I just received mail-order glasses from Warby Parker. The order was held up because it turned out my eye doc wrote a prescription for progressives. (We talked briefly about reading music, but that’s all I remember about the exam.) I had ordered single visions, but I’m not sure single visions were what I got.
There may have been a change in my vision since my last glasses 5 years ago. With the new pair, distance and forward vision are excellent. But looking downward or to the side I get progressive-like effects: heights shorten, rectangles turn trapezoidal. Peripheral vision blurs. The whole experience is accompanied by a slight feeling of eyestrain and slight motion sickness.
So did I get progressives? I asked for singles, and was charged for singles. Can singles be made from a progressive script without f’ing things up?
Warby says they’ll make good in case of error. I just have to figure out who made the error(s). Any Warby anecdotes are welcome here too, BTW.
I’ve had progressives for about a year and a half. I did need a couple weeks to adjust, but not in any way like you’re describing. Going down stairs was my biggest adjustment until I figured out to bend my head down more and that was pretty much it. Plus since then I’ve just gotten used to seeing stairs through reading lenses (they look closer, and blurry) and don’t have to bend my head down like that any more.
If you look at an object through the top portion of the lenses, say 10 feet away, and then tilt your head up so you’re looking through the bottom portion of the lenses, does that object go completely blurry like you’re not wearing glasses? Then you likely have progressives - now look through that same bottom portion at a book page at elbow distance. If it’s clear to read and blurry if you tilt your head down and look through the top portion, then you have progressives for sure.
I don’t see distortion or misshapen objects - if I look all the way to the left or right edge of the lens, there is some blurring, but nothing like you’re describing. Once in a great while at the grocery store I get a mild “swimming” effect if I scan quickly over an aisle selection of items without focusing on anything, but that’s rare.
Are the new lenses a very different shape/size from what you’re used to, and how much of a change in Rx? These are likely more factors into your issue than progressive vs. single vision. Larger lenses cause more distortion along the periphery.
No, SeaDragonTattoo, I am not getting the effects you describe.
Still wondering if something may have gone wrong with the prescription. Another possible culprit is pupillary distance, which Warby asks you to measure by taking a photo of yourself with a magnetic stripe card under your nose. Mine did not show pupils, as I did not have the best light available and have dark eyes.
I am away from home and will have to wait several days to see my doctor.
Hold the glasses in front of your face, and look through the top portion at some object. Then move the glasses up and down. If the distance of optimum focus changes, you have progressives.
The PD may well be the problem. It can be included in your Rx from your doctor’s office, but you often have to ask them to put it on there. If it’s the same doc you used 5 years ago, just email the office and ask them what it was last time. It won’t have changed. If it’s more than a mm different from what you gave Warby, there’s your issue.
When I first ordered from Zenni, I tried measuring PD myself, and with the help of two other friends. All three of us got different numbers, and all three were different from the PD my doc’s office emailed me when I asked for it the next day.
Apparently from the posts so far, Everyone’s Mileage May Vary. I tried progressives and didn’t like them at all, and never got accustomed to them, and quit using them. The “symptoms” were much as described (especially looking from side-to-side, there seemed to be a lot of distortion). So, from OP’s description, it sounds to me like, Yes, you got progressives.
And, IMHO, Yes, getting progressives is a mistake.
Wrong “O”. They need to examined by an optician. There’s a pretty common error that can cause peripheral distortion. If the lenses are a little too big and forced into the frame it warps them.near the edges. I saw it a lot with “bargain” glasses when I was an optician. And I would never trust a PD taken by anyone but a licensed or certified optician.
Wholesale on progressives is (or was when I was in the field) higher than retail on single vision, and require more measurements than just a PD.
Also there’s a big difference in quality between different progressive lens brands. The ones I got from Costco have a much less wide channel of clear vision as opposed to the (sadly) much more expensive ones I got from a local optician.
Had new and old pairs read by an optician. Not only are my new lenses stronger, but they vary from the written script. How strongly, I forgot to ask. (It’s one way I manage social anxiety. Have three questions? Pick two.)
Anybody understand this stuff at sight?
New Lenses
Right: -7.75 -.50 x 180
Left: -8.75 -1.25 x 50
Written Rx
Right: -8.25 +.50 x 95 +1.50
Left: -10.00 +1.25 x 140 +1.50
(The +1.50 at the end is the add factor for progressives)
Actually they don’t. The prescription is written in plus cylinder, the optician read them in minus. You convert from plus to minus cylinder by adding the sphere and cylinder, flipping the sign for cylinder and rotating the axis by 90 degrees.
The written Rx converted to minus cylinder is:
-7.75 -.50 X 05
-8.75 -1.25 X 50
The axis on the right lens is off by 5 degrees, which could just be a matter of the lens not quite mounted correctly.
There are a number of other things that could be wrong. There could be the warpage I mentioned before. The fact that the optician told you the prescription was different than written makes me question his or her competency. Converting plus to minus cylinder is something we had to learn early in the game, and it would be unlikely to pass the certification test without a good grasp of it. If you don’t live in a state that has licensing for opticians it’s a good idea to find out if the optician helping you is ABO certified. It’s pretty much the only assurance a consumer can have that the “optician” is really an optician.
I know there’s no way in hell a real optician had anything to do with your mail order glasses. There’s too much involved in fabricating and fitting glasses that requires face to face contact at time of order and at completion of order.
The optician didn’t tell me any such thing - all I got was a reading. As I noted, I never asked him to compare the new lenses to the script, only to my old lenses. I will definitely rectify that mistake!
3 days in, the new Rx checks out just about perfectly (as Doug K suggested it would), the eyestrain and motion effect are about gone, and I have much better vision at distance and close up. I think I’m closing the book on this.
Ditto the “different quality for different manufacturers”. The way it was explained to me by one optician was that one brand had a continuous smooth transition, where others do it in small steps that can definitely noticed by your brain. I prefer the smooth.
I got a pair of progressives and had trouble focusing on the “sweet spot” (the area of the lens where optimal vision occurs.) After a couple of weeks my eyes “learned” to focus on the sweet spot and the blurriness went away. I’d say if your still having problems after three weeks see an optometrist.