Your experiences switching to varifocals from single-vision spectacles

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve worn glasses since age 5 (so for almost 40 years now) - I’m longsighted with quite a high prescription that increased quite a bit when I was in my 20s, then levelled off again. Having been through probably a couple of dozen pairs of specs, I’m very familiar with the experience of adjusting to a new set - a few days where motion and geometry seems distorted, then the brain adapts, and everything is normal again.

Anyway, this time, they upsold me to varifocals - toward the end of the eye test, there was this bit where they handed me a card with some tiny writing - and did the “does this seem better, or this?, now look up at the board - does this look better, or this?”. The difference (especially with the small text) wasn’t great, but they persuaded me that my ageing eyes weren’t so sprightly at refocusing, and I would need varifocals.

Then there was a sales pitch - did I want expensive ‘tailor-made’ varifocals (where the inherently-defocused areas at the bottom corners are minimised), or did I want cheaper, shitty varifocals (where about 1/3 of the lens area is useless). I opted for the best (most expensive) type.

Two weeks later (yesterday), my new specs were ready and I went to get them fitted. At the time, I remarked on how everything to the left of centre in the right lens (my dominant eye) was out of focus, but was assured that I would quickly adjust and find everything OK.

Well, I tried. 24 hours (OK, 18 or so - with a night’s sleep in the middle) of discomfort and horribly blurred, disrupted vision. I could not see the whole of my computer keyboard at once. I was finding that even when reading a book, I was using the top (distance) part of the lens, it was impossible to look at the spines of books on a shelf (tilting my head made everything defocus), and there was no way for me to get a clearly focused view of my own feet or the ground near them.
The only way I could watch TV was to peer at it through the top right of the lenses.
I decided enough was enough. Why should I try to adjust to something that just hurts? I put my old glasses back on and it was instant relief.

I suspect my varifocals were both badly configured and just plain non-required, but I even if this had not been the case, I don’t see how I could ever adjust to properly-configured varifocals - all that turning of the head and inherently-out-of-focus area. How is this tolerable?

Anyone got any experiences to share about varifocals?

Anyone e

2

Sounds like the screwed yours up, plain and simple. I got my first pair of glasses with progressive lenses about a year and a half ago and it only took me about a half hour to come to love them.

I will say that I also got a pair of single vision glasses for computer use and prefer to switch when I get to work.

3

… Submitted too soon.

Let me add that in my lay opinion, they either have your pupillary distance wrong, or that the lens for your dominant eye was ground off center. I can fake an effect similar to what you describe by holding my glasses up to my face slightly off center.

4

I’m very far-sighted, too, with astigmatism so thick I could cut it with a knife.

I’ve been wearing tri-focals for about 20 years. I get lenses with the visible demarcation lines because the gradual versions would take up too much room.

I was ripped off with the most recent pair. The tops are good, but the mid-range middle grind on each makes everything so soft (especially type on the computer screen) that I use my old glasses when I’m at the computer, or lean way forward with the new ones. The same thing happens to the dashboard instruments in the car.

The lowest parts of the lenses with the highest magnification are so small (though they enlarge better than my old glasses) I have to move my head right and left to read a paperback. But if I hold my head at the wrong angle, type stretches vertically. So it’s back to the old ones again.

They screwed up royally, but one of the store flunkies had the nerve to tell me to wait six months because by then my eyes will have deteriorated to the point where the glasses will suit them!

That sounds like an admission of guilt. But no witnesses.

It would cost more than it’s worth to sue the bastards.

5

I expect you’re right, but I also question the diagnosis that I even need varifocals. I simply don’t have trouble reading small print at reading distances in adequate lighting conditions - I think they overcorrected the close prescription to the point of making me shortsighted (I could read through the bottom part if I hold the text three inches from my nose).