A question for people who wear prescription glasses

[Bazzer]

Varifocals may take some time to allow your brain to get used to them. I wore glasses for around 60 years, up to a couple or so years ago, when cataracts meant changes of eye lenses. So for the time being I only need reading glasses
If you continue to struggle with them, speak with your optician. You may find a change of glass will be helpful to reduce distortion. With a -13.5 in my better eye, I used to have to buy Zeiss high index glass, which helped with both the weight of the glasses on my nose, but also distortion.

 

[presta]

I had excellent vision for 40 odd years and have been wearing spex for the last 20 odd but I can safely say that I've never got used to them because they don't come within a million miles of restoring the vision I had. Opticians think if you can read the text on their card you're alright, but you only need one eye for that and my left eye is much worse than the right, so if there's anything three dimensional that needs stereo vision I can't see what I'm doing. If I was still working I wouldn't be able to do my job.

I started with bifocals for long & mid distance, with readers for close up, but switched to varifocals quite a long while ago.

Varifocals just made me dizzy!

I don't need spex for that.

 

[presta]

A new prescription can take a bit of getting used to

You're telling me.

The problem I have is that the unfamiliarity of the new lenses makes them feel more wrong than the old ones, so much so that I spent nearly 2 years wearing an old pair by mistake once. If I'm used to wearing a pair they tend to feel better than any others regardless of which pair's which. It makes me wonder how much your lenses are prescribed to match your eyes, and how much your eyes end up adapting to match the prescription. How reliable is an eye test if you're doing it with eyes that are adapted to an out of date prescription, would you get a different result if you took your spex off for 24 hours or more before the test?

 

[johnnyb47]

I've had them a few days now and I do have a few first impressions good and bad.
When I first got them I found myself straining to focus clearly on things.My phone was a little blurry to see and then if I looked ahead to see in the distance again it would be a little blurry.I also felt slightly unsteady on my feet.Generally my overall confidence of my surroundings didn't feel to great.Walking in the dark also felt strange for some odd reason.Driving for the first time yesterday morning was a big mistake.It was dark,the rain was hammering down and I made the stupid decision to wear them whilst driving.. Somehow I felt I had lost my spatial awareness..On coming car lights appeared very bright and dazzling.The same could be said at work using heavy trucks.It was a very quiet day though so i persevered and used it to my advantage and took my time..Eyes felt strained last night after using them all day.
Today though they have felt a lot better.Driving with them at night still doesn't feel great but it was better and work was great.
Its nice to not having to take my reading glasses on and off hundreds of times a day whilst filling out paperwork.
The sun made a very brief appearance today and the gadget geek of me loves how these things can change into instant sunglasses. They also seem a lot less blurry today too.
I can now understand that the advice given, as to that they do take a few days for your eyes to adjust is fully true.
Hopefully tomorrow they will be better again 👍👍

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Must have been a spectacle

A sight to behold

 

[postman]

The sun made a very brief appearance today and the gadget geek of me loves how these things can change into instant sunglasses. They also seem a lot less blurry today too.
I can now understand that the advice given, as to that they do take a few days for your eyes to adjust is fully true.
Hopefully tomorrow they will be better again 👍👍

It's a brain thing i think.I collected mine today ,but to keep cost down i used the frames again.They were blurry in the shop but walking home sight got better.I love the sun glasses trick that is worth every penny.£59 i think and £39 to put the lenses in to an old frame.I also get a top quality lens,i could be lucky cos i only get one side,because of being born with a squint that eye is classed as blind and i just get a balance lens.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I have varifocals and they took me a few days to get used to

the optician told me that it would take a while - apparently they often have only a smallish area where it is "right" - hence your brain has to learn to move your head more rather than moving your eyes
I have seen this in practise as the IT technician at the school where I used to teach had varifocals and he moved his head a lot more than usual when he was reading the text on a screen
I think his prescription was especially difficult for this so it was more obvious
but I can feel myself doing the same to some extent

For cycling and driving I could cope just fine with just the top bit - including reading a phone when I get lost!!
although reading the phone I can feel my eyes straining to focus

 

[Fastpedaller]

I concur that it can take a little time to get used to varifocals. I've had them for about 10 years. I got new ones recently and (because I didn't want to risk scratching the new ones) used the old ones when doing some decorating. I ended up with a headache after a couple of days' use of the old ones and the penny dropped. Although my distance prescription hadn't changed the reading part had, and I then remembered the same experience happened 4 years ago when I previously changed glasses and tried 'switching to old for dirty work'. So now I resign myself to risking the new glasses! I add that my prescription is high (-7.5). I use contact lenses when cycling and find them great - the lunch stop is challenging unless I use cheapo reading glasses to see the menus!
The following may be useful to others who have a high prescription......
When I started wearing varifocals the glasses cost over £300. I could now be paying in the region of £600 from most high-street stores. 4 years ago I discovered ASDA opticians, who sell frames priced to include any lenses, so my recent pair of high (1.74) index varifocal glasses were £80 total. These have been the best lenses I have ever had! Previously (from other opticians I won't name) I've had some real horror glasses (made me feel seasick) costing a great deal more, and others where the non-reflective coatings 'cracked' after a short while.

 

[presta]

When I first got them I found myself straining to focus clearly on things.

Trying to focus on small stuff makes my eyes ache, even though I can read the smallest text on the optician's card.

I also felt slightly unsteady on my feet.

Taking my spex off makes me fell about a foot taller.

I can now understand that the advice given, as to that they do take a few days for your eyes to adjust is fully true.

When I got my first varifocals they gave me a screaming headache. I stuck it for about a fortnight, then when I went back to the opticians it turned out they'd cocked up the prescription.

to keep cost down i used the frames again

I re-use frames wherever possible because I have a broken nose, and it's a helluva job to get a frame that fits, and even more difficult to get the pads adjusted so that they sit on my nose without hurting.

they often have only a smallish area where it is "right" - hence your brain has to learn to move your head more rather than moving your eyes

Most of the time you can see what you need even if it's out of focus, so my brain just seemed to get used to living in a perpetual blur instead. Might be why my eyes ache when I'm forced to focus them.

 

[Rezillo]

I've had varifocals for years and have had the usual distortion problems and also restricted head movement to keep intermediate distance in focus.

Until this week I had glasses with large lenses from Specsavers, to give the largest area possible for each distance. This was coupled with what was then their top of the range varifocal lenses. I've never been happy with them as solving the head movement issue seemed to be at the expense of hideous peripheral distortion. I ended up using the cheap second pair instead.

After a new eye test (no significant prescription change) I now have glasses from Boots with Varilux X Series lenses. They are simply amazing - easily the best varifocals I've ever had. I don't know how they work but everything is effortlessly in focus. Distortion levels seem very low too.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I've had varifocals for years and have had the usual distortion problems and also restricted head movement to keep intermediate distance in focus.

Until this week I had glasses with large lenses from Specsavers, to give the largest area possible for each distance. This was coupled with what was then their top of the range varifocal lenses. I've never been happy with them as solving the head movement issue seemed to be at the expense of hideous peripheral distortion. I ended up using the cheap second pair instead.

After a new eye test (no significant prescription change) I now have glasses from Boots with Varilux X Series lenses. They are simply amazing - easily the best varifocals I've ever had. I don't know how they work but everything is effortlessly in focus. Distortion levels seem very low too.

Strange - I have varifocals and have never had the problems you mention
certainly I cannot see any distortion
generally I can;t even see any problems in the area where it changes from one level to another - it just goes out of focus


maybe I just got used to them quickly
I have heard that some people just cannot cope with them

 

[Rezillo]

Strange - I have varifocals and have never had the problems you mention
certainly I cannot see any distortion
generally I can;t even see any problems in the area where it changes from one level to another - it just goes out of focus


maybe I just got used to them quickly
I have heard that some people just cannot cope with them

For me, my early varifocals all had problems with intermediate distance focus. For computer screen use, the focused area was so narrow vertically that I constantly had to bob my head up and down to read text and could never see the screen as a focused whole. I ended up with separate glasses for computer use.

The Specsavers lenses were supposed to fix this by having large lenses and a special lens type with large focus areas for reading, intermediate (computer use) and distance vision. However, in the process, the bottom far left and right of the lenses re-introduced the curse of older varifocals in that distances were distorted and quite severely. I'd be sitting down reading a book, glance to one side at my drink on the table by me, reach out and send it flying because it was six inches closer to me than I thought it was.

No such problems with the new glasses.

 

[presta]

One of the problems I have with varifocals is that the inter-pupillary distance of my eyes keeps varying, so they align with the lenses some of the time and not others.

 

[Paulus]

Strange - I have varifocals and have never had the problems you mention
certainly I cannot see any distortion
generally I can;t even see any problems in the area where it changes from one level to another - it just goes out of focus


maybe I just got used to them quickly
I have heard that some people just cannot cope with them

I've had varifocal lenses for 20+years and not had any problems with distance, reading or peripheral vision.
The optician did all the measurements and they were correct 1st time.

 

[Salty seadog]

I can read and drive with the varis just fine

I've always found that to be a pain in the arse having to reach round the paper to apply the indicators. Not to mention having to steer with my knees.