That’s me. I have a trifocal prescription. I have tried, several times, to get used to progressive lenses. It just doesn’t work for me. I’m resigned to having the lines on my glasses. I’m not so vain that I would wear glasses that just don’t work for cosmetic reasons.
The trifocals are great. Each area (distance, mid-range, near/reading) is big enough so that I don’t have to move my head all the time. I can work at my computer while looking through the middle part, read just fine, and while walking around or driving or doing anything that requires distance vision, the middle and bottom parts are below my line of sight, so I don’t even know they’re there.
Be careful going downstairs for awhile. Both bifocals and progressives can make going downstairs problematic because you’ll be looking down through your near vision part of the lens but your feet is actually at a distance. Use a handrail until you get used to it and take your time, be careful.
I’m going to ask my eye doctor about bifocals in March when I see him next. The wife wears them and likes them, although she said she was told some people simply cannot get used to them. I’m just now getting used to contacts and would like to try bifocals so I don’t have to keep moving my regular glasses up and down my nose to see at different distances.
I have worn them for years. They work fine. It didn’t take me long at all to get used to them. One warning though. By design there is only one in-focus spot in the lens for each distance. So when you look at a computer screen or TV for long periods of time, you keep your head still. Over time, my neck has become significantly less flexible and stiff. Regular lenses or even bifocals allow one to move one’s head and still keep things in focus, so this problem doesn’t occur as much. But I think it is a problem for progressive lenses.
I’ve had progressive lenses for a couple of decades now. I needed maybe a day to get fully used to them and no problems after that. The only problem is when somebody wants me to look at something and they hold it up too high, so that I can’t focus on it.
I’ve got them - love them for everything but computer work/distance - so I have a second pair strictly for that.
One thing to keep in mind - they need to get the transition “line” just right - or you may not get the results you should - a change in 1mm up or down can make a world of difference.
My Wife can use her progressives for the Computer - she thinks its all in my head that I cannot -but I spend 12-14 hours a day with 2 monitors compared to her setup - so its different for us.
Ditto the advice for a computer-use set of specs. I don’t hate my progressives, but they’re basically social/walk-around glasses. I have a set entirely for work at a computer, which is what I do for a living.
The way my eyes are built, I seemed to naturally look through the transitional band, and that gave me migraines.
I did a lot of scanning at work, and now that I’m retired I like to read and do crafts. I don’t have the regular bifocals with the curved lens at the bottom. My bifocals have a straight line through the lens, and it’s easy for my eyes to KNOW to look up over the line for distance, or below the line for close work. That style is called “Executive Bifocal” and I insist on it.
~VOW
I love my progressives. It took very little time at all to adjust, not even worth mentioning. The first time I got them, it took two different prescription adjustmentss and two different pairs of glasses until it was finally right, but I’ve not had any problem in the 3 pairs since then. I keep a cheap set of reading glasses for when I want to lie back and read and not have to turn my head back and forth, because, as everyone else has said, the sweet spot in progressives is rather small, which isn’t normally a problem, but when I’m lying back my head is pretty immobile. If my astigmatism were any stronger, I would order a set of reading glasses to my actual prescription, which the optometrist wrote out for me for that purpose. The readers I have are from Goggles4U and cost about $10 for my very strong prescription (about +4.t, iirc.).
You will likely have no problem adjusting to your new glasses. I really feel like I’ve been given back my eyesight.
My biggest issue with them, and I don’t knowonly one were done wrong, is I can only really read in one or two positions. I can’t read clearly sitting up in bed unless I’m absolutely upright and I have difficulty reading a newspaper lying flat on the table. The one thing they haven’t gotten right in the 3 times I’ve tried these lenses, is the short range vision…talking to people around me or just walking down the street, I feel disconnected somehow with the glasses and without. Just a little bit off.
Wouldn’t trade it for putting glasses on and off a hundred times a day just to see tho.
I’m nearsighted and have been wearing glasses for fifty years. When I needed help to read I went with progressive lenses and they’re great. Not perfect though, mind you. I first got them right before a Christmas and found I was wrapping packages like a drunken sailor. (Unadjusted depth perception.) But I got over it.
When I move my eyes to the side things aren’t so much in focus, so I learned to turn my head. When I watch TV lying down, I slide my glasses down on my nose. When I read in bed I’m so close to the page that I take them off.
You’ll find yourself doing many geeky things like tipping back your head to see what exactly is in that jar of jam, but that’s alright. You’ve already lost “perfect” focus (don’t despair); now you’re going for better. And it is.
Better than my husband’s use of lined bifocals, anyway. He just looks weird.
I had bifocals for 5 years until 2000 and recently went back on them. One thing I recommended is to get them on a wire frame, not a solid plastic one. Since I wear my glasses all day, I didn’t want to keep moving my eyes or tilt my head up and down between the lenses. Instead, I adjusted my glasses up and down slightly, but still close to my face. It’s easier with the moveable nosepads on wire frames. It got to wear I switched from the reading to the distance lenses using my facial muscles, only using my hand to adjust them when they slipped down too much.
It took me a day or two to adjust, but they’ve been fine ever since. The only issue is when I’m lying on my back and watching TV; sometimes I have to slip them down my nose to see things properly.
I’ve been wearing progressives for over 10 years, and I was an optician for 15 years, so I have fitted hundreds and hundreds of them. First advice: Do NOT buy them online. They are not easy to make correctly, and they have a spot that has to be fitted directly in front of the pupil, with very little tolerance. To make the lenses correctly, someone has to put the frame on you and spot where your pupils sit in that frame. If the horizontal placement is off by even a millimeter or two it may be impossible to see well through them, even if the prescription is correct.
Secondly, you need to make sure that the person fitting them knows what he/she is doing. Most states don’t having any kind of licensing for opticians, and all too many places are too cheap to hire people who know what they’re doing. If you don’t live in a state that has licensure, your best bet is to make sure they have ABO certified staff.
Progressives work great for most people IF they are fit properly. The amount of time it takes to “get used to them” can be anywhere from immediate to two weeks, and sometimes requires tweaking the frame alignment.
I have the same exact prescription and the glasses are fine, you do get used to them. However I found I like the contacts much better. What I have is the right eye is set up to see distance and the left up close. I know it sounds odd, but you adjust in two minutes to it. So when I look at a book or a computer screen my left eye focuses and my right eye…well hell I have no idea what it does to be honest! And when I look far away the right eye takes over and again who knows what the damn left eye is doing. It sounds weird but you don’t even think about it or notice it. So you might try the contacts instead of glasses route.
I tried the trifocal progressives sveeral years ago in a small lens and absolutely hated them. Recently I gave it another shot in a much larger lens. That made it much better, plus I think their manufacturing process is much improved.
Still, I have about a half dozen different glasses, each of different manufacture like bifocal, single strength, etc and continue to switch them out depending on what I’m doing and what they’re best suited for.
I got cheaper lenses a couple of times from “chain” stores and they were never exactly right. After that I was more selective and have had no problems. My husband claims his Sears or WalMart lenses are just fine.
Thanks for the advice. I pay through the nose for my primary pair of glasses at my optometrist’s office, mostly because I’m very sensitive to even minor flaws in my vision and I don’t want to screw around with online glasses that may or may not be up to the quality I need. I am considering getting some prescription sunglasses online, though. (Edit: regular distance prescription sunglasses, not progressives.)
It looks like Ohio is a state that requires licensing, so I should be okay there. I’ve been going to the same eye doctor for about five years now, and they’ve always taken good care of me. I get the lenses fitted tomorrow, so hopefully all goes well. I’m looking forward to having sharp reading vision again.