How bad are my eyes?

Question

I was curious because I recently noticed that my hard contact lens prescription are -8.25 for the right eye and -7.25 for the left eye. First of all, how bad are my eyes exactly? Also, I am only 19 yrs. old so is there a chance that there could be some serious consequences if my eyes continue to deteriorate at this rate?

Answer 1

In order:
Not dreadful. More important than the size of the prescription is the vision you get when you are properly corrected: 6/6, 6/5 (20/20, 20/18 in US...)

There will be a few careers that won't be open to you since they specify a certain degree of vision without glasses or contact lenses. (Rules on having had laser treatment are changing, but you shouldn't be thinking of than for another 6 years at least: you will need to know your prescription has stopped changing!)

Contact lenses can easily run up to over -20.00, so you've not going to run out of the limits of what's made.

If your eyes continued to change, yes there could be problems, but nearly everyone stops changing much somewhere between 18-22 years of age. Yes, there are rare exceptions, the fairly rare inherited condition keratoconus probably being the most common of these.

Any prescription over -7.00 usually means there is a MARGINALLY increased risk of retinal detachment.
Persistent flashing lights in one part of the vision and FRESH floaters should be promptly reported, not ignored.

Powers over -10.00 are more associated with some retinal changes, "Myopic degeneration", but this is far from inevitable. I'm up to -14.00 in one eye and have no retinal problems at all. I've seen it, unusally, in someone with -2.00.

UK optometrist. (And -10.00, -14.00 as well!)

Answer 2

please change to a soft contact lens.and at the earliest please go for refractive surgery.