I'd been feeling a weird sense of having a hard time focusing my eyes on things sometimes, and I've known ever since I can remember that my left eye doesn't see as sharply as my right. Turns out it's astigmatism, in both eyes, but more so on the left.

The good news is that I can see an amazing amount more detail in these! The less good thing, and something I feel like people didn't really prepare me for, is the distortion of shapes in general.

Particularly because one lens is different from the other. Like if I close one eye then either one sees shapes more or less normally, but put together it creates this weird effect where something like a rectangle (e.g. a computer screen) looks distorted so that the left end is smaller than the right.

I'm sure I'll get used to it.

It’s definitely something that will take time to get used to, as someone with two different prescriptions and mild astigmatism. On the other hand, that also sounds somewhat more wonky than usual, so I agree with the above opinion: give it some time to try and settle, then talk to the doc.

It may also be a bit of a side-effect of your brain attempting to re-understand depth perception when both eyes are suddenly capable of once again perceiving things at the same distance, so it’s possible that it’s a bit of crossed mental wiring that just needs a chance to sort itself out!

I was thinking something like that; like I suspect that my brain has long since gotten used to just trusting one eye for detail more than the other. I noticed the pseudo-distortion effect right away and the optician suggested that it was normal.

Definitely seems to be related to the shape of the lens, because anything I look directly at through the very center of my vision looks fine, while the distortion is noticeable if I'm looking out the far edges of them. Particularly with both eyes at once.

as someone with astigmatism in one eye and almost lifelong glasses, i definitely notice a difference and get a bit of a headache when i have to adjust to new glasses. so odds are that's what it is for you now, your eyes/brain just need to adjust to the glasses and the new way of seeing, but agreed that if it doesn't change, you should probably ask about it

Day 2 update: Going to tough it out for at least a little while, but I found some online resources that confirm the basic idea of "your brain needs to get used to it, talk to the doc if it doesn't." FTR, what I was describing earlier is pretty much exactly this:

Just in the other direction and with different numbers. (I've got -1.00 for the right eye and -2.50 for the left.)

I certainly hope so. More than the shape of computer screens, I've noticed too that my sense of depth perception is really wonky right now. It feels like a flat surface tilts away from me as it gets to the upper right part of my vision. Which gets really weird when I'm looking down at a table or counter or something.

yeah depth perception is definitely something that goes wacky on me with new perscriptions

that should at least clear up once your brain gets used to it

The sense I'm getting is that my brain has probably been relying heavily on input for my right (better) eye since forever, and now that it's getting a trustworthy signal from the left too, it's overcorrecting for the sense of distance it's getting from that side.

The way flat surfaces seem to tilt, the part that looks furthest away is... the part that's furthest away (from my left eye).

yep that would definitely track