Why do things look distorted with glasses that are -15.50 and -13.50? I wear contacts and got glasses in case of emergency but the doors look bowed and the ground seems like it is slanted. It’s hard to even walk in them.

It would be normal to expect that your vision with contact lenses or with glasses would be the same. But this is not the case! The distance between a corrective lens and the eye is a significant factor in a glasses Rx. This is rarely noticeable in low power prescriptions. But the greater the correction (and -15 is huge!), the more distortion is created by your spectacle lens as compared to the equivalent correction with a contact lens because the former sits further away from the eye than the latter.

In such a high Rx as you have, the image you see will appear smaller and further away than through a contact lens. This can severely distort your depth perception.

_Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. - Chief of Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic