I’m in the middle of getting glasses again and am hoping to get some thoughts or answers on a couple of questions. I am going back to the optometrist, so I’m not relying on a message board, you’re not my doctor, etc.
However, I feel like right now I’m not even sure what questions to ask and that I may be in this situation because I didn’t ask the right questions.
Some background: I had keratoconus, which took my vision from perfect to crap in about 18 months. For many years, I put up with one variation of contacts after another and they kept me seeing somewhat, but it was also one variation of misery after another. 7 years ago, I got corneal transplants that did wonders. In fact, I’ve been living with uncorrected vision since then. It’s far from perfect (left is 20/30, right is 20/200). I don’t tolerate contacts (long story there) and thought maybe glasses could nudge things up a little bit.
The optometrist I saw has a husband/wife operation: she does the exams and sets the prescriptions; he does the glasses themselves. When I was working with her, she was quite pleased that it seemed like the same prescription was good for distance, computer and close-up distances. We put all the various lenses in a frame and even tested walking around, looking at license plates, etc. It was luxury compared to what I am used to (we had 20/20 left and 20/50 right during the exam) and the vision was comfortable and not distorted at every distance. Then I went out, had the distance between my eyes measured and we placed the order for the glasses.
The glasses came in and aren’t working anything like what I remember. At the time I picked them up, I expressed my surprise and was told 1) that the glasses were meant only for computer distance vision and 2) that I’d get used to it after a couple of days.
Well… here are the questions:
1a) How is it that she says the same prescription is perfect for distance and close, and he says that it was only for computer? Am I missing some distinction that got left unsaid?
1b) If I was seeing distance and close just fine through the test rig, why are actual glasses giving such a different final result?
2) It’s been a couple of days. Individually, my eyes see through the glasses like I remember from the exam. But together, getting used to it means that vision resolves into significant distortion. Looking at a sheet of paper, I could swear the left edge is 11" long and the right is 14" - and the corners do NOT look like right angles. Is there a term for this, and what could cause it?
3) Did they just screw up somehow? I mean, my wife had an exam at the same time. She does have a different prescription for computer vs. distance glasses and decided to get a new pair of sunglasses for driving. Yet… they accidentally used her computer prescription in the sunglasses.
Some additional notes: I do have significant astigmatism (2 in the left, 4.75 in the right, though this is down from a peak of 11 in the right, so my standards of “significant” are different than most people’s).