Pinhole glasses are eyeglasses with lenses that consist of many tiny holes filling an opaque sheet of plastic. Also called stenopeic glasses, they block indirect rays of light from entering the eye. This prevents the rays from distorting your vision.
By letting less light into your eye, some people claim these glasses allow them to see more clearly.
This article will go over how pinhole glasses work and whether wearing pinhole glasses can improve your vision.
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How Pinhole Glasses Work
Pinhole glasses have several uses. Some people use them as a treatment for myopia, also known as nearsightedness. Other people wear them to try to improveastigmatism.
Some people strongly feel that pinhole glasses treat vision conditions, but the evidence is lacking.
Sometimes healthcare providers use this to quickly see the potential of your vision. For example, if someone comes in for an office visit foran eye infectionand they can only read the 20/70 size of letters on the eye chart, the doctor might wonder if it’s the result of an eye infection or beingnearsighted.
To quickly find out, the healthcare provider may perform a“pinhole” visual acuity test. If the patient looks through the pinholes and reads 20/25, then it could be assumed that most of the decreased vision is not due to the infection, but rather some type of uncorrected vision problem. It may be safe to assume that the infection may be reducing the vision only slightly.
The healthcare provider may not have time to find out what type of prescription the patient might need, because the person may have come in only to have the infection treated. Therefore, the pinhole test is a very quick way to find out more information about a person’s eye condition. Pinhole glasses are used in other ways to evaluatecorneal distortionandcataracts.
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Should You Try Pinhole Glasses?
For most of us, pinhole glasses are not functional enough to wear for day-to-day tasks.In general, pinhole glasses should only be used for diagnostic testing in the office.
People who have a significantly high prescription and break or lose their glasses may want to keep a pair of pinhole glasses around for emergency purposes.
Patients with aniridia may also benefit from pinhole glasses.Aniridia describes a complete or partial absence of theiris. The iris acts to control the amount of light allowed to enter the eye. When the iris is absent, the patient may suffer debilitating glare and visual distortion to the point where regular glasses orsunglassesdo not help. The pinhole glasses will limit the amount of light coming in and produce clearer vision.
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Summary
Pinhole glasses not only reduce brightness but also decreaseperipheral vision. Therefore, they are unsafe to wear while driving or operating machinery. In almost all cases, other forms of correction will obtain a clearer vision.
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Frequently Asked QuestionsPinhole glasses are really meant to be used at your eye provider’s office rather than at home. Pinhole glasses narrow your vision, so you should not wear them when you’re doing your basic daily activities. You also should not wear pinhole glasses when you’re doing certain activities that require you to have peripheral vision, like driving.Wearing pinhole glasses narrow your vision and decrease your peripheral vision. It’s sort of the same thing that happens when you squint. You might haveeye strainor headaches from wearing pinhole glasses, just like you would if you were squinting for a long time.An eye care provider may use pinhole glasses in the office to evaluate someone for cataracts. People with the condition may note that their vision is better during the exam, but pinhole glasses are not considered a standard cataract treatment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Pinhole glasses are really meant to be used at your eye provider’s office rather than at home. Pinhole glasses narrow your vision, so you should not wear them when you’re doing your basic daily activities. You also should not wear pinhole glasses when you’re doing certain activities that require you to have peripheral vision, like driving.
Wearing pinhole glasses narrow your vision and decrease your peripheral vision. It’s sort of the same thing that happens when you squint. You might haveeye strainor headaches from wearing pinhole glasses, just like you would if you were squinting for a long time.
An eye care provider may use pinhole glasses in the office to evaluate someone for cataracts. People with the condition may note that their vision is better during the exam, but pinhole glasses are not considered a standard cataract treatment.
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7 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Rhim JW, Eom Y, Park SY, Kang SY, Song JS, Kim HM.Eyelid squinting improves near vision in against-the-rule and distance vision in with-the-rule astigmatism in pseudophakic eyes: an eye model experimental study.BMC Ophthalmol. 2020;20(1):4. doi:10.1186/s12886-019-1297-5
Hennelly ML.How to detect myopia in the eye clinic.Community Eye Health. 2019;32(105):15-16.
Son HS, Yildirim T, Khoramnia R, Labuz G, Mayer C, Auffarth GU.Implantation of a small-aperture intraocular lens and a partial aniridia implant in eyes with traumatic iris defects.Am J Ophthalmol Case Rep. 2020;18:100673. doi:10.1016/j.ajoc.2020.100673
Thompson J, Lakhani N.Cataracts.Prim Care. 2015;42(3):409-423. doi:10.1016/j.pop.2015.05.012
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