Our eyes and brain work together closely to process images, allowing us to perceive our surroundings.
When eyesight is compromised because of an outdated or incorrect vision prescription, our brain has to work harder to interpret what we’re seeing, leading to eye strain and triggering headaches.
How Vision Can Cause Headaches
When your glasses or contacts aren’t correctly aligned with your current vision needs, every glance you take puts extra strain on your eye muscles, creating a ripple effect that can cause discomfort and headaches.
However, headaches aren’t solely caused by eye strain. Other factors that can trigger headaches due to an incorrect prescription include:
- Misalignment of focusing: Refractive errors like myopia or astigmatism can cause the eyes to constantly adjust focus to compensate. This continuous shifting of focus can strain the muscles in the eye, leading to headaches.
- Inadequate correction: When your prescription is no longer accurate, your eyes may struggle to compensate for the inadequate correction, resulting in eye strain and headaches.
- Sensitivity to light: Visual issues like uncorrected refractive errors can also make your eyes more sensitive to light, a condition known as photophobia. Bright lights or glare can intensify eye discomfort and trigger headaches.
Experiencing eye strain isn’t limited to outdated prescriptions. Staring at digital screens, poor lighting, and irregular focus can all lead to headaches.
When these concerns are paired with outdated glasses or contacts, eye strain intensifies. Your eyes may attempt to overcompensate for this lack of visual clarity, triggering symptoms like tension headaches or migraines.
Recognizing this connection is necessary, as many people don’t immediately associate their headaches with their glasses or contacts. Paying closer attention to headaches and noting when and how they occur can help you determine whether they might be caused by an incorrect prescription.
Importance of an Updated Vision Prescription
Our vision is dynamic and evolves over time. Even small changes can have notable impacts on daily life.
Regularly updating your prescription helps provide you with the clearest and sharpest possible vision. It also prevents unnecessary eye strain and subsequent headaches when your prescription no longer matches your eyesight.
Failing to address outdated or incorrect prescriptions might lead to several adverse effects beyond headaches, such as:
- Blurry or distorted vision
- Eye fatigue
- Reduced productivity
- Dizziness and vertigo
- Neck and shoulder pain
What Causes Incorrect Prescriptions?
Our eyesight changes with time, so prescriptions that worked for us in the past might become less effective over time. Some particular causes of vision change include:
- Natural changes in vision: Your vision changes naturally as you grow older, meaning that you might need an updated prescription. This is particularly common for age-related conditions like presbyopia.
- Undiagnosed conditions: Sometimes, undiagnosed vision concerns can cause vision change. An unidentified underlying eye condition, like cataracts or severe dry eye, may affect the accuracy of your prescription.
- Changes in vision at different distances: If your vision at a particular distance worsens, while your vision at another distance remains the same, this can result in a mismatched prescription. This often occurs for people wearing progressive lenses or bifocals.
Several symptoms may suggest that your current glasses or contact lenses are outdated and no longer serving you well, indicating it’s time for a routine eye exam:
- Frequent headaches, especially around your temples or behind your eyes.
- Blurry or distorted vision, even when wearing your glasses or contacts.
- Squinting often to sharpen your focus.
- Struggling to see clearly at night or in dim light.
- Eye strain after reading, working on a computer, or looking at your phone.
How Often Should You Update Your Prescriptions?
Optometrists recommend updating your prescription every one to two years with a routine eye exam. Depending on your age, vision, and overall ocular health, the recommended frequency of eye exams can change.
Our eyes continue to grow and develop during childhood, while seniors are more susceptible to developing age-related vision changes, which is why annual eye exams are encouraged. Meanwhile, adults 19 to 64 have relatively stable vision but are still encouraged to have exams every year to make sure their eyes are healthy as a lot can happen to the eyes in a year’s time.
Prescriptions for glasses are valid for two years, while contact lens prescriptions are valid for one year. This is because contacts rest directly on the eye’s corneal surface, meaning that they require more maintenance and care.
Annual contact lens exams and fittings confirm that your prescriptions are up-to-date and reduce the likelihood of irritations or complications caused by ill-fitting or over-worn contact lenses.
Confirming the Right Prescription
Getting the correct prescription isn’t difficult. Sometimes it may require some trial and error, but it involves honest and open communication with your optometrist.
These proactive steps help verify your prescription is fine-tuned to your vision, thereby reducing the risk of headaches, eye strain, and other associated challenges:
- During the exam, share any details about headaches, blurry vision, or discomfort to help your optometrist better understand your needs.
- Once the test is done, ask your optometrist to explain your results clearly, especially if your prescription has changed.
- Try out trial lenses or hold sample frames to get a sense of how the new correction feels.
- If something feels “off” with your new prescription, speak up. It might just take a minor adjustment to get things right again.
- If you continue experiencing issues after wearing new glasses or contacts for a few weeks, return to your optometrist for adjustments.
Schedule a Visit
Experiencing symptoms related to wearing outdated glasses or contacts, like headaches, may suggest it’s time for your next eye exam. Connect with our team at Signature Eye Care to schedule a visit.
