I’ve worn glasses every day for the last, let’s call it 20 years. They have most recently been plastic lenses for the last long time, but I recently got a new prescription filled for the ultra-light-weight lenses, and I’m having a bitch of a time trying to see with them. Did anyone else find this? They feel so strange - like I’m trying to see through prisms or something. I feel like I can’t focus properly, and keep blinking, trying to clear my vision. Is this normal, and just an adjustment period, or am I one of the people who can’t adapt to the ultra-light-weight lenses? Does it just take a couple of days of constant wear to get used to them? I don’t want to wear them for longer than about an hour, because they give me a nauseous headache. 
Whenever I get my prescription updated, I usually experience a “tunnel effect” for a couple of days after word. Then, my eyes adjust and it’s back to normal. I didn’t notice anything different when I ecently switched from plastic to polycarb lenses, but that’s just one man’s experience.
I’ve been wearing glasses for 20 years, and I always try to get the thinnest, lightest lenses I can (my eyes are fairly bad). I’ve never needed more than a day or so to adjust.
I think you should go back and get them checked out.
No. Go have them checked out.
I switch between the light ones and the regular ones when I switch frames – wire frames cannot hold my prescription in ordinary lenses, and some plastic frames can’t either. There is no adjustment time between them.
Have you tried putting them on first thing in the morning when you get out of bed and your eyes are used to not seeing stuff, rather than later in the day when your eyes have adjusted to your “usual” glasses?
If not, I’d try that.
Otherwise, I’d vote with the others, you should seriously consider taking them back to either your eye doctor or the place you got your prescription filled and say “These just aren’t helping me see, can you check the prescription for me?”
Mistakes do happen, and the guy filling mine recently almost typed in one of the values for my prescription wrong. I’d have caught it and fussed immediately, if it had been wrong, because I knew my new prescription was very similar to my old one.
Having said all that, I’ve had light weight lenses in my glasses for as long as I can remember, so I don’t know if getting a similar prescription in different lens material should affect your vision that much.
(I’m pretty severely near-sighted.
By the way, Mr. Eye Doctor, if you want to make your thirty-ishl patients happy, you do not comment repeatedly on how bad their eyes are, and how many eye appointments they must have had in their youth. My eyesight without glasses is pathetic, but it is easily correctable to 20/20, I have no problems with peripheral vision, and I didn’t inherit my mother’s eye disease, nor do I need bifocals(yet). So, all things considered, it could be a lot worse).
First off, the featherweight lenses have a very narrow angle of focus. It’s not like the old days when you could look side to side and see everything clearly. Now you have to move your head more.
2nd, if the focal points don’t line up to your eyes then you will NEVER see correctly. If you remember the trial fitting, someone looked at you and then put marks on the plastic to designate where the focal point should be. A measurement was taken and sent off with your prescription.
Sometimes you can test to see if the focal points are too far apart by flexing the frames inward (assuming you have frames that flex). If your vision improves then the focal points are off.
Also, if it only feels like you’re cross-eyed while reading then congratulations, you’re 40 and need bifocals.
I had exactly the same issue last year, featherlou. As it always takes a few days to get used to new glasses, I waited patiently. After about 2 weeks of headaches and blurry vision I returned to the eye doctor and had her re-check my prescription; it was correct…
She told me that some people just can’t get used to those ultra light-weight glasses (she explained why, but I’ve forgotten the explanation).
I had my glasses remade with the regular plastic lenses, and haven’t had an issue since. And the best part was that they remade the glasses for free, and the regular lenses were $50 cheaper, so I got a nice little refund! 
Well, I tried to wear them again this morning - after less than an hour, I had to put my old ones back on again, and it was hours before I stopped feeling crappy (I still have a mild eyestrain headache now). I’ve been wearing glasses a long time - this is not normal. I think I’m going to give up on the lightweight lenses - I can’t wear them long enough to get used to them, and they seem to feel worse the longer I wear them. 
Back they go.
Danged eyes - won’t let me wear contacts, now they won’t let me wear light glasses. Why do my eyes hate me so much?
(I’m starting to notice that it’s getting harder to focus on near things, but I don’t think I’m ready for bi-focals yet. My arms are still long enough. 
)
Wanna hear something funny? While washing my glasses this morning in preparation for work, I managed to break off the little nose pad thingy… so this morning I’m wearing my old glasses (with an ever-so-slightly different prescription). I’m blinking a lot, and trying to fend off a headache. [Clinton]I feel your pain.[/Clinton]
Anyone up for a round of Lasik?
While helping me move into my new apartment, my dad set his glasses down on the floor, and then set my brand new torchiere style lamp on top of them.
They smushed. No damage to the lenses, and he managed to bend the frames back into shape, so he could see to drive home.
Mom and I still don’t think it will make him get his eyes checked. Especially given that he has another set of lenses with the same prescription at home.
If you are referring to polycarbonate lenses as opposed to high index plastics, they do have a higher chromatic abberation value but peripheral vision should be okay in most patients. This depends more on the power of the lens than anything else. What do you mean by “angle of focus”? How far away from the OC before encountering abby? That depends highly on the Rx.
Most single vision wearers to not need to specify OC height. Unless a patient is wearing progressive bifocals, I do not dot the OC. I do raise it in high index materials, but I don’t move it more than 2mm up regardless of where the eye sits in the frame. Flexing the frame to verify PD is a bad idea. PD is generally taken with a pupilometer, not manually by dotting the lenses.
Featherlou, the best thing to do is take them back and have an optician check you out. It might be the material of the lens, but it could also be the amount of wrap or tilt in the frame, a change in the Rx, or a ton of other factors. There are also different types of thin, lightweight lenses. There are too many factors such as the lens material, single vision vs. progressive lenses, Rx, and the way the frame sits on your face to tell without more information. If this is the first time you’ve bought glasses from this optical, make sure to bring your other glasses for comparison. Sometimes even if the new glasses are right, if you’ve been wearing something different (Rx, lens material, or measurements) it will be difficult to adjust.
CairaJade,
ABO Certified Optician
How did I adapt to the new feather-weight lenses? I walked around randomly blopping myself in the face for a few weeks, since I couldn’t feel the weight of my glasses on my face and was automatically trying to push them up.
Me—> :smack:
No problems with the scripts, and I commonly switch between heavy and light ones, since my safety glasses for work still have to be made with the old heavy style lenses. Go back and have them see if something went awry in the process, you shouldn’t be having this big of an issue adjusting to them.
The face-blopping stops after a week, I promise!
Thanks for your input, all. I went back yesterday and talked to the glasses place, and we decided to switch out the light-weight lenses for high index plastic ones. I hope those work.
The last pair of lenses I got (feather-weight no-line bifocals) went back to the lab TWICE before they got it right. Whenever I change frame size/shape by more than a certain amount, I can expect it to take 2-3 days for me to stop seeing the “bend” in straight edges like door frames, etc.* So I know what to look for, and I know how it works.
I’m not sure what was wrong with the first set of lenses, but I could. not. see. The optician rechecked the prescription, and it was right, but something about how they’d ground the lenses wasn’t. They wanted me to take them for a week and try, but I knew something wasn’t right, and I wasn’t willing to subject myself to eyestrain headaches and then still have to come back and have them fix the problem. So they sent them off again.
The second time, the distance part of the lenses was ok, but the bifocal part was screwed up. I could see close up only if I looked down and to the left. :smack: I know they were frustrated with me, but too bad – I wasn’t leaving with lenses that were WRONG.
Third time was the charm. That’s the worst problem I’ve ever had with glasses, and I’ve been wearing them for 40+ years.
(*when I got a pair of aviator frames in 1973, I thought I was walking uphill for a couple of days.)
somewhere between 20 and 25 degrees of available focus. In other words, I can look left or right 10-12 degrees and retain focus. Beyond that and it quickly becomes blurry. I then have to turn my head to see clearly. It’s not divided equally either. I can see inward farther off axis than outward. It corresponds to the thickness of the lens.