I’m 47, have worn glasses for nearsightedness since I was a kid, latest prescription is in the -3.75 range.
For a while now I’ve needed to remove my glasses to read - feel like I can see perfectly and comfortably at about 9" without glasses right now, and also feel like there’s an “intermediate” range a bit beyond that at which neither (with/without glasses) is ideal.
So I suppose there are classic conditions for needing bifocals (if not trifocals) or progressives, but I’ve been put off by the negatives I’ve heard about - the “jump” with the former, the out-of-focus peripheral vision and even nausea from turning your head with the latter (!) - but I’m getting tired of constantly taking my glasses on and off (and sometimes not being able to see well in either state)…I guess my question is, is there anyway to tell which might work better for me without actually trying both?
Some other info that might be of help - don’t really care about the bifocal “line”, work a typical desk job looking at a computer screen most of the time, spend ~2 hours a day driving.
I’d worn glasses since fifth grade, and that was in the mid 50’s, so I consider myself an experienced user.
When I first needed reading glasses I went with progressives and never went back. I loved them and never had any issues at all adjusting.
I had to work in an area for a while that required safety glasses, which the company provided, but they were trifocals! I wore them for about a week and told the management that I either needed progressive safety glasses or I’d wear my regular glasses with goggles over when drilling or grinding. That’s what I ended up doing. Just couldn’t take the trifocals.
About 8 years ago I had cataract surgery on both eyes and no longer needed glasses for most activity except reading or close work. So now I have progressives with no correction on top and reading correction on the bottom. Seemed easier than carrying reading glasses around.
I recently got contact lenses with bifocus. They are not the old monofocus type, where you had one eye corrected for distance and one for reading. Rather, the individual lenses have concentric circles corrected for different use. It took very little getting used to, and I like them FAR better than I did my bifocal glasses.
With the glasses, there are just certain things you do where you’ll be looking out of the wrong part of the lens. Going down stairs is the first example that comes to mind. You have to look down for that, and I ended up just learning to hold the hand rail and close my eyes as I nearly toppled several times.
If you go with the progressives, be sure to practice with them in front of a mirror. People who don’t pay attention can develop a very bird-like head bob while finding their focus.
I have my regular pair of glasses, which is tri-focal progressive, with no lines. But to see a computer screen, I need to use the bottom portion of the lens, so I have to lean my head back to do so – that gets annoying & makes my neck sore. So I got a second pair, with the entire lens set to focus about 18" away – the distance to my computer screen. Those are my ‘computer glasses’. I keep them inside, near the computer.
They’re pretty cheap, since they are the same prescription, a single-focus lens, and don’t need photogray, hardened lens, etc. One hint – get frames for them that are visibly different from your regular glasses, so you don’t confuse them.
OP, I’m almost a clone of you. I’m 47 with the same script and have had progressives for about 4 years. Just like t-bonham@scc.net, I use an single vision intermediate pair of glasses for daily computer use. I keep one pair at home and one at the office.
I find the tunnel on progressives is too narrow for computer use and for tablet and phone beyond a casual glance and I take my glasses off completely.
Another person greatly disappointed with the tunnel vision of progressives. I have asked repeatedly about that and been told that’s just the way there are.
Nonsense.
So I go with bifocals plus one “intermediate” pair just for computer use.
Anyway, when I was shopping with Mrs. FtG for her new glasses, one place was hyping their new improved progressives. The “before and after” field of view images clearly showed the tunnel effect was gone. Costs more $, of course.
Um, why wasn’t this the standard for progressives all along???
The secret to progressives is to get BIG lenses. Those shapes that are so popular now (wide left to right, but narrow top to bottom) will suck as progressives. Get big, round lenses. That way you get much more usable space.
And I’ll add my vote for dedicated computer glasses, single vision, eighteen inch or so focus distance. Trying to use a computer with progressives is literally a pain in the neck.
If you want to try out different configurations, look into the many online places for glasses. They will often be 75% cheaper than what you would pay in a local store. You could try out a bunch of different configurations for less than the cost of one pair of glasses from a local store.
I’ve been wearing progressives for almost 20 years now, and after a very brief period of getting used to them, I love them! I agree about getting as big a lens as you can. The last pair I got were small and they’re close to worthless. I’m wearing the older pair (my prescription hardly changed) and the newer ones are on my nightstand for bedtime reading & TV watching.
There’s no way to tell. I started wearing glasses when I was 8, never very strong. For 10 or so years after I hit 50, I took my glasses off to read and then got progressives. I was told it would take some time to get used to them. It may have taken 5 seconds to adjust and I love them and used them since. So when my wife started needing glasses for reading, she got progressives based on my experience. She hated them, never got used to them and now should probably get trifocals. She has more different glasses than you can imagine and can never find the ones she needs at the moment, while I just go on with my progressives.
Thanks for the replies - what I’m concluding from research here and elsewhere is that progressives are the more “modern” option, that newer (more expensive) designs are better than older ones, that larger (taller) lenses are better than smaller, that complementary dedicated single vision “computer” glasses might also be a good idea - but also that, in the end, some people just can’t ever get used to them, and there’s no real way to know if you’re in that camp without trying them…lots to think about!
I have nothing but nearsightedness. For reading almost anything I just take my glasses off. The one exception is when using my notebook computer, under certain conditions (like leaning back and relaxing while I websurf or post here). Then I need glasses–but other glasses. I need to use my old glasses from a couple of years ago; single focus like my current pair, but not as strong. I never imagined that my life with glasses would become so complicated. Several times I’ve gone out of the house in my “computer” glasses, which really sucks because everything’s blurry. It’s not like I can’t see and identify people and objects, but it’s all blurry, and it’s hard to get past the distraction of “if I had only changed to my other glasses before I left the house”. Once I did this before going on a long drive, which was fine because I had my prescription sunglasses with me. But then I had to make sure I drove back while it was still light out.
I underwent LASIK in 2001, but by 2009 needed glasses again.
Prior to LASIK I was so nearsighted that, without glasses, I could barely see past the tip of my nose. But at least life was simple; I needed to use that one pair of glasses for EVERYTHING, including reading.
Because no one had worked out the math for the lenses, and they were probably too hard to cut until computer-guided shaping was affordable.
I’m one of the people who had trouble with progressive lenses. I hated the narrow range of focus left-to-right, and I got headaches, and felt a little “off”, not exactly dizzy, not exactly nauseated, but not right, either.
I had a pair of progressives that were too weak at “infinity” I wore most of the time, but I also had a pair of bifocals that I wore when I went to things like a conference or a college reunion, so I could recognize people I knew. And I also had a pair of single-vision glasses that I wore to drive at night and at movies.
I now have “digital progressive” lenses, or “premium progressive” lenses. The biggest advantage isn’t that the “sweet spot” is wider, although it is. The biggest advantage is that the rest of the image doesn’t twist around weirdly as I move my head, and I no longer get sick from them.
Yes, have them “progress” over a larger range from top to bottom helps, too. The more gradual the progress, the lesser the artifacts.
Mine are actually set so that the maximum focus isn’t directly in front of me, but slightly above neutral. When I need to see far away clearly (driving, movies) I let my glasses slide down my nose a bit. If I just need to see one thing far away right now, I lower my head a tad and look through the upper part of the lens. I may look funny, but I see pretty well.
By the way, a lot of people have no trouble at all adjusting to progressives. You might want to avoid spending a ton of money on fancy lenses until you know whether you need to or not.
I’m one of the ones who found progressives unacceptable for computer use: I have two large monitors and need to have the whole screen in focus when I do graphic layout, not just a narrow band. So I have my regular bifocals for reading and distance and computer bifocals for reading and monitor distance (4 feet, in my setup). I have to remember to switch when I go in and out of my office.
I’ll second the recommendation made above about buying your glasses online. When I started needing reading glasses about 20 years ago, I couldn’t believe how much the retail stores were charging: $200+ for a pair of glasses I might break or lose? No way! I stuck with drug store readers until I found Zenni Optical and could get good prescription glasses for about $50. Depending on your prescription and the features you want (anti-glare, scratch resistant, auto darkening, etc.) they will cost only about a third or a quarter of what the retail chains charge.
(BTW, here’s a video that explains the monopoly that makes most glasses so expensive.)
Here’s a thread in which we discussed the pros and cons of buying prescription glasses online.
