So, does anyone know why my lenses have to be out of focus side-to-side as well as top-to-bottom? The top-to-bottom I understand - I don’t understand why my area of good focus has to be so tiny.
Here’s the Wiki article on progressive lenses. I think it’ll answer most of your questions as to how they’re made the way they are and why. And you might want to have the place where the glasses were made check to make sure that the prescription is correct and that placement is correct relative to your pupils. According to the Wiki article incorrect placement can cause multiple problems.
You might also inquire about “wide channel” lenses, which is what the tech in my optometrist’s office was going to have put in the $600 glasses she was trying to sell me. She said they would give me a wider range of focus. I went to Eyemart Express instead and a got a less expensive regular pair of progressives to try out before I bought the more expensive ones, and as it turned out they were fine so I just stayed with them.
But mostly it sounds like you may simply be having trouble adjusting to the fact that you basically have to point your nose at whatever you want to see clearly. With progressive lenses you simply can’t look at stuff by glancing sideways. You have to move your head! It’s annoying and unnatural at first but you do get used to it, and when you reach that point it’ll start to feel natural and you won’t even be aware you’re doing it.
So to recap, what I would suggest is that you make sure the prescription is correct and that the lenses and corrections are properly placed relative to your pupils. There should be no charge for either. You might also look into wide channel lenses. The place where you got your glasses might even apply the cost of the lenses you have now to the cost of the new ones. Then, once you’ve investigated that and you know that the settings are correct, it’ll simply be a matter of finding out whether or not you can adjust to them. A few weeks to a couple months of wear should answer that. Good luck.
I was an optician for nearly 15 years. 20% failure to adapt would be for switching from lines to progressives. For new presbyopes the success rate was around 90% when I started in 1991, and lens designs have been constantly improving.
That being said, progressives are trickier to fit. They require more precise measurements, and are more affected by frame alignment. Unfortunately, most states don’t require any kind of licensing or training to fit spectacles, and a lot of places just don’t want to pay for experienced help. (Which is the main reason I left the field.) And it’s hard to tell if the optician really knows what he’s doing, because proper measurements don’t take any longer to do than sloppy ones, just more training and practice.
Back to the OP’s question, when I was doing it the average time for first time wearers to get comfortable with them was about 2 weeks, and sometimes required adjustments to the frame. Even after one week I’d be double and triple checking measurements, because some people need to be fitted a little differently than “normal”.
I’m one of those who has never been able to get used to full-on progressives (that include distance and reading and everything in between). Instant headache to even put them on. The side-to-side motion is the worst - last pair I tried, I couldn’t even read an entire line of text because the focus was so dramatically different.
I am, however, able to use a partial progressive: reading distance at the bottom, room distance (15 feet, roughly) at the top. Of course, this means I have to have a separate pair for true distances such as driving.
The optician suggested that it might be at least partly because my eyes are quite different in strength (e.g. -3.5 in one, -5.5 in the other), that I’m getting different messages from the two eyes and that’s the issue. Regardless, I tried full-on progressives on two separate occasions and both times had to have them remade.
This time around, they accidentally made me full-range progressives vs. room distance and it was horrible. I was back in there the next day. Then they made me a pair with the old pair’s room distance, but updated reading prescription, and that was almost as bad as the full-range pair. Finally they made a pair that had the new reading, and even weaker room distance, and those are tolerable if not great.
I know people who’ve had Lasik and had one eye done for reading and the other done for distance and that, to me, is a HORRIFYING concept. Imagine having your eyes give you conflicting messages… and you can’t fix it.
Four days in - my eyes were both bright red last night, I assume from eye strain. My left eye is still quite bloodshot again today. When I put my progressive lenses on today, instant headache. I’ll give it two weeks, but I’m not loving them so far. The little bit of benefit I’m getting from being able to read a few things up close isn’t outweighing the headaches and everything being fuzzy and my eyes straining to focus 90% of the time. I desperately want to just put my old glasses on and not have to fight to see everything.
So far the only real problem has been the carpeting at work - the stripes “wiggle” at me if I look at them the wrong way. Makes me a little dizzy. Mine are in my contacts; I wonder if that made it easier for me to adapt than it would have been with glasses.