Eyesight Correction Spectacles

Can pinholes improve vision?

With what we now know about the environmental cause of acquired myopia, we can make the claim that pinholes have a legitimate use in myopia prevention. When used for reading or other close work, pinholes reduce the amount of accommodation or focusing power that the eye must use to see clearly. There is an abundant amount of research that points the finger at excessive accommodation as the cause of acquired myopia. It is clear that anything that can reduce this accommodative effort, including pinhole glasses, is a useful weapon in retaining good vision. It is for this reason, and the fact that those in the optical business want nothing to do with them, that we have decided to promote the use of pinholes on this website. These glasses could be a major tool in preventing myopia. Pinholes are harmless; minus lenses MUST be avoided. Some day in the future, putting minus lenses on a young child will be a criminal act. People who don't deserve the title doctor go through life unconcerned about the devastation of ruined vision they leave in their wake.

Some advantages that pinholes have over prescription glasses:

• As we get into our 40's and 50's and presbyopia (inability to focus close) develops, pinholes provide a simple and inexpensive solution for reading or other close work.
• Bifocals or trifocals are designed to provide a clear image only at fixed distances. Pinholes provide an improved image at ALL distances. In many applications, such as alternating between watching TV and reading, they can easily take the place of those very expensive prescription lenses that are so lucrative for the anti-consumer eye doctor/optical industry alliance.
• Multi-focal lenses provide a continuously variable curve that is supposed to give good vision at all distances. In reality, the distortion on either side of the center line is considerable and often too great for comfortable use. Pinholes eliminate this problem.
• There is no need to continually throw away old glasses and buy new, stronger ones. Unless the pinholes break, they can be used an entire lifetime.
• While pinholes are not as cheap as off-the-rack reading glasses, they are considerably cheaper than individual prescription glasses. For example, a person who is a little nearsighted but only needs clear distant vision for occasional TV viewing would find pinholes a cheaper solution than prescription glasses.
• Off-the-rack reading glasses have the same lens power in each lens. Some people find these cheap glasses unsuitable because the refractive error in each eye is not the same. Pinholes are ideal for such people because these glasses do not require a similar refractive error in each eye.
• There is a pincushion effect when looking through the edges of prescription glasses. That is, straight lines appear curved. This disturbing effect does not occur with pinholes.
• When you lay prescription glasses down improperly, they can easily get scratched at the center of the lens, the very area you have to look through. Scratching pinholes has no effect on their performance.
• Pinholes do not have to be cleaned of fingerprints and other marks that affect vision.
• Many parents will not allow their children to use bifocals to reduce the stress of close work because such glasses are for "old people." Pinholes are an easier thing to accept because they are the same for all ages.
• Many people who have had corneal surgery find that their night vision has permanently deteriorated. Glare is a problem. They see halos and "starbursts" around lights. Even in normal home lighting they have problems so that they get in the habit of turning on as many lights as possible in order to get a small pupil and reduce the visual problems. Pinholes, either conventional or Snap-ons, can deliver the same small pupil without increasing the electric bill.
• Children with special needs often use only their peripheral vision, and pinhole glasses help them concentrate on detail better. It has been found that the pinhole glasses help improve acuity and central macular vision. One nationwide organization that deals in child development uses pinhole glasses on a regular basis for this purpose.
• Aniridia is the complete or partial absence of the iris; polycoria is having more than one pupil in a single iris; and albinism is the lack of normal pigmentation. All of these abnormalities may be aided with pinhole lenses.
• In cases of retinal separation, unnecessary motion of the eyeballs should be avoided. This can be accomplished by blocking all but the central pinholes, forcing the user to turn the head rather than the eyes.