I was galvanized by ** Really Not all That Bright’s** Ask the Sunglass Consultant thread so I decided to make my own.
Though I have done quite a few things through out my life, I have been an optician for several years. I can give my best answer to all things optics. Including frames, lenses, contacts, cutting glasses, the buisness of selling them, and what have you.
So, anything for me? 
~Aqua
A.B.O, N.C.L.E
(American Board of Opticantry, National Contact Lens Examiners certified)
I had Lasix surgery 4 years ago (love it!) Except…I had to sign the disclaimer as to my big pupils. Meaning, I get major halo effects at night. Have any strides been made in the field on this issue? I can’t drive at night, and would like to do so. I don’t have any reading problems at all. Should I buy night glasses for driving?
Thanks!
I’ll be expecting my first royalty check post haste 
Do you do prescription sunglasses?
How long can you really wear disposable contacts for (ie. number of wears)? I’m looking into getting some contacts to wear occasionally, not everyday, and my sister has 30-wear/one-month contacts. Do you really need to keep track of the number of wears? Just guesstimate? Do the contacts start to feel different if you’ve had them too long?
How strong a prescription do you usually stock blank lenses? I always have to wait a couple of weeks for my lenses to come in. I’m EXTREMELY nearsighted, and somewhat astigmatic.
Ok, I will try to answer the questions one by one, and hopefully wont screw up the coding! 
We don’t handle too many lasik patients at our office but I will try to tell you what I do know. Because your scotopic (low-light) pupils are large the surface in your eye where they removed the tissue is smaller than your pupil dilates to. So what you are actually seeing is the lights refracting off of the uneven edges off your eye. (I realize that this is vastly simplified) Since the optical effects of the halos are present in your eye, night glasses (with anti-reflective lenses) probably won’t help you that much. Lasik is still in its infancy; you might talk to your doctor about LASEK, which might widen the ablation zone for you, reducing some of those halos.
Yup! Sure do. Custom lenses with mirror coats and such have a lesser selection than plano sunglass lenses, but I can do most standard tints and U.V. in house, and our send out lab can handle most mirror coats.
It depends on the contact. Most disposable contacts are 2-week models. Some are 1-month, and some are 1 day. Your sis’s sound like the 1 month models. Yes, that is 1 month of wear. However, after 1 month disposable contacts should be thrown out regardless if you have worn them the full month. If you push them longer you can court bacterial infections because the lenses are not sterile, and the material degrades allowing cell growth. Your sis might get more moneys worth out of a 2 week lens that she can wear infrequently during that month. Yes contacts start to feel gritty after wearing them too long, however, that is usually after they have started damaging your eyes. So while you don’t have to mark those days of wear religously, toss 'em after a month.
It depends on the lens material somewhat but in house we stock all the way up to a plano base so our limit in minus prescriptions is about -9.50. Any cylinder (astigmatism) correction higher than a -2.75 has to be sent out also. That is the limit in most full service labs in optical stores. Coincindentally I found out that our out labs limit is a -27.00 myodisc lens. We got that one in today, it took four weeks.
Really anything up to about a -15.00 shouldn’t take us anymore than 2 weeks.
~A§P
Speaking as a former contact wearer, yes, they do change. Crud builds up on them and they start feeling scratchy.
Are plastic lenses superior to glass in any respect other than light weight? I’ve been wearing glass lenses since I was 13 (32 years and counting) and I always get photogray – I don’t have to carry two pairs of cheaters and the lenses withstand abuse that would (in my experience – admittedly not recent) abrade plastic lenses to foggy uselessness. The opticians here always try to sell me on the light weight of the plastic lenses, but I figure if I have trouble holding my head up with glass lenses on, my problem isn’t optical.
Maybe I’m being a curmudgeon about this, but I’ll stick with glass lenses until someone can convince me that plastic lenses have reached or surpassed the utility and durability of glass ones.
Have they?
–SSgtBaloo
What do you think is the normal ‘limit’ (for lack of a better term) of someone using a normal lens (glasses or contacts) for an eye that has astigmatism?
And what’s the hardest prescription (glasses and contacts) you’ve ever had to deal with?
Thanks!
<< Dum-de-dum. >>
What exactly are “floaters?” I have them in both eyes, but I can only really seeing them in direct sunlight. I know that they can be an indication of either Glaucoma or cataracts (i don’t remember which), but are they something to be worried about, or are they fairly normal and as long as I have regular checkups (I tend to go once a year to get contact perscription renewed) I should be ok?
Thanks for the thread!
Are there any risks involved with using cosmetic contact lenses, that is contact lenses that are colored but not vision correcting? Do you know if anyone is producing half mirrored contact lenses (like mirrored sunglasses but contacts)?
How does one become an optician?
What choices are there for bifocal/multifocal contact lenses?
And, is there any way for me to read real test results about them, like in medical journals? (I have access to the medical library at the city college.)
Do you know of any brands of tinted contacts that make larger tinted areas? The colored contacts I have tried are smaller than the iris of my eye, leaving a ring of my color showing around the edge.
Are floaters a sign of macular degeneration? Is there anything that can be done to get rid of floaters?
Thanks!
If my glasses aren’t perfectly straight, will my eyes explode? I am almost pathologically worried that my glasses aren’t perfectly right—maybe slightly bent, even the littlest bit—and I will be plagued by pounding headaches, eye-strain, and other horrors too terrible to imagine. How bent to they have to get before I should care? Can you assuage my fears?
What is the markup on frames? What do those things wholesale for?
Surely two little pieces of wire and a couple of plastic bits don’t cost anywhere near the $200 retail.
How bad is your vision?
Mine runs -12.75 left and -13.00 right (or thereabouts).
A friend of mine has full scleral mirrored lenses. His prescription is in the middle, and the rest covers everything else, leaving nothing but silver visible.
Definitely a custom job. No ide what they cost, but this guy’s not afraid of spending money.
I’ve always wanted light and thin lenses (my prescription is -6.00 both eyes and mild astigmatism). How thin can I make the lenses without breaking my bank account in the process? Plus how does the astigmatism axis measurement affect the thickness of the lenses?
Thanks for the thread. Great idea!