Anyone else notice their eyesight significantly improve?

I'm curious if anyone else has had experience with your eyes improving on their own, especially if it was significant like it is for me.

My story:
Growing up, at the doctor's they made us look at some letters on a chart far away and I didn't realized I was supposed to tell them if the letters were blurry.  I was pretty good at figuring out what the blurry letters were because there are only so many options.  So they always said I had 20-20 vision.  At about age 21 I was driving my dad's car and put on his sunglasses which were prescription sunglasses, and suddenly I could see the crisp detail of everything - the distant treetops, the little rocks in the field along the road.  I was blown away and realized my eyes were not very good and I had been missing this my whole life.  I got glasses.

Then later at 27 when I was quitting my office job to go be in nature, I stopped wearing the glasses for a combination of reasons.  

Two years later at 29, I had been thinking about getting glasses again as I really wanted to see the forest where I lived in detail.  But I didn't do it.  But one day a few months after having those thoughts, I was lying on the deck looking up at the tall trees from underneath, and realized I could see clearly the needles in detail.  I looked around at the distant mountain top and could see that clearly too.  I was blown away.  I don't know for sure if it happened suddenly or gradually, but part of it must have progressed pretty quickly since it was within a few months of when I had thought about getting glasses.

It's been four years now, and my eyes are still great like they were right after I noticed the shift.  My right eye is really sharp and the left is a lot better than it was originally. And while I can't be sure, it seems like my left eye has been getting better over these years, because at first I noticed my right eye had become sharp but the left was still quite blurry.  I'm constantly grateful for this, it's just about the best gift I could have ever asked for.

I don't know if I was born nearsighted or if that developed due to excessive use of books and computer from a very young age.  I am still able to focus up close, at ~4 inches with my left eye and ~4.5 inches with my right.  I do know for sure that when I did get glasses, they not only improved my long distance vision, but also improved my focus on the computer screen 2ft away, and I would often wear them at the computer from age 21 to 27.

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People often ask what I attribute it to.  There's some good discussion on the topic of natural eye health here that covers some of this: https://permies.com/t/70550/personal-care/Eye-Health-Protecting-Valuable-Asset

Some thoughts I have:
- I think not wearing the glasses was an essential first step, because if I wear glasses my eyes can only learn to be better with the glasses.
- I imagine walking through the forest all the time and looking all around at things at all distances helps exercise the eyes - better than the up close computer screen at my prior job.
- Who knows if there's some micronutrients in some of the uncommonly eaten species around here that help eyes heal.
- Someone told me that this can be a sign of a cataract coming, it could be; so far it's been 4 years of improvement.

I won't tell anyone they "should" ditch the glasses or contacts, they are essential for many people, but if you don't really need them, it might be worth trying not using them.

Also of note, when I got glasses, the way I understood the test they did to determine my prescription, it seemed there was a 50/50 chance that the prescription would be on the slightly too-strong side rather than the too-weak side, thus training my eyes in the wrong direction.  I imagine if I had raised this issue I could have ensured I got a prescription on the slightly too weak side so that even with the glasses my eyes would be training themselves in the correct direction even if very slowly.  I would recommend this to anyone who gets a prescription.  And likely the doctor will suggest or tell you that they know what they're doing, be insistent.  They often overlook things in my experience.  I only got a prescription twice and didn't think of it then so I don't know what they would have said.

Anyone else seen their eyesight improve?

My understanding is that because people tend to become more near sighted as they age, it is not uncommon for far sighted people to see an improvement in vision as they age.  From your post, it appears  you may have been near sighted, so I have no explanation.

Sadly no, at 65 my vision is a little bit worse every year.
I have been using reading glasses for (oh my) over twenty years now...
Two years ago we went in and got distance glasses.  I only use mine while driving or watching the TV across the room.
They help with road sign clarity and seeing details on a TV show.

If your eyes are improving that is great news!
Enjoy it while you can... they will change back as you get older.

Actually, I believe it is the opposite, with people becoming more far-sighted with age.  So, this jibes with the OP's description completely.  I know this in detail because I got lasik about 24 years ago to correct my gross near-sightedness, and now with increasing age I'm wearing glasses again, but this time to slightly correct my far-sightedness.

Folks, where I worked at one of my jobs, couldn't believe that I had to take off my glasses to work because my vision had improved.

I was nearsighted.

Unfortunately, I developed cataracts and I am now farsighted after having surgery.

I only need glasses to see small print and the computer screen.

I wear glasses when I drive because that what my license says.

I can't really participate in this thread cause my eyes have personality.

My left eye is my dominant eye and a little near sighted.

My right eye is far sighted as well as the tiniest bit lazy.

My prescription for glasses hasn't really changed much sense my mid twenties so they have stabilized. No better or no worse. I'm now in my early thirties.

I've been told Lasik is an option but I've been waiting to time it out where hopefully I will only need cheaters in my old age. I don't mind glasses at all except for some instance where it limits my participation due to needing eye protection or the like. Options often for glasses users are cumbersome in many different hobbies.

Michael Qulek wrote:Actually, I believe it is the opposite, with people becoming more far-sighted with age.  So, this jibes with the OP's description completely.  I know this in detail because I got lasik about 24 years ago to correct my gross near-sightedness, and now with increasing age I'm wearing glasses again, but this time to slightly correct my far-sightedness.

My understanding is that far-sighted means losing your acuity at close distances.  I can still focus on print 4 and 4.5 inches from my face with my left and right eye respectively.  So while I do seem to have been nearsighted when I was younger, I seem to no longer be nearsighted, but have not become more far-sighted per se.

Enjoy it while you can... they will change back as you get older.

While this may be true for many people, I will not assume that it is always true and I believe there are ways to mitigate it - though no doubt it varies from person to person.  A friend in his 60s can still see even sharper than me at long distance and points out distant birds that I can barely see.  He's spent a lot of his life wandering the mountains.

I started wearing slightly undercorrected lenses a couple of years ago, and have been gradually getting better eyesight.  I also stopped wearing my long distance glasses for anything close up.  I have a pair of glasses for using at the computer (not reading glasses, just much less strong long distance glasses) and I just take glasses off completely for looking at my phone--not a smart phone--or for reading a book.

I can buy my glasses online fairly cheaply and have been just going down -0.25 diopter maybe twice a year.  Started out at -5.00 in each eye, down to -3.75 now.  Maybe I won't need them in a few more years?

At some point I became nearsighted, but then certain factors have helped me to see better again and even in some cases very well.

I had been looking at screens too much, accompanied by a chronically stressful environment (i.e. the two hallmarks of the modern education system along with some other bad choices). I think the stress is really an important factor because it causes maladaptive tension in the eyes, preventing them from focusing.

At times I would notice that gazing out at a landscape on a sunny day, especially on cold winter days. This would also happen accompanying feelings of joy. Things would sharpen and I would think, “Amazing! Beautiful!” And since I’m the sort of person who never takes “you can’t” as an answer, a great desire arose to cure myself of this malady without the modern options which I saw as dependence-causing and disempowering. I would lean into these times of clarity whenever they arose, and eventually discovered that I could speak a particular set of syllables or short incantation to cause these moments of clarity. I’m guessing it was probably associative; though if I tried to assign meaning to the syllables or think when I said them, then it wouldn’t work.

Later on it became clear that at a certain stage of meditation, the senses, especially sight and also smell, became more acute, as well as tension in the eyes being released, making them more flexible. (That is, past the initial “hating yourself and everything” stage of meditation which happened for me.) Especially, there is a certain point at which highly detailed images of the local landscape appear in the mind, but it’s really the degree to which the mind is “cleaned out” rather than particular experiences in meditation that matter.

Another way of releasing tension in the eyes is herbs. Teas of certain herbs, such as mugwort (promoting lucidity of mind, like how they are traditionally used for lucid dreaming) and thuja/cedar (a very mild stimulant) among others, can energize the body in a way that allows the eyes to focus better. I think I read that Tommie Bass mentioned calamus as an herb that has this eye-sharpening effect as well, but in general calamus doesn’t seem to agree with me very much and I haven’t noticed it in my physiology.

Here is a video;  I follow these techniques mainly, but more of using my long distance vision than "print pushing."  I do a little bit, but I find three hours a day is a lot more reading than I have time for.

ever since my first glasses at 10-ish, my eyes have been all over the place. Every year they go from somewhere around 2.5ish to, sometimes, up to 5.5. Right now I'm 50 and they're about 2.75 and 3.5.
Sometimes I have astigmatism, sometimes I don't. I buy lenses every 2 years, and keep a stock of options around since I can tell when the current lenses just aren't working and I'll put in some that are stronger or weaker according to the situation.

the fun side is, they told me I'd need reading glasses AND I'd be nearsighted (which doesn't make much sense to me-- another doctor told me I needed trifocals, which.... your guess is as good as mine). But I don't, unless I wear corrective contacts, in which case I do use reading glasses on top. Otherwise, I just take off my glasses and I can see up close just fine, which is a relief since I still like things like sewing, carving, etc.

I can only assume that my eyeballs are having too much fun to stop changing shape and settle down. I imagine them as jellyfish dancing around to techno music when I'm at the optometrist.