yes they can move but a couple of blinks gets them to settle down. Eventually I was told I was wasting my money on toric lenses. Given that the acuity of my vision in lenses would never be anywhere near as good as specs and in view of what I used them for, sphericals would be good enough. I eventually got fed up of the myther of cleaning the damn things though I have given some thought to daily disposables for outdoor activities use.

I believe you can now get varifocal lenses, or perhaps you should consider varifocal specs. They certainly work for me.

I am allergic to the preservatives found in most contact lens solutions, and clean mine with hydrogen peroxide, which fizzes satisfyingly to leave only mild saline (tear strength) water - no preservatives, and nothing I could react to.

One of the things which does bug me about myopia - because we need glasses or lenses which reduce the size of the image we see in order to drag it into focus - I find ledger lines particularly difficult to read, especially if the notes are rather crammed together in a horizontal plane, grrrr. But yes, I'm also relieved to live in times where my vision can be hauled more or less into a normal range of functioning, and glasses have another benefit - I don't get wet eyelashes in rainy or snowy weather . I reckon that makes up for them steaming up when I open the oven door...

My story is rather different to most other posters. I grew up with superb eyesight, and was classified as a marksman in the Territorial Army - could knock down the targets at 600m with no problems. However, close work became a little fuzzy a few years back and I took to buying off the shelf "readers" to be able to clarify the small print. Eventually had my eyes tested and was prescribed glasses for reading etc.

Last year, I was convinced by the optician that I needed some help with my long range vision (I objected - I can see the sun and the moon, and they're millions of miles away!) and I had to agree. If I was singing in a choir, I could either make out the score in front of me, or the conductor, and likewise if singing solo, I couldn't connect with the audience without peering over my specs.

So I've gone varifocal. Took some getting used to, and still I don't admit to myself that I am a glasses wearer. It isn't vanity - (I'm long past that point) - I'm just not yet used to the idea! But without my specs, written music is rather a blur nowadays!

I was thinking more of hayfeaver / dust/ feathers/ cats...

I'm constantly rubbing my eyes!

You appear quite erudite to me - why do you need reading classes?

I have tried soft contacts, but my vision really wasn't that great with them - I've got astigmatism of -2.50, and although the distance vision prescription was correct, the astigmatism wasn't properly corrected so everything was really distorted. Personally, I find I see better with glasses, but I'd like to give contacts another go to see if it works out better - after all, I'm a vain teenage girl And my lenses are quite noticeably thick now so I don't want to be seen as a specky becky

The lenses you can get made thinner (although it costs!) or just get frames that don't make it obvious. Eg if you have very thick lenses don't get rimless frames! I have pretty thick lenses even with making them a bit thinner, (can't afford to make them super thin!) so one of my pairs has thicker arms at the side so the lenses don't look as thick in comparison.

Mind you as I've been wearing glasses since I was 4 I have got used to them by now! You might be better with hard contact lenses even if they are more uncomfortable at first?

Glasses give one an intellectual look . Is that really such a bad place to be? I'd rather be there than be a bimbo, me .
And yes, hard lenses would probably be a better bet as they provide a new surface to the eyeball rather than sticking so closely to and therefore enhancing the distortions of the cornea. But, they're harder work to get used to - it means stepping up usage much much more slowly, and is seriously ouchy if you get dust under them . I found them easier to take out, though...

Thanks to you both for the suggestion of hard contact lenses. For some reason I was under the impression that they were only available for very high prescriptions, but I'm probably mistaken From the sounds of things, I'm doubtful as to whether my prescription is sufficiently high enough to warrant them? It's definitely something I'll talk to my optician about - especially if they can slow down myopia progression. (I've needed a prescription change after 3.5 months, hence the rather fed-up original post!) Oh, and I was really just joking about the specky-becky comment - I've worn glasses since I was about 6 or 7 so I'm very used to them as part of my face lol. Do you think contacts in general give better vision? With my glasses I find that I am aware of a sort of thick white line at the far corners of my lenses, but not at the top - sort of following the shape of the lense, but only if I'm in certain lighting, but otherwise I can see really well (except from wearing chemistry goggles on top of specs - it looks ridiculous!)

No - I'd already succumbed to vanity by that stage - just gave me a better excuse

I've been wearing gas permeables for over 20 years now. I appear to have very tolerant corneae (?Latin) as I'm able to wear them for about 14 hours a day without any real problem - just a little dryness in air-conditioning and when I'm tired.

For me, contacts very much gave better vision: I don't have a particularly bad astigamtic component to my eyesight though, so my experience may not be representative. I did like seeing things at nearer to their real size - lenses make a huge difference here for people as shortsighted as I am - my main problem with lenses has been dryness, and the fuss needed to clean them when working irregular hours, as I did when doing shifts in A/E, or when needing to cat-nap when and if my kids were sleeping when they were tiny. I had soft lenses to start with, but they are worse for dry-eyed folks, and then having heard about the problems of eye infections being picked up later in soft lens wearers than hard, because softs are so much more comfortable than hard ones, I decided I'd try the gas permeable hard ones, the healthiest for our eyes: they took more getting used to, but I was better off because they didn't dry out so quickly.

Now I'm developing presbyopia, lenses are not proving so handy - I'm far more aware of the problems with focusing on small print (and ledger lines in music), and have to take my glasses off to see small things, often: with lenses, I'd have to take them out in order to see close up ...

No, gas permeable (hard) lenses are available for any prescription. I wasn't particularly myopic when I first had them 30 years ago.

I have monovision lenses: the right one (my dominant eye) has distance correction to give me 20/20 vision in that eye, whilst the left one is under-corrected so that I can focus on closer objects. It's taken ages to get them right for music reading. Last time my optician asked me to get someone to measure the distance between my eyes and the music stand so that they were corrected for music reading, as I was struggling to focus.

And yes, I would agree that sight reading is compromised if there are any problems with your eyesight or your prescription. Vision has to be really accurate for music reading because of the very small differences between the positions of notes on (and off) the stave.