Blurred Lines

I have had 20/20 vision my entire life and never even slightly struggled with seeing anything. When I arrived to Penn State as a freshman and began to go to class again after a long summer, I noticed that I was having trouble seeing the board in my large lecture classes. I then began to pick up on little things like not being able to clearly recognize the face of a person who is across the room from me in these classes. It seemed to have gone from perfect eyesight to a condition in which I absolutely needed glasses with no transition period. I began to question why this was happening. I was not sure if I had deficiencies with my vision before but have never noticed or it was a new thing happening to my sight. I knew that if it was the latter conclusion, I wanted to know what causes this!

As many people say – do not look up symptoms online because it will cause you to self-diagnose yourself with a rare and deadly disease when you are most likely fine! When I began to research the causes of lost eyesight, the results gave me a little bit of anxiety! There are many different conditions that link are mentioned here that link up with vision change, for example: presbyopia, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy, Naturally, these big words began to scare me so I called up my parents to inform them that I was soon going to die, and they reminded me that I am fine, and I have also been genetically doomed with a worsening vision.

It is likely that if one or both of your parents have poor eyesight, you will also experience this at some point in your life. Personally, I began to have trouble seeing things that are far away and have no trouble seeing things that are close by, which is called nearsightedness. Although genetics is a large factor into the reasoning behind changing vision, it can also be do to your surroundings and daily activities or habits. One example I found when researching is that a lot of reading can cause ones eyesight to worsen. The worsening of my eyesight triggered a thought that it would be interesting to conduct a trial on whether genetics or environment has a more prominent affect on the human eye.

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2 thoughts on “Blurred Lines

  1. cas6568

    I always had perfect eye sight as a child, but when I entered 7th grade, I also had issues with seeing the board. I originally started out by wearing glasses, but eventually in 9th grade I started wearing contacts. Ever since I got my contacts, my eye sight worsened each year. I started out by have a -1.75 eye glass prescription, and now I have a -3.50 eye glass prescription. But, I made one huge mistake: I slept in my contacts all through out high school, and wore them nearly 24/ 7. After visiting the eye doctor and asking them why my eye sight was worsening, and they said that the more I wear my contacts, the worse my eye sight will be. Therefore, there’s a positive correlation between worsening eye sight and wearing contacts for long periods if time. So, if you ever get contacts, try to wear them the least amount of time as possible! Here is an article that explains why it’s so bad to wear contact lenses for long periods of time:
    http://www.insighteyecaretexas.com/2011/03/what-happens-if-i-wear-my-contacts-too-long/

  2. Melissa Lee

    I can totally relate to this in my sophomore year of high school i sat in the back of one of my classes I noticed that I could not see the board. This was strange to me because I had previously always had perfect vision. After getting my glasses and putting them for the first time it was like a whole new world. Everything was so much clearer and i could finally see! I am also near-sided. This article http://yoursightmatters.com/tiny-screens-can-cause-big-vision-problems/ points out that looking at your phone screen for too long of a period can strain your vision. Many people play with their phones at night in a dark room but this might not be healthy to your vision.

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