Am I legally blind? Contact prescription inside?!

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Being legally blind is when you cannot see Better then 20/200 with glasses/contacts ON. As long as you see fine with them on then there are no worries.


Good luck

Eye care specialist.

No. Legal blindness is not defined by how much correction your eyes need. Legal blindness is defined by how well you see with your best correction.

When you are wearing your contacts, if you see 20/200 or better, then you are not legally blind. It doesn't matter how badly you see without corrective lenses.

You write that your eyes are very different and that you have a prism imbalance, but the script you provide is for two eyes that are almost identical and does not include a prismatic correction.

-5.00 and -4.25 indicate that you are strongly nearsighted in both eyes. The difference between those two numbers is slight. The BC is the curve of your eyeballs, which is for fitting contacts but does not affect your vision. The BC is the same in both eyes. The DIA is the diameter of your eyeball, and it is the same in both eyes.

No cylindrical correction for astigmatism is indicated, and no prismatic correction is indicated.

You are strongly nearsighted, but not so much as to be beyond correction. You are not meaningfully astigmatic or your script would have specified a cylindrical correction. I question your claim of prismatic imbalancement, because the above script does not specify prism.

Being registered as blind or partially sighted (Now called sight impaired and severely sight impaired if you are in the UK) is based on your vision WITH your glasses, not based on the power of the lenses you need. Nor would prism be taken into consideration.

It is also based on your field of view and has to be certified by an Ophthalmologist after full investigation.

Can you carry out day to day tasks without assistance or visual/non visual aids? If you can then you probably don't have the level of vision to register.

Qualified Low Vision Practitioner.

No. Part of the definition of legal blindness is that your vision cannot be corrected. Legally blind means that WITH vision correction, the best they can get it to is 20/200. You would have to use contacts or glasses plus low vision aids and still not be able to see much.