urgent help need: should Alex continoue to ware her new glasses?

My daughter, Alex, is 14 years old, and she just got a new pair of glasses.  The eye doctor is also new.  The exam got her a new presciption: her left eye got 50 degree worse (-9.0), but we were told her astigtaism dropped from 1 to 0.75.  After 6 hours of wearing it, she told me that she got severe headache, and when she trying to lay down, she got a pudding headache at her left side forehead.  She also complaint that when she rolled her eyes, her eye balls hurt.  

She had being wearing glasses since 6 years old, and this is the first time that she got this.  

PLEASE HELP: should she stop wear her new glasses?

Many thanks

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Call the "doctor" that prescribed the glasses tomorrow and tell him/her what happened. You should be given an appointment for a "glasses recheck" at that exam the glasses are checked to be sure they are made properly, then the test for glasses is repeated to be sure the new RX is correct, If adjustments need to be made they are written out and the optician called with the new information.

You should inquire about the costs of this. Most offices (ours also) do not charge for glasses rechecks and most opticians make any changes at no charge if done within 30 days. Do this soon. You don't want to get stuck with expensive glasses she can't wear.

Be sure to take in the old glasses to the "eye doctor" and the "optician" that made the glasses so they can see what she's use to.

JCH MD

[peakhope]

I'm not an eye professional, but have worn glasses since I was 6. It seems odd to me that such a small change would have such strong effects. Definitely find out if the glasses were made properly.

Whenever I got a new prescription, I did feel weird and disoriented until I got used to it (but not that bad). I think it usually took a few days to get over it. I had pretty strong astigmatism which I suspect amplified the effects. Did the axis on the prescription change much?

If the glasses are ok, then maybe the severity of the symptoms were exaggerated by some secondary cause like a head cold or stress. Especially the rolling eyeballs bit. Or perhaps (long shot here) Alex hates the new frames and is trying to get out of wearing them. That sounds like something I might have tried as a kid.

By the way, what is a "pudding headache"? Did you mean "pounding"?

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

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