Sometimes accommodation can seem reduced because the ciliary remains in
spasm, generating big (artificial) jumps in myopia, as well.

It would be rare at 33, but it makes me wonder if you had a good cycloplegic
refraction to confirm this latest big increase. If you are sure there is no
accommodative spasm, then all the "exercises" and "methods" and "prevention"
you'll hear from our peanut gallery become irrelevant.

At higher powers you can get modifications like the "myodisk" designs, but
I'd say long before that you'll want to start considering contacts. With
presbyopia, you might not get away from glasses entirely, but there are a
half-dozen ways to make contacts work for you. That said, I think a local
wholesale labs accepts orders up to -18. It isn't the lenses we have
problems with. It's fitting the frames around the lenses.

One way to avoid the thickness hassle is to use ordinary, inexpensive
contacts to take over the thickness part, and use (thin) glasses for the
astigmatism and presbyopia. You might see well enough to drive with those
contacts alone. You mentioned your astigmatism, but the numbers you gave
only told us where the astigmatism is, not how bad it is. Even with
astigmatism, toric contacts or gas perms could free you up to use drugstore
reading glasses.

If your myopia is axial, there's a mildly increased risk of retinal
detachment. That's the only consequence in ordinary myopia. If your myopia
is lenticular (not likely, but suggested by the presbyopia) then you might
expect cataracts early and plan on extraction as a means to correct the
myopia.

-MT, OD

there is no maximum prescription.  lenses can be made to compensate
for just about any degree of myopia, astigmatism, or hyperopia so that
your eye can see 20/20 with them on (provided they are healthy and you
are too).  do not worry. practically speaking there will always be
lenses available that will work for you.

indeed, it is rather unusual for someone your age to have near
problems and need progressive lenses (I am an optometrist) who has
significant presbyopia symptoms until about age 40 especially if they
are myopic.  like MT said in his post, I believe you are having an
accommodation problem, possibly spasms or pseudomyopia.  I would
suggest a cycloplegic refraction using cyclopentolate (or stronger)
drops.

I wonder also if you have binocular vision problems.  do you ever have
double vision (e.g. when you are tired, or driving at night)?  Do your
eyes occasionally cross, or feel like they are about to cross?  Do you
ever get headaches, particularly after prolonged reading or near work?

-6.5 is moderately high, but some people have -12.00 and higher. However, if
you need more than -12.00 it is harder to find a lens (some people wear
contacts and glasses if their Rx get extremely strong).

You astigmatism is usually expressed as a minus power which you did not
state. The 007 and 133 are degrees which relate to the position off the
cylinder correction and has no correlation of how strong the astigmatism is
(that would be the cylinder power).

Actually, I am not sure if you have progressives or the +2.00 is your
astigmatism (cylinder power)? When cylinder is expressed as a +2.00 (instead
of a minus) then that changes the equivalent sphere power when comparing a
lens to a minus astigmatism.

What lens brand and model do you have? That will tell whether you actually
have progressives. If you are not sure, ask the person who dispensed your
lenses (if not written on your receipt).

Hmm, usually people do not need to be told they have issues with
accomodation and presbyopia. They can tell by themselves because they
start having to take their glasses off to see things up close, or have
trouble reading. I basically told my optometrist that I was having
trouble seeing up close and probably needed bifocals, she didn't tell
me. Granted, normal screening would have also detected it, but my point
was that I didn't need screening to know this, it was pretty obvious
that I was having reading difficulties pre-screening.

One question I do have is whether you were dilated when this finding was
made. When I was dilated, it caused my left eye to refract worse than it
normally does, causing the optometrist to issue a higher prescription. I
am not sure what the exact mechanism is or why this happened, but I do
know that glasses issued in the new prescription were quite obviously
wrong when I put them on over undilated pupils and when I was
re-refracted undilated, my left eye was back to its normal power.

High index lenses can accomodate you fairly well for quite some time, my
brother's eyes were past -9 before his retinas detached and his glasses
were quite obviously thick but still usable backup for his contact
lenses. As others mention, due to the thickness of lenses at those
powers, glasses are heavy and cumbersome and used mostly as a backup to
contacts at those powers. However, at your age it is quite unlikely
you'll ever reach those levels, my brother was there by age 18 and his
first detachment was before age 30.

Insofar as eye health issues, extreme myopia is associated with
increased risk of retinal detachment, with myopia lower than -8 being a
particularly bad risk factor. The good news is that if you get surgery
immediately to re-attach the retina, sufficient sight can usually be
saved to continue a normal life. I would not, at your age, worry much
about blindness, just keep an eye out (pun intended) for the typical
signs of retinal detachment and if you detect ANY of them, immediately
go to your opthamologist. If you do not currently have an opthamologist
I suggest that you get one. That said, given the information you've
given us (you do not indicate that either of your parents or anybody
else in your family has experienced retinal detachment or blindness), I
wouldn't worry *TOO* much about it. You have a risk factor that needs to
be considered, but it isn't a high one.

-Elron

Progressives spoil the vision tremendously.
They "turn off accomodation"
Try to switch to byfocals with "lines" , pleace

There is no maximm, lenses can be made in any power.  The most I have
seen is -30.00

Your myopia is moderate.  The astigmatism number you gave is the axis,
not the power, is the power the +2.00?

Needing bifocals at age 33 is unusual.   Do you have binocular
problems, glaucoma or diabetes?   They can cause a need for bifocals
or early presbyopia.

No one ever goes blind or loses sight simply due to myopia.  Blindness
is the result of eye disease, not needing glasses.

Dr Judy

I can't imagine that a person would lose their sight due to being
nearsighted.  I would strongly urge you to consider contacts.  Many
people who are strongly nearsighted find that contacts work better than
glasses.  The nice thing about contacts is that if they don't work, or
you just don't like them, then you just stop using them.  You are out
nothing more than a little money and some time.  I wore contacts, with
OTC reading glasses over them for close work, for ten years.

To follow up, I got my new glasses yesterday, Monday Sept. 16. They
came with a handy little card showing my prescription. Due to my
insurance, I have the Kodak Unique Lenses that are 1.6 Instashades
evoclear gray. The dr. wanted me to have the transitions, anti-glare,
progressive lenses. The right sph. is -6.75, cyl. -1.25, axis 177 and
add +1.25. The left sph. is -6.50, cyl. -1.75, axis 1, and add +1.25.

(I need to insert apology here, because I wasn't expecting to get into
this. I just wanted to know about the script but y'all asked more
questions so here's what I konw.) Aside from the high prescription,
I've been having problems with a "haze" or what I can now describe as
the view when your contact moves off of your eye. I see some blurred
color and then after several minutes it clears back up. This is mainly
in the left eye. I talked to the dr May 2006 about this and that when
he put me in the progressives, performed all the tests that he could
perform, issued an MRI and for me to see the neurologist, checking for
a possibility of MS, along with other things. The neurologist said
that the tests were negative for MS and mentioned a small possibility
that it could be a migraine.

I told the eye dr yesterday that I was still having these problems and
that it felt like my left eye got worse since my script was written in
July '07, even before getting my new glasses. He conducted a new
visual test (which was normal) and dialated them for another look.
Everything seemed fine but he wanted me to come back today for the
refraction to be done again. I had to hand back my glasses because
there was a tiny change in the right eye (not sure which part) but the
astigmatism for the left eye went from -1.75 to -2.25. The dr said
that they'd replace the glasses for me. He wants me to follow up with
the neurologist again to make sure that everything's fine because he
still feels that there could be an issue like MS.

I don't know if this has any bearing or anything but I was in a car
accident and had surgery on my neck (C-5/C-6 area) in 2005. Recovery
went well. I was told that one issue with my vision and disconnected
feeling could just be scare tissue/damage from the car accident. The
disconnected feeling is that I feel like the right eye overpowers the
left eye. Sometimes I'm reading and it's hard, like I'm seeing words
and letters, I know they're words and letters, but I can't recognize
what those letters and words are despite knowing how to read.
Sometimes I reach for things and feel clumsy because I knock them over
or I'll reach inside the potato bowl instead of picking up the potato
bowl.

I used to wear contacts but I ended up in gas perms due to my
astigmatism. I was told that things have improved and I wanted to try
new contacts but $333 for glasses vs. $450-500 for contacts. Money's
REALLY tight since I'm looking for work so I chose the easy, less
expensive remedy.

I hope this helps y'all to understand. Thanks for the drs who have
posted. I'll check again in a couple of days.

Thanks,

Lee