Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Question (self.Blind)
submitted by Im-Gamora
Do glasses and contacts fully help if your fully blind?
codeplaysleep 6 points 3y ago
No, of course not. If they did, you wouldn't be blind.
Im-Gamora [OP] 0 points 3y ago
Oh,I mean when there on.
codeplaysleep 3 points 3y ago
And again, no, of course not. If they did, you wouldn't be blind.
It doesn't matter how bad your eyesight is without glasses. If it can be corrected to better than 20/200 with glasses, then *you are not blind* (leaving aside visual field defects). Therefore, by definition, a blind person cannot have their blindness *effectively* treated with glasses.
If a person has no light perception at all, then glasses will do nothing. For most other types of blindness, glasses will do very little. They may help some, for some people, but not enough to make them not blind.
It doesn't matter how bad your eyesight is without glasses. If it can be corrected to better than 20/200 with glasses, then *you are not blind* (leaving aside visual field defects). Therefore, by definition, a blind person cannot have their blindness *effectively* treated with glasses.
If a person has no light perception at all, then glasses will do nothing. For most other types of blindness, glasses will do very little. They may help some, for some people, but not enough to make them not blind.
ojosnobueno 3 points 3y ago
I actually get this question a lot.
I have Retinitis Pigmentosa which means im "legally blind" or "visually impaired" my current visual acuity is 20/450 which to put it in context means im several lines worse (or above, but they typically only go to 20/200) than the big E on that eye chart.
I am often asked "you cant just get glasses?" or "why dont you get that laser surgery thing"
Trust me if it was that easy we all would.
The problem with my vision, and some others who are VI, has to do with the retina it self. Imagine we both have cameras, you have a sweet brand new DSLR high end camera and im sporting a fantastic flip phone camera from 2004. No matter what lenses we put in front of my camera it will never be "good". The lenses can only fix the focus problem when at the end of the day the problem is the sensor that has the ability to interpret light into images eg. my retina.
This is what its like for many blind/VI people (not all) there is a problem with the camera itself not the lens you can add to it.
This is a vast oversimplification but its the example I use to explain to people how my VI works.
I have Retinitis Pigmentosa which means im "legally blind" or "visually impaired" my current visual acuity is 20/450 which to put it in context means im several lines worse (or above, but they typically only go to 20/200) than the big E on that eye chart.
I am often asked "you cant just get glasses?" or "why dont you get that laser surgery thing"
Trust me if it was that easy we all would.
The problem with my vision, and some others who are VI, has to do with the retina it self. Imagine we both have cameras, you have a sweet brand new DSLR high end camera and im sporting a fantastic flip phone camera from 2004. No matter what lenses we put in front of my camera it will never be "good". The lenses can only fix the focus problem when at the end of the day the problem is the sensor that has the ability to interpret light into images eg. my retina.
This is what its like for many blind/VI people (not all) there is a problem with the camera itself not the lens you can add to it.
This is a vast oversimplification but its the example I use to explain to people how my VI works.
noaimpara 1 points 3y ago
Whenever I get asked "why don’t you just wear glasses" I just feel like looking at the camera like in the Office. Honestly though. That’s probably one of the dumber questions out there in my opinion haha
ojosnobueno 2 points 3y ago
From our perspective it is, like honestly how are you that dumb. But we also deal with this issue and are intimately familiar with how all this works so its no surprise that we don't understand how people are "that dumb."
When I worked with the military I met several soldiers that told me that they couldnt swim. This floored me every time, how could you go ~20 years in the United States and not know how to swim? Are you illiterate as well? It took a few times like that to really sink in that people live vastly different lives and different experiences. I grew up in San Diego and have been swimming since I could float on my back at 1 year old. As alien as it was to me that they couldnt swim, the idea of swimming to them was just as alien.
This is what I tell myself every time someone asks a dumb question. This person may have never met a blind person or even thought about what it is to be blind.
When I worked with the military I met several soldiers that told me that they couldnt swim. This floored me every time, how could you go ~20 years in the United States and not know how to swim? Are you illiterate as well? It took a few times like that to really sink in that people live vastly different lives and different experiences. I grew up in San Diego and have been swimming since I could float on my back at 1 year old. As alien as it was to me that they couldnt swim, the idea of swimming to them was just as alien.
This is what I tell myself every time someone asks a dumb question. This person may have never met a blind person or even thought about what it is to be blind.
Im-Gamora [OP] 1 points 3y ago
Are you talking to me?
BlueRock956 2 points 3y ago
i wear glasses because I'd live with constant eye infections if I didn't have them protected.
FantasticGlove 2 points 3y ago
Not at all unless you want to look good. Personally I'm not a fan of glasses. I prefer things like watches and other kinds of male jewlery. It's classy.
CAHWY17 1 points 3y ago
I just joined today so hello everyone. I wear glasses to protect my eyes from things that irritate anyone's eyes. Also I have a 20% vision is one eye so I further protect my "good" eye from added damage.
Unknown_990 1 points 3y ago
No of course not....
mmtheg 3 points 3y ago
I think I’ve gotten this same question from every person I’ve ever spoken to
KillerLag 1 points 3y ago
If someone is completely blind (No Light Perception, or NLP), then glasses or contacts wouldn't help. Glasses and contacts help with changing where the light falls on the eye to make things clearer, but that wouldn't help if the eye wasn't able to use the light.
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