Are my new glasses correct?

Hello there.

I suffer from short sightedness. I recently decided I needed to sort out my eyesight (my short sight is fine). I went for an eye test and here are the results for the distance check:

RIGHT EYE: Sph = -1.00   Cyl = -1.25   Axis = 171.0
LEFT EYE:   Sph = -0.25   Cyl = -3.00   Axis = 5.0

From the above, maybe it is obvious that my left eye is a lot worse than my right eye.

Once I had my prescription in hand, I chose some nice frames and waited for my new glasses. I picked up my new glasses and boy, the difference was immense.

My problem is this. When I put on the glasses for the first time, I got severe distortion issues. By this, I mean floor doming, cups on tables seem to lean etc... a whole bunch of problems.

The staff at the opticians said that this was normal and that I should bear it for a week, by which time everything should settle down. I have given it a week as suggested and I am still suffering some aspects of distortion. The best way I can think of to describe the problem is that everything seems to be shorter in height than normal. I know this because if I look at a cd for instance, the disk isnt circular any more, but more of an oval shape. The disk looks like it has been squashed so that the height from top to bottom of the circle looks less than the width from left to right of the circle.

Furthermore to this problem, if I look at a rectangle, as I look at it, the right side of the rectangle is not as tall as the left side of it. What I mean is that the rectangel has the illusion that the right side of it is pushed further away from me than the left side. My computer monitor is a perfect example of this. If I sit about three feet away and look at it, the height of the monitor on the left side is taller than the right side. It tapers down from left to right, if that makes sense. This distortion is more noticeable and obvious with closer objects than those at a distance.

Please help.

Thanks in advance.

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

The answer here is quite simple.  Have the prescribing doctor carefully re-refract you and make the proper changes to the prescription in order to alleviate your symptoms.  You most likely need a modified prescription.  Good luck, this should be no problem for them to fix.

MJK MD

[VoxT3R]

... and another point I forgot to mention is that when I make myself a coffee, as I stand in front of my cup on the worktop, the cup seems to lean forward.

Please help and shed some light on this if you can.

Thanks once again in advance.

[VoxT3R]

Hi Michael,

Thank you so much for your help and your reply.

Do you really think this is easily fixed by amending the prescription? I didn't mention this earlier, but I do have a case of Astigmatism in my left eye. I have read that the type of lens used to correct my vision in my left eye is different, and in some cases the 'Astigmatism causes difficulties in seeing fine detail, and in some cases vertical lines (e.g., walls) may appear to the patient to be tilted.'

The above snippet was taken from the wikipedia defenition of Astigmatism.

Thanks.