On one hand, it’s a prescription, and only a state-certified opt-whatever can make one out. So that implies it’s special in some way.
On the other hand, it’s just a few numbers that someone could easily keep in their head. And there are no restrictions on possessing glasses, like there are with prescription drugs. So the control provided by a signed prescription seems unneeded.
So, do you need a prescription to get eyeglasses? How about contacts?
You don’t say where you are located, but in the US it is illegal to dispense glasses (other than simple reading glasses) or contact lenses without a prescription. At least that’s what the signs in the optical shops say.
All for what is just a piece of curved glass.
I can see the reason for drug prescriptions, but eyeglasses? What am I going to do, abuse my glasses? If I need them, I need them, and making them harder to obtain is protecting the world in what way? Maybe it’s better if I go around half blind than run the risk that I get the wrong glasses? Or is someone worried that I’ll intentionally get a particularly thick set of glasses and spend the day pretending that I’m high?
On the other hand, the complete lack of glass abuse means that we’ve won the war on glasses. We must remain vigilant.
Yes, you must have a current prescription. If your prescription is over a year old, you cannot purchase glasses or contact lenses.
I don’t know about all that.
At eyeglasses.com you can type in your “prescription” details and buy them online. It does ask your doctor’s name, but do they really check?
I have perfect vision, but I would certainly buy my fiancee’s contact lenses online and save some money except for the fact that her eyesight is contiually getting worse, so she needs to have a full test every time to even know to buy.
If you have a simple case of farsightedness and need reading glasses you can just pick up a nonprescription pair at the drug store, but these are really just magnifying glasses put into frames.
But if you have any other type of problem: nearsightedness, astigmatism, an eye that doesn’t necessarily point the right away, etc., wouldn’t you want someone to write a prescription for you so you can see properly?
Even if I’ve gotten the same prescription for decades, if I want to buy glasses I have to pay for, and wait for, an eye exam. That could really suck if I broke them while away on vacation or a business trip.
So its legal for me to own something, but it’s illegal for me to replace it with something identical.
Sounds like a gun law, actually. Gotta hang onto on those pre-ban spectacles.
Before I had lasik, I ordered many sets of disposable lenses online or by phone. Just in my experience, I’d say they checked about 60% of the time… at least the businesses I ordered from.
I think it’s a damn good idea for folks with vision problems to have their eyes checked on a regular basis, especially if one wears contacts. My sister got eye ulcers (or something like that) from wearing her contacts too long, and she said it was horrible. She attributed it to not listening to her optometrists’ directions, and not getting her eyes checked on a regular basis.
(She was living in another country at the time; she did not have to have an up to date prescription to get new lenses.)
Some states have a statute that requires a prescription.
Florida, for example.
Others like Michigan, do not.
And remember the fiasco that had eye doctors refusing to release consumer’s contact lense prescriptions.
That sucked.
Went to my friendly Lenscrafter store just last week to purchase two new pairs of glasses. Moseyed in, picked out two frames (one regular, one sunglasses) and gave them to the nice lady to do her measuring. The regular pair were a rimless pair and tres expensive. When she went to order the prescription, she pulled up my profile and said, “Uh oh. You’re going to hate me, but your prescription has expired.”
“Expired? How? Why?”
"State law requires you to get your eyes checked every two years. You were last seen in December 2001. "
“Oh. But I can see fine.”
“I’m sorry, it’s required. Would you like me to make an appointment with the opthamalogist next door?”
I stood up. “No. I don’t have time for that. I’ll just keep my old pair.”
End of story: Amazingly I went home with two new pairs of glasses.
I can see the requirement for contact lens wearers. But I’ll get my eyes examined when I can no longer see well out of my current prescription.
Here’s some NY State info from my hubby, the optician.
Your eyeglass presciption does not expire. You can bring in a prescription from an optometrist or opthmaologist, and no matter how old it is, it should be filled.
You can also bring in your old glasses and ask them to measure the prescription from those lenses and make you new ones.
However, if you just come in and tell them your prescription, they can’t make you glasses.
For contact lenses, they have to call your doctor to confirm the prescription and whether the presciption has expired. The doctor decides how long presciption the is valid (at less than one year unless your doctor provides an explanation of a medical reason.)
It is recommend that you get a yearly eye exam, which can detect changes in your vision, eye diseases and injuries, and other health problems, such as diabetes.
If you’ve actually been using the same glasses for decades, you are old enough that it’s a real good idea to be screened for glaucoma. That’s one insidious ailment that you would not know about until damage had been done.
It’s also entirely possible that your eyes have indeed changed and you haven’t noticed. I knew I needed a new prescription but didn’t know how badly until I got my new ones. I’d been squinting at things without even realizing it.
What’s the big deal about getting an eye exam? Sure, it costs something. So does the food for your seeing eye dog.
About five or six years ago, I found out the hard way thaty one had to keep their perscriptions updated or face the consequences.
One night I was toweling off from an evening shower and somehow managed to knock my glasses off the countertop and right into the toilet. No big deal, I thought, and fished them out. Then refleces took over ad I flushed. I guess my brain figured that if it heard something go “plop” into the toilet that there was only one thing to do.
It was only after the water was swirling down the bowl through the pipes that I realized that one of my lesnes was missing. Yep, I flushed one of my lenses down the toilet.
Unfortunaely, it was a big problem since my vision is absolutely terrible uncorrected–my spherical is -7.00 in one eye and -6.00 in the other (I don’t know what that corresponds to, unfortunatly…something around 20/600 maybe?)–so I was in a real pickle. Thankfully, I’d held on to an older pair of glasses. Since my vision had worsened since I had worn that old pair, the effect was akin to borrowing someone’s glasses who has a perscription close to but slightly different from yours–things are better than without gladdes, but still somewhat blurry.
A trip to my local Pearle Vision informed me that they could not help me without a current perscription. I guess in someone’s infinite wisdom, it was better for me to be forced to wear an old perscription (or barring that, nothing) for the week and a half or so it took to scheduale a visit with my eye doctor and get the glasses made than to get a lens replaced for glasses that had been perfectly fine for me up until then.
Ah well, lesson learned: I’ll always be sure to check that I didn’t lose a lens when I knock my glasses into the toilet from now on.
Fogrot to mention–this was Washington state–since the rules seem to vary from state to state.
If you wear contact lenses, even if your prescription hasn’t changed and your eyes feel fine, you should get checked every year because of the associated problems lenses can cause. You won’t notice oxygen starvation until it’s too late - but the eye doctor can see the blood vessels starting to grow where they shouldn’t.
You really want your eyes to be in tip top health if using contacts.
People who are strongly/severely myopic (shortsighted - can’t see things far away) should also get checked regularly, as they are at higher risk of glaucoma. Ditto people using steroids a lot (medically-prescribed as well as illegal ones I presume) and people with a family history of glaucoma.
Also: regardless of what your eye doctor may have told you about myopia levelling off after puberty (eg not getting worse) this is NOT true. Mine certainly declined until at least my mid-twenties, though now thank god it appears to have stablised.
I regard having poor vision as a good motivator for getting the regular check-ups that 20/20 sighted people usually don’t get.
Second Echo - I once swallowed a contact lens!
One can get corrective scuba goggles - do I need a prescription for those?
I’m in Minnesota.
Brian
where do you live?
I found this in the Minnesota statutes:
Your goggles would be lenses for the correction of vision. So the answer is yes.
Funny how things go full circle. The reason I thought of this question was because I just got a copy of my prescription. And I got a copy because I’m going on vacation to the tropics and was thinking about renting a prescription scuba mask. Since I had no idea of my correction, I had no chioce.
Not really a hijack…scenic turnoff, maybe?
Second Echo, I asked my eye doctor if the diopter number corresponded at all to a “twenty-number” (so if my diopter was -5, would it be 20/500, for example). He said no. You may be able to do the math from this: my Diopters are -10.25 in the left eye and -10.5 in the right. My eye doctor told me that corresponds roughly to 20/12,500. I don’t know if this is correct, or if I misheard him, or if he jumped a decimal point, but it seems reasonable to me - that something a 20/20 person could see at about 2.5 miles would have to be brought to 20 feet for me to see it at approximately the same detail.
I tried to look it up on the 'net, but googling for things like “diopter and 20/20 vision” gives a LOT of links to camera lens sites.
istara, you’re absolutely right. I’m 34 and my eyes are STILL getting worse. 
On a semi-related note: if you get your prescription written at one place, and take it to a different place to be filled, NEITHER place will consider themselves completely liable if it’s the wrong thing. (I was told this when I took my prescription to one of those one-hour places.) Neither the examiner who wrote the prescription nor the place that filled it will guarantee that they’ll work, because the prescription-writer can consider it the filler’s fault, and the filler can consider it the writer’s fault. This is one reason most places will try to have you get the exam and the glasses all in one place. (No, no cite for that either. In GQ. I know, I suck.)