The beauty of contact lenses is the fact there is no magnification effects. With glasses, especially higher prescriptions or those with astigmatism is that there often have optical aberrations that are initially hard to get use to, especially if you wear contacts most of the time. This does not mean the Rx is wrong but could take awhile for you to adjust to. My suggestion is go back to your doctor, be sure the glasses were made correctly. The doctor may want to recheck your prescription as well. Your complaint is a very common one and if the glasses where made correctly to your Rx you should get use to them given a little time. ie 1 week. If not return to your doctor, they may want to modify the Rx that's best for you.

Best of luck,

Dr. Higgins

You do see different in glasses than contacts. Contacts give you a more normal, natural vision experience. The glasses being about 12mm from your eyes give you a "different", but still good vision, especially in higher prescriptions. Try wearing the glasses a little bit longer (10days for so) and if this distortion does not go away contact your eye doc for a check on the glasses.

The contact lens prescription is based on the eyeglass prescription, but frequently they are not identical due to the distance from the eye and the fit. There may have been a change in spectacle lens material, fit relative to your eyes, tilt of the frame, and base curve. Try wearing the glasses all day for a few days. If you cannot adapt, return to your doctor. Hopefully you got your glasses where you got your exam. They can trouble shoot for you and make whatever changes needed to solve your problems.

Your glasses' prescription may be over corrected for your eyes. Usually if the prescription for contact lens is perfect the prescription for glasses should be less to take into account of the distance between glasses and eyes (vertex distance).

Thank you for your question. Typically in my experience when new glasses feel like they make one dizzy it is because either an astigmatism correction has been increased in your glasses or else the astigmatism axis has been changed significantly. Typically by wearing the glasses consistently for a week or so you will get used to the new glasses without a feeling of dizziness, but if it were to persist then you should go back to your eye doctor to have the prescription re-measured and possibly changed. Thanks!

This warrants having the glasses rechecked with respect to prescription as well as base curves and optical center

It sounds like you may have either a change in the astigmatism in your astigmatism or have astigmatism in your glasses for the first time. Wearing the glasses will allow you to adapt. If you are unable to adapt to them after two weeks, go back to your doctor for a prescription recheck.

In a higher powered precription, it is normal to get more distorted vision with glasses than with contact lenses. There are several reasons for this. High myopic eyeglass lenses minify (make look smaller) the size of objects and high hyperopic magnify the the size of object. Contact lenses, on the other hand, don't change the size of objects. The closer a lens is to the eye the more accurately it corrects vision. The difference between correction with contact lenses and glasses increases as the power of the lens increases. The most accurate power is in the center of the lens. When you are wearing contact lenses you are always looking through the center of the lens--as you eye moves the lens moves with it. When you wear glasses and you move your eyes around you are not looking through the center of the lens unless you move your head to point to every direction you look. The peripheral distortion with glasses increases the greater you are from the center of the lens. The distortion can be minimized by choosing a smaller size frame and by having the lenses "digitally" ground. Some people (those with very high prescriptions or those whose right and left eyes take totally different presriptions) cannot tolerate their prescription in glasses and can only get acceptable vision with contact lenses. Unless you have one of these extreme problems know that adjustment to glasses may take time, and the discomfort you are experiecing is normal.

It may be something that adaptation is required but if you've had your glasses for a week and it's you are not adapting to it, I'd suggest getting your Rx rechecked.