In today’s Q&A episode, I answer a heartfelt question from a mom whose son is struggling to adjust to his reduced nearsighted prescription. We talk about why reduced lenses can initially feel uncomfortable, how the visual brain adapts, and what you can do to support a smoother transition. If you’ve wondered whether a weaker prescription is right for your child—or why adaptation sometimes takes longer—this episode will give you clarity and confidence.

Transcript:

Sam Berne (00:00.961)

What she can do to tell him to get used to the prescription. Well, it’s interesting because when you’re presented with a reduced prescription, Your eyes should relax. Basically, any reduced prescription is saying, can I let go with my muscles and can I release and relax?

Now in this particular case, there’s two possible scenarios going on. The first is that and this is very common with people that start wearing reduced prescriptions. They start feeling their eye muscles more and they start feeling this area. Whereas before it was very a very unrealized area meaning they had no awareness of it. And so when you wear something that’s less tight,

Guess what happens all of that tightness that you’ve absorbed over years of the strong prescription. You feel that so it’s showing you what’s already there. It’s not causing it, but the relaxation potential is showing you the tension that you’ve been carrying for a long time. The second part of this is

It’s not the prescription that’s causing the eye tension. It’s the attitude and habits that we bring to the prescription that creates the eye tension. So this means that we’re so used to having it clear that when we’re given a softer prescription and it’s a little on the soft blurry side, we immediately want to get rid of it by squinting and straining.

Sam Berne (02:23.638)

Yeah, exactly. So the reduced prescription is going to confront the habit of you wanting to squint and strain and muscle it. So what I told the mother is just invite the child to wear this reduced prescription at near at the 14 inches, maybe maybe 20 inches at the most. But don’t try to wear it in the distance for now.

I mean the prescription was prescribed for near vision to begin with and it can be a big jump and kind of disorienting. If you get this reduced prescription and you have the expectation that it should be clear in the distance. Now what will happen over time is that if you get used to the reduced prescription, you’ll notice that your distance acuity improves.

And you know, you’re there when you then put on the strong prescription and you start getting a headache. You start feeling the eye ache and you go, wow, this is what I used to wear all the time. And now I’m aware that it’s too tight for me. It’s too strong for me. And you know, I have to say that in my years of practice,

I would reduce so many prescriptions during the exam and people actually saw more clearly because the way the eye exam is done, you’re going to overcorrect people. You’re going to make the lens too strong.

Sam Berne (04:05.985)

So you don’t have that traction. So it’s very interesting to know that, you know, any prescription that you wear is like a drug. The prescription eyeglasses and contacts have been approved by the FDA and their side effects. And for near sightedness, especially if you’re wearing something too strong, you’re going to pay the price and that price is going to be tension compression.

muscle pain, eye strain, eye fatigue, and on and on. So I really appreciate the question and I hope that’s helpful. So that’s it for today. That’s my show. I want to thank you for tuning in until next time. Take care.