The doctor said I am old, well not those exact words, so I needed reading glasses.
I picked them up yesterday. I have to say they help quite a bit but they are hard to get used to.
I have to go back today for some type of test as she said there was some pressure on my eyes that needs checked. She asked if I had high blood pressure which I don’t have, at least not according to my last doctor visit. I am not sure what the test involves but I guess I will find out more when I get there.
Any tips or tricks anyone has for a person that is new to glasses would be helpful.
It sounds to me as though you’re talking about intermittent glasses use, not a pair that you’ll be wearing all the time that you’re walking around. If that’s the case, consider getting the glasses bands that will allow them to hang around your neck when you’re not actually wearing the glasses. I know they look geeky as Hell, and are some kind of lodge badge for the Little Old Ladies of Library Protection. But if you don’t have some positive way to keep track of the silly things the whole time you’re on your feet - you will misplace them.
Now, with reading glasses, you may be able to find them easier than those of us who have to wear glasses to navigate inside buildings, but at least we only misplace our glasses in our homes. You may well take them off on the bus, in a movie theatre, or some other public place where finding them again will be effectively impossible. (Well, more accurately, wildly improbable.)
A second point - if you have a chance to go back to the eyeglasses place where you got these, and still qualify for it, a pair of cheap framed “emergency” glasses may well be available at half-price, or even free. Again, while you may be able to function without your glasses, do you really want to have to go through the time it might take to replace your glasses when you lose them? Having, even an unfashionable, a pair of emergency glasses can be worth it’s weight in platinum.
As a relatively new wearer of glasses myself (used for reading/computer) I can completely understand how they are awkward at first. I had a hard time transitioning between near and far when I looked up from my screen/book. The world would kinda sway on me. Then I found myself doing the looking over the top of the lenses thing when talking to people (gah! and I’m not even that old yet!!!).
The only thing I found that really helped was forcing myself to wear them one day for all my normal routines. My scrip isn’t that strong, so it wasn’t too difficult. I found that after doing that, they didn’t seem so out of place anymore and I can now easily transition between wearing them and not, as well as looking around with them on without the room swimming all about.
Good luck, and welcome to the world of being four-eyed.
If they’re really just reading glasses – straight magnifiers, no special prescription – go to Target or somewhere and buy a half dozen pairs at $5 each. Put one by your home computer, one by your work computer, one in your car, one by the bed, one by your usual living room chair, and one in the kitchen.
And although the “old spinster chain” works fine – I use one at work – perching them on top of your head or tucked into the neck of your sweater also works.
twicks, who can no longer read a damn thing, even holding it way out and squinting, if she doesn’t have reading glasses.
When I finally got glasses (imagine being a delivery driver who can’t even read numbers on houses–sometimes I am a grade A dumbass) my mother said, “Oh, you’re like me; you look much better with glasses”. Great, so I’ve been ugly the last 20-odd years? But she’s right, I do. So maybe you’ll find that you look more distinguished with your new specs.
Right now I just need them to help me read. The doctor said I don’t even need to use them all the time just when I feel eye strain. They do help a lot though so I feel I will be using them a lot.
She just called them readers so I am not sure if they are an actual prescription.
I wear my sunglasses on my head a lot so I see that happening more than setting them to the side.
Ha Ha my daughter said something like that. “You look like you have always worn glasses, they don’t look strange at all” Yeah uh huh
I am not even going to go into what happened at my appointment today.
I think in the morning I will start a pit thread though. Ugh
Oh man, do I second this. I have my “real” pair, which I keep at work, and two other cheapo pairs that float between home, car, pocket, etc. And I still can be found wandering the house, newspaper in hand, saying “Has anyone seen my glasses?!?”
I just got my first pair of reading glasses, too. They’re hard to get used to. I got the $9.99 ones at Walgreen’s.
So here is my problem, and maybe some of you veteran glasses-wearers can offer me advice: I like to read in bed. Sometimes I lie on my back and read, sometimes I lie on my stomach, propped up on my elbows (it was actually this position which led me to realize I needed reading glasses–I found myself pulling my neck way back trying to get far enough away from the page to read it easily) but the vast majority of the time I lie on my side to read. Usually this means my head is propped up either by my hand or my arm, or sometimes even just the pillow… but no matter what it is, something pushing against the side of my face makes my glasses move into a non-ideal position. It sucks. Especially since it’s nearly impossible for me to read myself to sleep in any other position.
I was going through my desk yesterday getting rid of old paper work. I found myself putting them on the top of my head when I took a break. I didn’t forget they were there though.
I found it interesting this morning as I was drinking my hot coffee and my glasses fogged up for a millisecond when I was drinking it. I didn’t notice that yesterday. Maybe my coffee was just not hot enough.
She was referring to a test of your intraocular pressure (IOP). High IOP can be a sign - in fact, one of the few warning signs - of glaucoma, which one of the doctors I work for calls the “silent blinder.” Without semi-regular eye pressure checks, the only real sign would be an imperceptibly slow loss of peripheral vision; for some people this isn’t checked out until one day they realize they only have tunnel vision and go to an eye doctor. Vision loss due to glaucoma is irreversible. There are ways to stop its progression, including eye drops and (in very stubborn cases) surgery.
The pressure tests I’m most familiar with are by Tonopen and by Goldmann tonometry. Both involve a numbing drop applied to the eye and the instrument being touched to the surface - the former is a hand-held device that taps lightly on the eye’s surface, and the latter is mounted into the slit-lamp machine used to look into your eyes and gently touches the eye’s surface to give a reading. There’s also the “puff of air” method that I experienced at eye doctors during childhood but I haven’t seen that method used where I work. (I’m not a fan of it; I startle even though I know the puff is coming.)
I have just reading glasses that I wear for close work. They aren’t prescription, just magnifiers. I have had to increase the power of them, though. What really depresses me when I think about it, is that I wear them over my contacts. A few years back my eye doctor set my lens prescription a little far-sighted (intentionally), which essentially made my situation like that of most people my age. So now with my contacts I need reading glasses. I keep a pair at home, and those I keep misplacing, even though I try to keep them in the same place all the time. They’re supposed to be in front of the computer. But they wander off when I’m not looking. I also keep a little pair in a handy-dandy little metal case in my purse, in my apron pocket at work, and I have a couple of spares of those. Of course, I didn’t have any of those with me when we went to the theater yesterday, as I forgot my purse at work the night before. I guess even glasses can’t fix old.
