I have just converted to contact lenses (Acuvue Oasys).
They have come on leaps and bounds in the last few years and are made of a floppy 65% water based material which doesn't hae the drawbacks of older ones. It is just like putting in a drip of water.
I always didn't like the thought of them, but recently tried them for free* at D&A. The great thing is that when driving, all your peripheral vision is clear too, rather than a framed area in the centre of the field of vision. I heartily recommend everyone who needs glasses try them.
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I'm 65 with classic old age long sight i.e I can see for miles without glasses but arms far too short to read the proverbial paper so around the house etc., I use a pair of varifocals with no prescription on top down to +2 at the bottom. I don't need the glasses for driving except that I can't clearly see a sat-nav or the little buttons on the radio (Before anybody asks yes, the speedo etc are quite legible!) so I experimented using the varifocals for driving but soon gave that up as found that, unless looking straight ahead, the amount of distortion when looking sideways (e.g. a Y junction) is positively dangerous . I know my peripheral vision is fine as I have had a recent flickering screen type test at the opticians.
There must be many other folk me with the same problem, and before further enriching the optician, I wonder if anyone has tried plain old fashioned bi-focals with the top part clear and a small magnifying area at the bottom and if so did they work?
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Pleiades - have you thought of contact lenses? I don't know if they would help, but I know that mine have been adjusted (ie power reduced in one lens) to help with near sight. It might be possible, perhaps, to get some lenses that would reduce your long sight. But (you will have gathered) I don't really know what I'm talking about, on this or on so many other topics.
BTW, Glasses Direct are good for specs: £15 for a pair. I've had 3 pairs, including a set of prescription sunglasses for £25.
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I wear varifocals all the time including for driving and now I buy my spectacles in the Middle East . Much cheaper than UK.
I had my eyes checked and got a prescription from Specsavers in January last year and then bought in Qatar at a reputable optician.
Rimless Rodenstock Varifocal Lenses and Gucci designer frames ( a la Sven Goran Ericcson or Herr Flick of the Gestapo) with the photocromatic option cost me around £300 , much cheaper than UK .They also checked the prescription and gave me another eye test.
Unfortunately I broke the glasses on holiday by taking off my sun hat and catching them , pulling them so they dropped onto a marble floor.
I checked with a number of opticians in our local town and none of them could BUY the lenses for the price they were sold to me. Estimated cost by local UK opticians to replace was £450.
I claimed on insurance and bought another pair of similar specification in Doha when I was there in November , prescription changed for reading, different ( still designer ) frames cost again around £300.
SWMBO wears lenses but also buys bifocal readers from the USA online and finds them a very useful help for reading and working on the computer but not for driving.
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I use bifocals after finding I couldn't get on with varifocals. When I explained to my optician (a local 'indie', rather than a national franchise) that I had a problem glancing in the door mirror with the varifocals, he suggested bifocals with the reading area stopping short of the outside edge of the lense area. They work a treat.
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I use bifocals after finding I couldn't get on with varifocals.
Me too.
When I explained to my optician .......... that I had a problem glancing in the door mirror with the varifocals
I had that problem.
he suggested bifocals with the reading area stopping short of the outside edge of the lens area.
Do you mean that the reading area is a sideways D (or similar) shape (which is what I have), rather than being completely the lower part of the lens?
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>>Do you mean that the reading area is a sideways D (or similar) shape (which is what I have), rather than being completely the lower part of the lens?
That's it.
The same as it was a couple of years ago. ;>)
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Like Helicopter I have just had an eye test, and I have bought a new set of glasses.
Jaguar titanium designer rimless frames, rimless nikon double aspheric progressive (varifocal) lenses with UV filter but didnt want the photocromic option. (again like Helicopter, think herr flic or himmler). These things weigh a mere 8 grammes
The lens design means you dont get the barrel distortion.
Bought in the UK for 390 quid.
I find photochromic or transition type lenses to be a pain in the arris and mostly useless for driving so I also bought online from speckyfoureyes.com a set of aviator style (yes so 70's I know) single vision prescription polarised 60% grey sunglasses for 50 quid.
I will let you know what they are like when they arrive,
Did you know, your driving license states if you have to have your eyesight corrected? I dont remember telling them I had to wear specs.
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AE said
I also bought online from speckyfoureyes.com a set of aviator style (yes so 70's I know) single vision prescription polarised 60% grey sunglasses >> for 50 quid.
Must have a look at that site and see what they offer. I find the modern fashion for small/letterbox glasses intensely irritating but none of the majors carry a true aviator style for prescription lenses.
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Apologies for that Pug, didn't check the dates before posting.
BTW I'd still recommend that drivers get their eyes tested properly before buying "off-the-peg" specs; as another poster has quite rightly remarked, your eyes work at different strengths and reading glasses do not compensate for this.
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There is an eye co-ordination/reaction test used by racing drivers on a rig called BATAK. It's a tubular frame about 6' high and about 5' wide with buttons that light up one at a time randomly. The test is to stand about 1 foot from it then hit as many buttons as you can within a minute. Wearing varifocals you fail miserably because of the way they affect your peripheral vision.
HJ
Edited by Honestjohn on 30/01/2010 at 20:05
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Just out of curiousity. Has anyone had that laser treatment thingy ? What was that to treat ? I'm starting to have short arm syndrome and wondered if that was a possible solution ?
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 30/01/2010 at 09:46
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If the airlines or the train companies wont touch pilots and drivers with laser corrected vision, nor will I.
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There was a fad with colleagues doing this - all seemed to benefit from it no complaints no ill effects or issues.
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S'pose I ought to ...um....look into it.
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airlines or the train companies wont touch pilots and drivers with laser corrected vision
Do they give a reason for that, or is it just wariness of new technology?
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>> airlines or the train companies wont touch pilots and drivers with laser corrected vision Do they give a reason for that or is it just wariness of new technology?
Not "proven" technology... at the moment... they say it hasn't been around long enough for any side effects to show up, but I wonder if that might change in due course...
BTW it also applies to railway guards as well as drivers... I can't have it done either!
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Not "proven" technology...
Thanks, that's sensible I guess.
BTW it also applies to railway guards as well as drivers... I can't have it done either!
:o( At least C/Ls are dirt cheap these days!
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Has anyone had that laser treatment thingy ?
I would imagine it's only to treat sight defects in younger people when the lens is still supple. Reading difficulties in older people (i.e over 40) is caused by hardening of the lens and the eye muscles then don't have enough strength to make the necessary change in the lens shape for you to be able to focus at short distances.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_(anatomy)
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I tried contact lenses last year. I can't live with hard contact lenses, so I tried the soft ones, which are OK. The only thing is because of their greater diameter they are harder to put in. I found this a bind at 6am when I get up for work (it was adding too much time getting ready), so I've gone back to glasses.
I'm keeping them for things such as hill walking which will be really useful as there is nothing worse than rain covered lenses when you are traversing a rocky ridge 2ft wide in a 50mph crosswind!
Also I prefer glasses for driving, as the anti reflection coating is brilliant for reducing headlamp glare coming the other way. The range of lenses available now is superb.
I also have a pair of wrap around sunglasses, as they are now able to produce curved prescription lenses, something else I'm grateful for as it stops that annoying sun glare through the side window.
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I also have a pair of wrap around sunglasses as they are now able to produce curved prescription lenses something else I'm grateful for as it stops that annoying sun glare through the side window.
I have to turn my sun visor to the side.
Edited by L'escargot on 30/01/2010 at 11:28
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>> Has anyone had that laser treatment thingy ? I would imagine it's only to treat sight defects in younger people when the lens is still supple.
It seems I was wrong. www.focusclinics.com/treatments_readingvision.php
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Thanks L'escargot. I'll follow that up.
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Thanks L'escargot. I'll follow that up.
There are, of course, other companies. Google for "laser eye surgery", and "laser eye surgery risks".
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I've had a lot of laser treatment, but not to correct vision, purely to treat retinopathy...bleeding from the blood vessels in the eye. I've esimated that I've had about 25 thousand shots, but none for 4 or 5 years. This has started cataracts in both eyes.
When the time is right, I'll be looking at a new private treatment where a 2mm cut is made in the eye, the cataract fragmented by ultrasound and sucked out of the hole. A plastic, rolled up lens is inserted which then opens itself out. After an hour, vision is back to 20/20.
A week or so later another visit is made. You're tagged up to a computer and the lens is annealed with heat to your own requirements......that it then for life. No more specs.
I'm just waiting for my consultant to give the go-ahead.
Ted
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> I'll be looking at a new private treatment
Let us know how it goes then ted, then maybe in about 5 years time we will join you.
(if you can still see)
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that it then for life. No more specs.
Won't they be fixed focus lenses for distance, but still needing glasses for reading?
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Apparently not, Les. I don't know the technicalities yet but the blurb says you're ok for distance and reading.
I know it's all advertising hype to some extent but I think, in my case, it's worth looking into.
With cataracts, night driving is tiring, there being a corona of light around every headlamp and road light. Today, doing a bit in the garden, with the low sun, I had to wear a baseball cap with the peak low down.
I can get the treatment on the NH but without the heat aspect, I assume.
I'm going to ask my man, anyway, if I can ever get an appointment which isn't cancelled the day before !
Ted
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SWMBO recently switched to varifocals, which I've had for a few years. We've been buying our specs online from Hong Kong - my last vari's cost me about £70.
The optician offered SWMBO three choices of lens - cheap, medium and expensive. I know that's a well known ploy, where most people will go for medium, but apparently the difference is that the more expensive you go, the less distortion there is in the edges. Having said that, I never noticed any distortion on mine.
btw SWMBO happene to mention that her current (non vari) specs were from the web. I think the optician intended to "prove a point" when she offered to check them - but she came back saying that to get the same quality frames, lenses, coatings etc would have been well over £200 here. SWMBO got three similar pairs for under £90!
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The only issue I have with buying them from the web is if there is something wrong with the prescription, where do you stand with returning them, and when they are returned, are they sorted quickly?
Have people who have used these sites been satisfied? Are the lenses good quality? I'd like to know, because I think I'll try them next time as they seem to be a lot cheaper.
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We're guilty of topic drift, but I didn't quite know how to interpret the prescription for the varifocals so they asked me to scan and mail which I did. If there is something wrong with the prescription then it isn't their fault! Order to receipt was under 2 weeks, which matched my recollection of UK delivery. See above, Specsavers said SWMBOs were v good quality frames and lenses.
Edited by smokie on 30/01/2010 at 15:40
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Just wondering how being long-sighted could affect driving really.
Short-sighted yes. But long-sighted people can generally see into the far distance perfectly well. They might have a few problems reading the speedo, but generally you're positioned at least two feet away from it so I don't see the problem.
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Just wondering how being long-sighted could affect driving really. Short-sighted yes. But long-sighted people can generally see into the far distance perfectly well. They might have a few problems reading the speedo but generally you're positioned at least two feet away from it so I don't see the problem.
You will when you get older. 2 feet is just the right area where you cant see. I cant do 6 inches, 2 feet, 20 feet or 200 feet without the varifocals.
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I need to get an eye test done soon again. I bought my current pairs from Specsavers two years ago and was a bit worried about dumping my local optician to go with a multi national. What I have found is the quality of the lens and frame far exceeds that of my local. I've had my glasses for two years now and never had to have any repairs on any of them.
When I book my new eye test next week it will be with Specsavers which hate because I hate big companies like that, but the price and quality was much better than my local indie could offer.
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I got my last ones from SS too Rattington. Cost over £400 with photochromics and varilux.
Never again. I found that the prescription was very little different from my previous ones.
I just wish they could take you outside and test your vision against things in the real world, rather than a few letters on a board. Go out in the open air and read a few number plates, adverts, etc. They did get me to do a field vision test, though. The first time I've been offered one outside the hospital.
I rarely wear the new specs, I still use my old ones. Mainly because of the photochromic business. I'm in and out of the workshop all day and they just don't clear quickly enough.
I don't like the varifocals, either. I much prefer reading glasses from the chemists at a quid or so.
There's a small indy actually in thev Royal Eye Hospital out patients area who is very good.
In bright sunlight, for driving, I use my prescription polaroids with my night driving clip-ons over them.......perfect.
No point in me getting new specs yet........got to get an appointment for a fundoscopy first.
Ted
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My long range vision had always been fine and all I needed was off the shelf reading glasses (now +2)
But I`ve found that I`m now not quite focusing at up to 30ft and it`s a miserable experience forgetting the varifocals and being out and about.
I got used to them for driving - to see the Sat nav - and recently needed a stronger prescription for distance.
I have lots of cheap reading glasses that I use around the house/servicing the car - and generally smash or sit on a pair every 6 weeks or so. New ones are £3 via Amazon Marketplace.
Varifocals greatly enhance my life when driving and out and about. But drive me nuts if in the house and trying to read.
I suspect the optician fitted the cheapest `narrow band` lenses going and charged £350. Not only that, but there was a problem and he looked grim faced in the extreme and made me feel uncomfortable on having to retest.
Recently Asda were vastly undercutting him by around £200 and I expect him to go bust shortly.
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Did they take a photo of the inside of your eye? It's brilliant, isn't it?
They just released the technology when I was studying medical imaging as part of my physics degree and I was able to blag a demonstration. I reckon it's worth paying for an eye-test just to take that home as a souvenir.
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Yes, but I never got the print out.
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