Question
I have started noticing that my vision can become blurred especially at distance. I am a 28 male software engineer and so i thought i should have my eyes tested. my results are as follows
R Sph +0.25 Cyl -200 Axis 172
L Sph -0.25 Cyl -1.50 Axis 17
It seems strange to me that the Axis difference is so large and the Cyl difference puzzles me also.
I was recomended to get glasses and start wearing them when i use the computer and then to start wearing them all of the time.
0.25 Sph doesnt seem a lot although it could be made worse by one eye being + and the other -. I dont want to be drawn into a high street optician wanting to sell glasses, do you think that this prescription is a) worth getting glasses for or b) should be worn all of the time??
Answer
The answer to whether you need glasses lies in your symptoms. You said yourself your vision occasionally becomes blurred.
With the prescription you listed, if you were a farmer or a waiter rather than a softwear engineer, I might say your need for glasses was minimal. But I know you need a high level of detail in your vision while working at the computer and the amount of astigmatism you have is most likely causing eyestrain - definitely at the computer and most likely for driving, television and reading fine print on paper.
In your case, the sphere power (the +0.25 in the right and -0.25 in the left) is not so important. The next number, the cylinder amount is what tells me you have eyestrain. Both eyes have enough astigmatism (the CYL) that every letter or number on your computer screen is slightly distorted - not enough that you can't read it, but just enough that your eyes want to try and make it focus, but they can't. Astigmatism means your eyes focus light differently in the horizontal meridian than they do in the vertical meridian. If you had a whole lot more astigmatism than you do, if you looked at a letter "T" you would see the vertical line clear and the horizontal line blurry. If you were to refocus so the horizontal line was clear, then the vertical line would be blurry. This is very frustrating to your visual system because whenever you see something blurry, your eyes try to focus it for you.
Wearing the glasses will round out the visual image for you so both lines on the "T" are clear. (I know you can't readily see this blur - but if you had a lot more astigmatism you could. But your eyes can perceive it nonetheless)
As for the axis - all that is is a position on a 180 degree half circle where the strongest part of the prescription is to be placed. And - since we reference only 180 degrees, rather than 360, the difference between your right axis and the left is actually not large. They are both mostly horizontal axes. (axis 180 and axis zero being the same thing) Very often if the right axis is tweaked in one direction from the 180, the left will be tweaked symetrically to a similar amount in the opposite direction. Your prescription does make sense and is not unusual at all.
So - to answer your question more directly, 1) yes, it is worth getting glasses for you and 2) no, I would not wear them all the time. For an Rx like yours, I like to call them "detail" glasses - whenever you need to see details clearly you wear them. This would include most of the time at work, driving, tv and maybe reading paper. It probably does not include most casual sports and social activities.
By your question I suspect there was a poor level of trust between you and the doctor who did your exam. This is unfortunate. Most of us are out there because we want to help people, not to try and sell people something they don't need. If you didn't get that feeling from your doctor, you may want to find another for the next time you need an exam.
