Would an error in cylinder affect vision?

Not sure if this has been done to death but what the hell. I'm
wondering can a 0.25 diopter difference in cylinder have the
effect I'm seeing. After all I get the impression that that's
"equivalent" to 0.125 or so in sphere.

My cylinder in my right eye is -.75 according to opticians, but it
used to be -1.00 and was much better. Of course back in the day
my optician rather than a salesbot did the fitting/pant tilt etc and
glasses had wider frames so they fit better and were comfortable.

My vision with the glasses I'm wearing is slightly odd (the
problem being that opticians take that statement as "you're
imagining things"). Each eye on its own doesn't seem too bad, but
binocularly it's like the effect you get when you cross your eyes
(a little bit), or tilt your glasses. It's most apparant when you look
straight ahead so I've a tendency to sit slightly to the right of my
monitor...

Sorry to waffle but I'll throw in my history here. Um, at least in as
much as I can remember (my original optician refused to give me
my history - yes, I know he's required to but he just fobbed me off):

Prehistory:
-3.25 sph

1990-93 No problems with these:
R: -4.75 / -1.00x95
L: -4.75 / -0.25x80

1993-97 Not too bad as far as I remember! A little odd for reading.
R: -5.25 / -1.00 x 90
L: -5.50 / -0.50 x 85

1997-2005 Problematic at times. Centres were wrong too (too
wide). Better when I bent my right earpiece up a bit...
R: -5.50 / -0.75 x 90
L: -5.50 / -0.50 x 75

2005 - now Bleugh. Centres right. Fit not great..
Gonna get lasik if opticians won't care enough..
R: -5.75 / -0.75 x 90
L: -5.75 / -0.50 x 75

Maybe I should just go self prescribe...!

Conor.

 

Dear Conor,

It is not probable that an error of 0.25 diopters or less in
astigmatism will affect your vision.

Best,

Otis

 

Are you saying the poblematic glasses are smaller frames too? There
might be something to that. My cylinder Rx is similar to yours and I
was having fits with strangeness of vision (not bad acuity). My
experience is that the eye docs don't really know how to help if acuity
is good and you have no blatant binocularity problem. I went through a
course of vision therapy trying to fix my problem. It may have helped
some, but the real fix was to switch from glasses to RGP contacts. You
might consider it.

--

 

Well I'm saying it doesn't help if the distance between the temples is
too narrow. The industry seems to have gone from the large 80s style to
small frames without compensating for keeping the temple distance the
same (at least here in Ireland with Specsavers and the like). The
result is frames that squash the face and they slap in the spring
hinges to compensate which is just silly.

I believe the US consumer get a better deal here - more chains means
you won't put up with that nonsense!

I wear contacts for sport, they are certainly better in this regard.
They start to burn after 8 hours or so though, probably because I
seldom wear them. I could try wearing them more and see. Or lasik of
course!

Maybe having a squint when I was young might be a factor - I had an
muscle operation on my right eye to correct it...

Thanks,

Conor

 

I think the .25 cyl difference can be part of the issue, but maybe the
sphere is too strong.