I have a friend with pretty high myopia, so I’d like to share his journey. He potentially has a + double digits future.
It all started in 2020. The pandemic came and everybody just stayed at home, so obviously electronic usage went up and a lot of people developed myopia. Jason (fake name) was then around 10.
He started off texting me quite a bit + calling me quite a bit, and didn’t get diagnosed with myopia until around 6 months into the pandemic (around December 2020.) His first prescription was a measly -1.5, which is pretty reasonable for a 10 year old. Shortly after, his parents started limiting his electronic usage more and more, until he was barely on Instagram anymore. Just a few months later, his prescription SKYROCKETED to -5. In fact, his optometrist put in strict plans against close work in fears of future retinal detachment. In June 2021, I went to his cottage for 4 days, and as somebody with a pretty wild fascination with myopic people struggling to see, it was absolutely heaven; he had ordered high index lenses and for some reason they wouldn’t be ready in months. Basically, he was -5 but only wearing glasses that corrected -1.5 diopters of myopia, so he was practically blind. He frowned a lot and had to be around 25 cm from things to see. He would sit in bed with a scrunched up turtle position with his iPad directly under his face (since it was summer vacation, his electronic rules were somewhat put on hold.)
Once, we played a simple 2 player game on the computer, and I would passively try to force him out of leaning in (such as stretching out my shoulder a bit/ choosing keys on his side.) I had the corner of my eye on him almost the entire way through, looking at his frowning/squinting. Sure enough, he lost the game.
We went paddle boarding as well, and he kept his glasses on (despite us pushing each other into the water.) I was surprised that he would keep the glasses on without fear that his glasses would fall in the water, but I didn’t question him. I lured him into a game of trying to find frogs into the water, and I think he mistook a seaweed for a frog. At the time, he squinted a lot (instead of just blind staring.) It even started raining after, but his glasses stayed on despite all the water droplets on the lenses. I don’t know if a myopic person would rather see 1.5 diopters worse or see through rainy lenses lol.
At the time, it was the Stanley Cup Final (Hockey, NHL) and we would watch all the games on the TV. His parents also watched with us, so he limited his squinting a lot. He had no trouble seeing where the puck was, but 100% wasn’t able to see the score + the game clock. I remember telling him that there wasn’t much time to score a goal, and he frowned at the clock. During the intermissions, he would play on his iPad, and his mother noticed him leaning close to the screen and told him not to do that, so he had to play on it while squinting at a “normal” distance.
The only time during the visit he wasn’t actually squinting was when we went to one of his neighbours houses. We played on their XBOX, and since the game was just based on bowling, there weren’t many letters to read. He stood around 2 meters away from the television and didn’t squint a single time. However, there was a spider on the ceiling and when the neighbour girls saw it, they freaked out and jumped on a bunk bed. For fun, I also decided to climb the bunk and “take refuge” but Jason seemed to have trouble seeing what was going on being leaning closer and seeing that it was a spider.
I have way too many sightings with him to talk about them all so I’ll fast forward to the bare eyed ones.
At the same time, it was the Eastern Conference Finals in the NBA (Basketball.) We decided to sleep in a tent that night, and after watching for a while at a really close distance, I finally had the guts to ask him if his glasses were outdated. I don’t think he understood me, and he told me that there were a few visible power lenses if people looked closely. He then took them off, and got ready to sleep. Surprisingly, he kept watching the game and didn’t lean much closer. When I asked him if he was able to see the game comfortably at that distance, he responded yes. Soon after, his parents decided to put the basketball game on a TV near the tent. He put his glasses back on and had to completely lie down, with his face peeking through the entrance of the tent to see the TV right outside. (For context, the tent is in a cabin, and there is a TV on the cabin wall.) I then told him that the mosquitoes flying in the tent bother me, and if it was ok to just watch it from a distance with the entrance zipped up. He told me that sitting far away bothered him, so I didn’t argue and we kept watching. He still had trouble seeing things on a TV just around 80 cm away.
My best sighting at the time was when we actually decided to swim with goggles. He left his glasses in the cottage when we decided to go to the beach. He squinted visibly more without his glasses. After a whole of swimming, I decided to go play catch with him. I purposefully made him stand pretty far from me, and moved the ball between two hands frequently. He squinted SO MUCH just to see the movements I was doing with the ball before passing it to him. He was able to catch the ball successfully most of the time though. Back at the cottage, he actually went bare eyed for a while, and we watched soccer on the TV together. Eventually, he was fed up with squinting and just stood right next to the TV (like 50 cm away) before his mom gave him his glasses.
Fast forward to January 2022. He finally got his -5 glasses, and stopped squinting. He didn’t really talk much about him suddenly being able to see completely clearly again. 3 weeks later, I asked him if he got new glasses, and he told me that he keeps the same frame but gets an updated prescription often. Right after he got the increase he desperately needed, he started being on his phone ALL THE TIME. Every time I saw him, he was watching TikTok’s. I have no idea why he stopped myopia management or whatever it was before.
From then on, his prescription has just spiralled upwards more and more. -5 became -5.5 in less than 3 months (I asked him), then 3 months later he had another increase (he sent me a photo of him at the optometrist). Around 5 months later, his lenses got drastically thicker (probably around -7, but it’s just a guess) After that increase, we decided to give each other massages for fun. When it was my turn, he took his glasses off. His phone was still on, but he didn’t even try to squint at TikTok, even though he was practically right in front of the phone (like 20 cm away.) I could tell it was a blind stare, since I asked him a question about what he was watching and he grabbed his glasses to see.
Just two weeks ago, we had to read out some text on the projector at church. The words were quite big, big enough so that a girl with -1.5 diopters of myopia could read it bare-eyed without squinting. When he was asked to read, he blind stared and simply replied “am I blind or something” and a guy told him the words that were written. He basically went from very mild myopia to -7 (and is due for another major increase) in around 2 years! It’s hard to believe that’s he still 13 and his myopia will likely continue to progress. I don’t know anybody with myopia that stretches into double digits, and I’m confident he might even get to the point of requiring myodiscs in the future. I will definitely ask him about his prescription next time I see an increase.
P.S. everything I do is done very subtly, so even though what I wrote makes me look creepy in a way, I promise I’m not actually like that irl. I notice things just like other people with a fetish for vision, and everything I do to try to bait a person into squinting is done very subtly.
https://vision-and-spex.com/thicker-and-thicker-true-story-t2581.html