Found out I was wearing the wrong prism prescription for years
I had strabismus surgery as a child. I always had checkups with my optometrist and felt my eyes worsening over the years (more intermittent drifting). He would tell me I’m just tired and wouldn’t recommend re-referral to a specialist at that point.
Later on, I again reinforced how much more drifting I was having even when not tired. He prescribed me distance glasses with a 1.0 base out prism.
Recently, a covering optometrist referred me to an ophthalmologist. I am scheduled for surgery this year, at my pre-op appointment the orthoptist was HORRIFIED that I had base out prisms.
Apparently since I have mostly exotropia/exophoria the base out prisms are the opposite direction and wearing the glasses just makes me work harder to converge my eyes.
They still recommend surgery but I just can’t believe Ive been wearing the wrong prescription for 5 years. Why would an optometrist make such a dumb mistake? Im worried it just made everything worse for the long term… Reassuringly they said that it was such a tiny prism that it was effectively not doing much but also not helping.
TLDR: How bad is it that I have been wearing 1.0 base out prisms for 5 years when I have exotropia/exophoria?