I wear monovision contact lenses: one eye is optimized for distance, one for near. It works out pretty good, and I can read most normal things under most normal circumstances.
However, sometimes at work I’ll find myself pouring over graphs and tables that are far to small. In this case, a pair of reading glasses would be great. So I went to Walgreens to get some cheap over-the-counter ones.
They had this handy chart on the wall: the smallest line you can read without reading glasses tells you what power you need. The problem is, my distance eye needs a 3.25 correction for reading, and my near-vision eye needs a 1.5! I guess that isn’t surprising, given the nature of the monovision contacts. But all the glasses for sale on the display had the same power on both lenses. Whichever power of readers I buy, one of my eyes gets great for reading, and the other one gets fuzzy as hell!
Am I going to be forced to have prescription readers made to account for this? Or does anyone know of anyone who sells reading glasses with different strengths for each eye? Thanks!
My experience with eyeglass shops has been that they are pretty accomodative. You might be able to get one of them to swap a lens from one set of readers to another provided the frames and insertion points match. They might even do so without charge. You might try someplace like Eyemart Express, Eyemasters, etc.
No, I haven’t seen any standard reading classes which have different strength lens.
I’ve been using reading glasses to compensate for my contacts, but the out of focus distance is getting longer and longer. I’m be getting bifocals pretty soon, I’m afraid.
Unfortunately, not everyone can be corrected for both near and far sight at the same time. My father, for instance, uses one contact lens. I don’t remember if it’s for near or far, but he can naturally see one of those, and not the other. And they can’t correct him to allow both.
A friend of mine had Lasik done, and had his eyes corrected for different distances. He said it took him just a short time to get used to it. The only problem is when something is moving between the magic distances. He can’t really catch a softball coming at him quickly, for instance.
For the OP: any chance to your eye doctor can tweak your existing contact setup to shift your range? If not, hopefully you can buy two sets of reading glasses, and swap a lens.
-D/a
My eye doc already upped my reading eye strength. Of course, that comes at the price of losing distance and even some middle-vision in that eye. I’m about as far in that direction as I care to go.
I’ve been looking at the cheapo readers at Walgreens, CVS, etc. None of them look like the lenses are removable/reinsertable. But I’ll see what I can get in a non-prescrip setup from an eyewear store, as **Starving Artist **recommended.
My total fallback position is to just wear my progressive bifocals. They aren’t great for reading, either, but I can always whip them off and then I can read anything no matter how tiny.
Why not go to Zenni Optical? They customize glasses per customers’ own prescription no matter you have farsightedness or nearsightedness.
My mom got her new glasses (+2.25/-2.00) from zenni last month and felt satisfied.
I had the same problem and had to get prescription glasses. Fortunately I got them paid for by my work on the grounds that I needed them for working at the computer (This is in the UK.)
Actually there might be an answer - buy a cheap pair and take out the lens on the near vision eye! The pair the optician prescribed for me only have an actual correction lens in the far vision eye - the other is plain glass. If like me you have the far vision lens in you master eye this might work. Correct the master eye and the near vision lens is ok.
I was born monovision, so I’ve always used one eye for reading, and one eye for… well, lookin’ around… at stuff. (sorry for the technical terminology)
I’ve used the cheapo “reading glasses” you find at Walgreen’s, and since my mind already ignores one eye’s input, it just doesn’t matter what happens with the other eye.
As a bonus, if I ever want to look badass with an eye patch, I’m already used to it.
(This is in the UK.)