I always had this simple knowledge that people with high myopia see considerably worse compare to those with small, insignificant numbers like -1,-2,-3.. and somehow this 'considerably worse' was sufficient differentiation for me. Earlier this year however when I tried to understand myopia better after it had decreased for the first time in my life, I found myself confronted with numbers that appeared strange. Say, with some -10.5 numbers my far focus point was around 9.5 cm and after a substantial decrease to -9, it was some 11.2 cm. Really? That 'Significant' improvement I was so happy about meant additional focus range of less than 1 cm? And that way, even those with not high myopia, say with -3 number would not be able to focus beyond 33 cm – it absolutely didn't sound as great advantage over -9 as I had always thought!
Okay, even as those numbers did confuse me, I knew I wasn't as wrong as the numbers made it out. So, the difference didn't come from far focus distance, which was a factor but only a small one, the real difference came from 'out of focus' quality of world beyond that far focus point. But how to quantify that? And even if I may find some number that can describe OOF quality (which I haven't found so far if there is), how do I 'see' how it might look like? ok, answer is rather simple actually.
i.e. If my current number is -9 and if that reduces to -7, world at large will look as in/out of focus as it is currently at half a meter. And, to someone with -3 numbers world appears as much in focus as things appear at some 17 cm to me. Sounds more like how I understood it originally.
ok, it doesn't give idea about VA and in general viewing comfort, but still I find it somewhat useful to understand approximately how normal or more normal eyes compared to mine see the world or to understand how I can expect it to appear with further myopia reduction or to understand one of the quite irritating behaviour of those with insignificant numbers when they waste own and others time because they cant find something, cant see things properly and in the end say, ok, let me put on glasses, so that I can see.
