Eye tests

I'm taking a different approach with glasses this time. From age 15-30 when I was short-sighted I'd get the most expensive glasses I could afford, in my late 20s I bought some fancy titanium frames with ultra thin lenses for about £400.

At age 30-31 I had laser eye surgery which gave me suberb vision for about 11 years. The laser surgery person said I'd need reading glasses in my 40s, I had an eyetest at 40 which was fine, but at 44 (last year) I started getting headaches using display screens and an eyetest showed I was now, as predicted, long-sighted.

At Specsavers it appeared that every man and his dog had jumped on the glasses bandwagon since I last bought glasses, from Superdry to Hugo Boss. I bought the cheapest pair of glasses I could find and they were £60 including lenses! They're chunky plastic and really comfortable to wear, there's no elegant fancy materials balancing on my nose and they're really tough! People also comment that they look good. They're identical to glasses several times the price apart from a tiny label.

I guess this says more about my age than anything else :)
 
I follow my own advice, not reccomending to anyone else but i use various strenth glasses around the house very weak to very strong, my eyesight has only improved over the years, also do the exercises ie look at horizon look at text repeat
 
Angilion said:
It depends. I went for varifocals last time and they were useless. I found out afterwards that in some people a combination of a high refractive index lens and enough astigmatism in the eyes blurs peripheral vision enough to be a major drawback...and I'm one of those people. So I went back to two pairs and with a lower refractive index.

Also, some people just don't get used to varifocals. They're not necessarily better than multiple pairs. Different, but not necessarily better. Not for everyone, anyway. They're great for some people. I might give them another go (with lower refractive index lenses) next time.
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I theorize you haved to go high end on varifocals - the hoya id's I use (payed on foreign company health insurance) you get a widening field of view as you look higher,
ground on both sides of lense, never had any issues
Prescription has changed a bit, but you can correct, moving head, for that, on varifocals;
now paying myself, I fear that paying £400/£500 for specsavers varifocals would be a disappointment, online you can pay that for a hoya lense, IF you believe fitting would be correct, so going for near and far glasses sounds a more economic solution.
Glasses market is a nightmare probably surpassed by hearing aids, where relations relate that they pay a lot severalK, but feel it can be the kings new clothes.

bainbridge said:
there's no elegant fancy materials balancing on my nose and they're really tough!
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I need to find somewhere where you can get lenses put into a new (somewhat bent - sat on) frame, lenses with anti-scatch coating have resisted lots of abuse though.
 
Hmm first eye test since school.. 0.25 both eyes, not bad for nearing 50.. what I did find is I am left eye dominant.. which explains my bad clay pigeon shooting with right hand :)
 
Anywhere but Specsavers the worst eye test and customer service going. Independent opticians are far far better.
 
Bassmansam said:
yep just for a test though. I would only buy a new pair if my eyes have changed by 1 diopter anyway and probably not at this place knowing i can get them cheaper elsewhere.

@Angilion whats your prescription?
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I don't really know. I get a test, I get some glasses I can see properly with, job done. I remember that my better eye is -7.50 and a sizable dollop of astigmatism. The other eye is better on the myopia side (-6.00? -6.50? somewhere around there) but has more astigmatism so it's worse overall. I once did a comparison test for a bit of fun and fell off the end of the scale because it only went up to 20/800 and my eyesight is worse than that. I don't know how much worse. If I want to recognise someone's face without my glasses on I have to be about close enough to lick their nose :) Although that probably wouldn't work nowadays because of my presbyopia.

Yet another reason to be glad I live today. I find history interesting and there are times/places I'd enjoy visiting if I had a time machine, but I certainly wouldn't want to live any time in the past. It's never been as easy and cheap to get perfectly working glasses as it is now and for most of human history it wouldn't have been possible at all.
 
Street said:
Just go the whole hog and get them lasered! It'll pay for itself in savings from glasses and the quality of life improvement is massive. For reference, I was -7.25 in both eyes and nearly 10 years on I'm 0/-0.25, pretty pleased for the £2k outlay. :)
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I thought it wasn't permanent ? is there a limit on how many times you can get lasered ?
 
My eye test is over year out of date now. Obviously put it off last year with covid but I’m going to have to get it done at some point. My current glasses are looking a little worse for wear since I’m outside in all weather’s so they take a bit of a beating.
 
If i was as blind as you id spend whatever it takes....
glad it only costs me 50 quid for a pair.
 
Get your eyes tested and then go online to buy your glasses.
My current glasses would have been around £600-700 (frames really expensive for the ones I wanted), got them online for £132 (after discounts) from an approved shop. Went to my optician after and had them adjusted for free.
 
you're not rolling decent quality progressive lenses if you can get them for £150 with frames - vanilla prescription yes.
 
arknor said:
I thought it wasn't permanent ? is there a limit on how many times you can get lasered ?
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Your eyes will degrade naturally over time as you get older, so it depends on the person really. I'd lived 20 years being pretty blind, so having perfect vision for 10 years so far has been life changing anyway. No idea if you can have it done more than once though!
 
jpaul said:
you're not rolling decent quality progressive lenses if you can get them for £150 with frames - vanilla prescription yes.
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Elaborate? What are "decent quality progressive lenses"... do they tell me to check my privilege every couple hours? :p
 
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