I have glasses I got a prescription for about 3 years ago and couldn't afford to get a new exam. I'm using them normally day-to-day at work. Will continuing to wear an expired lens actually damage my eyes or is it just uncomfortable?
Wearing glasses with an outdated prescription won't permanently damage your eyes, but it can cause eye strain, headaches and discomfort because you're forcing your vision all day long. The real problem is that your vision might have changed quite a bit over these 3 years and you don't even know it, which makes everything more tiring than it should be. It's not dangerous for your eye health itself, but you end up living with less comfort and clarity than you could have. It's really worth getting an eye exam when you can, not because it's an emergency but because you'll notice the difference.
The discomfort you're feeling is real and can get worse over time, but the thing people miss is that your prescription changes as you age, and the longer you spend wearing the wrong glasses, the more your eye adapts to that outdated correction - when you finally get a new exam, it can take weeks to adjust to the correct glasses. Basically you're just putting off the problem instead of fixing it, and the longer you wait, the stranger it'll feel when you switch.
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