Well, all the things that were never going to happen to me ie; losing my hair, slowing down, not being able to party to 4am, etc are happening. The latest is my inability to read small print or even the tablet. After using Wal-Mart reading glasses for a few years I finally gave in and went to the eye doctor. My vision is fine, a little bit of a problem in my right eye seeing distance, with the main issue being confined to reading. The doctor suggested glasses with a progressive bifocal so I could wear them all the tine and not have to carry around reading glasses.
I just picked them up today and the seen to work as advertised, but I an noticing some strange things. I want to see if these are normal before I go back in to the doctor. Here are the two issues that I’m noticing the most:
1: When looking at the tablet I’m typing in now looking through the bifocal part seems to make the tablet look slightly convex, seeming to bow out in the middle.
2: When using the bifocal part I have to be looking almost straight on at what I’m reading or it tends to get a bit fuzzy. I don’t seem to recall that issue with standard reading glasses.
Something tells me these issues are normal, but I just want to confirm. More than likely I’ll get used to this in a few days. I have to say that I can already see how much more convenient these will be than carrying around reading glades all the time.
Now I just have to sit back, relax and wait for the next “old man” problem to crop up! I was young and strong once, wasn’t I? :rolleyes:
The barrel distortion is nothing unusual for new glasses of any kind. After a while, your brain will correct for it, most likely.
Not sure about the other thing. I was prescribed varifocals recently and they were a complete nightmare, and I utterly failed to adapt to them - I went back to single vision lenses.
I have progressive bifocal lenses. What progressive lenses do is give you close-in correction at the bottom of the lens and distance correction at the top. Instead of an abrupt change, the prescription changes continuously from top to bottom of the lens.
If you use your tablet flat on the table, but it’s further away than you would hold a book, it might be you’re looking at it with close-in correction rather than more mid-range.
Most of what I do is look at a desktop computer. My doctor therefore writes into the prescription to have as wide a mid-range correction as possible. This means that I get as wide a field of view for my computer work as possible.
I wear progressive bifocals for my normal glasses. However I work behind 3 computer screens all day long. Therefore I bought a pair of single vision ‘computer’ glasses in large part due to the problems you mentioned.
I also have prescription sunglasses that are lined bifocals. That way I can see the road and the computer on my bicycle just by moving my eyes up and down. When I had progressive bifocals I had to move my head around a lot more to see things clearly. Also my peripheral vision isn’t as good with progressive lenses.
Some people just can’t adapt to progressives. I’m one of them. I find that lined bifocals (well, trifocals, now) work fine for me, with no adjustment period necessary.
Of course, apart from this you will start forgetting things: Things like your trouser zip; or when you get to the top of the stairs and wonder why; or when you can’t find your glasses because you need your glasses.
I recently went in for new glasses. Talking to the clerk, I explained how unhappy I was with my progressive lenses (bought from Zenni). The peripheral vision issue is a big problem. Driving, I feel unsafe. Reading, I have to move my head around a lot to do crosswords. She explained that this was a problem with all progressives. So I passed on getting progressives again and just got single vision (distance) and switch to reading glasses when needed.
But, I took Optics in college. I don’t get it. Why would progressives have problems with peripheral vision (both upper and lower)? I can see (!) how there would be a problem zone in the transition area, but away from the transition area, top or bottom, why wouldn’t the be able to grind the lens so that the peripheral vision is just as good as with a single vision lens?
Some people just can’t adjust to progressives. I’m one of them. I fined that old-fashioned lined bifocals (well, trifocals for me now) are much, much easier to live with.
As to why progressives don’t work in the periphery of your field of vision, I don’t know, but it’s absolutely true that they don’t.
I find the whole “move your head, not your eyes” thing infuriating, and can’t imagine that this is the way corrective lenses are supposed to work.
I’m not so vain that I care about having visible lines on my glasses, and they work so much better (for me, of course) than progressives.
ETA: Sorry about the double post – browser weirdness here.
Likewise. I got progressives and never adjusted to them. It messed with my peripheral vision, so that I had to turn my head more to see from side to side. It was especially bothersome when I was driving. It felt like I had tunnel vision. After a year, I went back to plain old fashioned bifocals.
I’m another data point for no love for progressives. The day I first progressed to progressives (heh), I went to see a cricket match and immediately noticed the loss of acuity even if I looked only slightly to the side of dead ahead. Gave me the utter shits.
My primary problem is with distance vision, and I found myself regularly perching the glasses on top of my head unless I really needed to see something with precision (reading was fine without glasses). I had single vision prescription sunnies for driving.
All told, the “shoulders” problem made progressives not a great solution for me. As my reading vision deteriorates, I may have to get used to two pairs of glasses. Can’t stand that peering down the nose thing to read at all.
I’ve used progressives when the eye doctor first said I needed glasses. They take some getting used to. Think of tilting your head to read. Walking down stairs is interesting.
Thanks for all the replies. Hopefully the convex vision I’m getting will resolve itself. But, from what I’ve seen from the responses the peripheral problem us inherent with this you’re of lens. It’s a bit annoying to have to turn my had to follow the text in my browser, but I guess I’ll get used to it eventually. Hell, I’ll have to! These damn things cost too much to discard.
I wish I had seen this thread when I got my progressives about ten years ago. I’m a very detail-oriented person, the type who sees two similar fonts and looks for their differences and similarities. So when I got my first progressives and tried them on, I noticed the difference immediately. I don’t mean the same day, I mean as soon as I opened my eyes. Everything even slightly to the right or left of dead center was slightly out of focus.
WTF? With my previous glasses, everything was crystal clear, even if the glasses were on crooked, or a few inches away from my face, and no matter which direction I was looking. Heck, I could hold my glasses BACKWARDS and the focus was still perfect. (That never made sense, but it did work.) Why do these not focus properly?
I wouldn’t be so grumpy about this if I had been warned in advance. But the (alleged) professional at the optician didn’t know what I was talking about. I wanted to just leave the glasses there, but I figured (perhaps incorrectly) that I wouldn’t get my money back. So I took them, hoping that I’d get used to them.
Ten years later, a more impartial person might say that I did get used to them, but I’d rather say that I’m resigned to them. I’d LOVE to experiment with using both regular and reading glasses, but that would run a few hundred dollars, and there’s no way I can spend so much on something that I might not like.
I have two pair of progressives. One pair has larger lenses, and the peripheral issue is dramatically less. Before I got progressives, I never noticed a severe issue with peripheral, so it seems to have something to do with progressive. Then again, my prescription for nearsightedness is very mild (0.5), and that may be a factor.
CVS (where I got them both) offers higher-priced versions with better peripheral vision. No idea how it works or how well it works in practice.
BTW, “progressive bifocal” is a misnomer. They’re either progressive or bifocal. Progressives have variable focal length, not just two.
I got used to the barrel perspective issue, except when playing piano. I just can’t deal with the keyboard curving up and flopping all over as I play! (I don’t read music, and I guess my head moves a lot as I play.)
As far as I’m concerned, dual vision doesn’t work for me. Period. An earlier optometrist kept trying to convince me otherwise. The problem is that I absolutely, positively do not want to read through the BOTTOM of my glasses. I’m near sighted, and have been wearing glasses since third grade. I can read stuff without my glasses just fine, and should always be able to. When I reached the “bifocal age”, I just started taking my glasses off or putting them up on my head to read stuff. I got dual vision glasses like I was supposed to, and wound up continuing to do that. I just HATE sticking my nose in the air to read something, and found myself peering over the tops of the glasses instead no matter how much I tried to train myself to do the “correct” thing. I simply don’t read or work on a computer screen the way an optometrist would have me do it. Instead I want my nose buried in what I’m looking at. I want to position myself so that my desktop monitor fills my field of vision. Yeah, I’d collect a bunch of crap from coworkers about being 6 inches from a large screen, and I periodically have to deal with the back problems that result. I can’t train myself to sit at a screen the way PTs or chiropractors want either.
This sounds tragic to me, and I blame the Luxottica monopoly. (Look them up - they own everything).
Go online! I got my last 2 pairs of glasses online and both myself and my optometrist are happy with them. Because of my excessive prescription, I used to pay 600+ for a pair of glasses. My last set cost me 60. If your prescription is in the bounds of normality, I bet you can get some delivered to your door for 20$.
Let me preface this by mentioning that I was an ABO certified optician for 15 years.
The clerk is an idiot, and should have had you speak with an optician. It is NOT a problem with all progressives–only with progressives that haven’t been properly fitted or were poorly made. This PDF document gives a pretty good introduction to what needs to be done both before and after the spectacles are made to make them work right.