I have a nearsighted eye and a far sighted eye...what does that really mean for me?

Question

I'm 21 and for some time now I've known that I have a nearsighted eye AND a far sighted eye. I read with my left eye (nearsighted) and drive, walk, etc with the other eye. In theory, one eye will eventually become totally dominant and I'll need glasses. Took my mom until the age of 45 to need them although they think I'll need glasses at around age 30. Will there be any fringe side effects? Vision affected? One eye will fall out? Etc. etc.

Answer 1

i am near sided and far sided it just means that if you close one eye you cant see close to you and if you close the other you cant see far

Answer 2

"One eye will fall out?"

Nah.  It'll explode before that happens.

You have *almost* certainly sacrificed a degree of binocular visin for that way of working your eyes, but you're so accustomed to it that you probably don't know the difference.

It's just possible that getting a spectacle correction to let both eyes be in focus for distance and near would give you a whole new sense of 3D and sharpness, but it's at least as likely that the demands of binocular coordination and cooperation would be so strange and stressful that it would be totally counterproductive.  Only the attempt would prove it one way or the other.  There would be no risk involved, except for the  cost of the glasses.

Since you are using both eyes, just alternately, there is no risk of one eye becoming dominant and the other lazy.

When you hit presbyopia, you may go on for years as you are, to the envy of others your age struggling with varifocals.

When you do start to need glasses, it is probable that the best course will simply be to reinforce what you are already doing, and tune your distance eye for very best distance sight, and your reading eye for best reading vision.

This is a perfectly acceptable technique (deliberately done to some contact lense wearers, where it is called monovision).

But some optometrists, bogged down in routine, might by reflex correct each eye for distance and supply a reading addition, for varifocals that might be the best answer for many, but *may* not be the best answer for you.