Can You Get Prescription Ski and Snow Goggles?

Nearsightedness or myopia is surprisingly common around the world - even among sports lovers. The American Academy of Ophthalmology has noted significant increases in myopia cases from 2000 to 2050, affecting nearly five billion people worldwide. Despite its prevalence, far too many skiers and snowboarders are unaware that you can buy prescription ski goggles that protect your eyes without having to worry about your vision. To help you obtain ultimate comfort and clarity, here’s our guide to buying prescription ski and snow goggles.

Why Get Prescription Ski and Snow Goggles

It’s natural for both skiers and snowboarders to encounter snow, branches, and other things that can obstruct their vision. Some opt to fit a pair of goggles over their glasses, wear contacts, or fly down the hill without any type of vision correction.

These options, however, are very risky, and could lead to serious accidents. Over-the-glasses style goggles also tend to fog up more easily as they sit closer to the eyes, and can be quite uncomfortable for long skiing hauls.

Forbes highlights new sports vision technologies like polarised lenses, photochromic lenses, and frameless goggles that are extremely useful.

According to the article, these technologies not only correct your sight, but can also enhance your peripheral and vertical vision. Dr. Matthew Timmis, a vision and human movement expert from the School of Psychology & Sport Science in Anglia Ruskin University, says that better vision can even improve balance for athletes in fast-paced tasks such as skiing and ball sports. With that, here’s how to go about getting your own prescription ski and snowboarding goggles.

How to Get Your Own Prescription Ski and Snow Goggles

As we highlight in our article on ‘Buying Ski Goggles’, much like choosing the lenses and the frames for your prescription glasses, there are also two main considerations for prescription goggles:

Frame

There are many different frames available to choose from, each with its own benefits, which makes it highly dependent on your own personal preference and style. Typically, you can select between frameless, hard plastic or soft plastic. Hard plastic frames are more durable and bend less in cold temperatures, while soft frames are more comfortable and come in a variety of colors. In general, you need to make sure that your goggles are a good fit for your face, which means that they shouldn’t be too tight or too loose. Also, choose a design that is optimal for the conditions you’re expecting to encounter.

Lenses

Prescription lens inserts can be custom-made to work with goggles you already own. For sports-level prescription lenses, SymptomFind’s guide to pupillary distance (PD) details that opting for the correct PD will ensure that the lenses will align correctly with your eyes. You can ask your eye doctor to include your PD the next time you get an eye exam before having your custom lenses made. You can also inquire about prescription lenses with anti-fog coating or models that change color that can work during cloudy or sunny days for optimal clarity of vision.

Conclusion

According to the Environmental Research and Public Health Journal, there is much more to perfect vision than meets the eye. And although sports vision is a relatively new specialty in the field of optometry, innovations like prescription lenses have definitely brought better vision and lessened injury risk for skiers and snowboarders around the world.

If you're on the market for a new pair of quality goggles for your prescription inserts, you can check out our offerings for the Best Cheap Ski Goggles today.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aleksandra Djurdjevic          

Senior Content Creator

Aleksandra Djurdjevic is a senior writer and editor, covering snowboarding, skiing and trends in outdoor winter activities. She has previously worked as ESL teacher for English Tochka. Aleksandra graduated from the Comparative Literature department at the Faculty of Philosophy in Serbia. Aleksandra’s love for the mountains, getting out in the snow on her board, season after season, seeking wild snow adventures across the globe helps her continue to be a top expert at CSG.