Do you buy Dental and Vision Insurance during ER?

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"Did Zenni provide full or partial credit for those progressives when reordering as bifocals?"

Full credit minus shipping - I had to reorder another pair of glasses, but just went to previous orders and edited the type of glasses to bifocals and they shipped another pair quite quickly.

" My biggest question is how do you like bifocals as compared to progressives? Based on my initial experience I would think there is less distortion to deal with when wearing bifocals?"

I had never worn progressives before and bifocals only rarely - I found that the transition line for progressives was smack dab in the middle of my line of sight, so when I was walking around everything was blurry or I was cocking my head or moving my eyes higher up to see. With the bifocals there is a clear delineation and I'm not having to adjust my head.

I may also buy two pair of glasses - one for distance, one for close-up.

I like the bifocals much better than the progressives.

With the Zenni experience, I was spending much less than you, so was wiling to try things out (order, ship back, re-order, etc). At $600 a pop I would be a lot more demanding with regard to fixes.....

Thanks for your feedback. I plan to order a pair of bifocals in a few months.

Regarding your experience with progressive lens it sounds like they were not ground correctly or not installed correctly. With my first pair when I looked down at the countertop everything was badly tilted. After remaking them, my second pair did not cause that sensation. I think my first pair had the progressive starting point cut in too tightly and not balanced between the eyes so that the otherwise normal tilting distortion started sooner on one side. While I like the remade pair of glasses ten times better, I have not worn them enough to decide if I think progressive lens are worth their drawbacks (having part of the field of vision sharper, while other parts are more blurry..though I might expect bifocals to be the same or worse in that only a section of the lens is used at a time).

 

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Regarding your experience with progressive lens it sounds like they were not ground correctly or not installed correctly. With my first pair when I looked down at the countertop everything was badly tilted. After remaking them, my second pair did not cause that sensation. I think my first pair had the progressive starting point cut in too tightly and not balanced between the eyes so that the otherwise normal tilting distortion started sooner on one side. While I like the remade pair of glasses ten times better, I have not worn them enough to decide if I think progressive lens are worth their drawbacks (having part of the field of vision sharper, while other parts are more blurry..though I might expect bifocals to be the same or worse in that only a section of the lens is used at a time).

Interesting, thanks for the information. I had the same experience deserat had with progressive bifocals, ordered from Zenni (blurry vision when looking straight ahead). I had a feeling they were not ground correctly, and I should have sent them back, but I didn't. I ended up going to the optometrist and spending a lot more (unfortunately) to get a pair that worked for me. Next time, maybe I will try Zenni again, and just send the glasses back if they are like the last pair. I wonder if I could still send the ones I got from Zenni about a year ago back? They are like new, I only wore them once or twice and could not see clearly out of them.

 

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Interesting, thanks for the information. I had the same experience deserat had with progressive bifocals, ordered from Zenni (blurry vision when looking straight ahead). I had a feeling they were not ground correctly, and I should have sent them back, but I didn't. I ended up going to the optometrist and spending a lot more (unfortunately) to get a pair that worked for me. Next time, maybe I will try Zenni again, and just send the glasses back if they are like the last pair. I wonder if I could still send the ones I got from Zenni about a year ago back? They are like new, I only wore them once or twice and could not see clearly out of them.

I do not know about returning the Zenni, but I am a little leery of trying to order progressive lens glasses online. As a first time eyeglass wearer I was surprised that measurements were not made more precisely during the eye exam as given by the Optometrist. e.g. with the machines used to look into the eye to check for health, and the big lens apparatus used to determine your prescription. That this initial process did not also record the pupil distance down to 0.1mm in accuracy. And that the temple distance and bridge size were not also measured during this process.

Instead the Optician used a handheld gadget to measure pupil distance and I was left in a sea of frames to try on until I found ones that seemed to fit well enough. The PD was given down to 1/2mm, which might be accurate enough but is still potentially 1.5-2% away from perfect. Given that many of the online websites encourage people to use a mirror and ruler; or that many online sites only accept round millimeter numbers the measurement error could approach 3% or more before the lens are even installed (off by a mm). When I went back to the doctors office for a refitting, the Optician used a Sharpie pen to mark some points on the lens and they looked at my eyes as I commented on what I was seeing. He was able to "eyeball" (meaning without remeasuring me or using any fancy tools) the changes needed and reordered a pair of lens for refitting. He did a great job as the new glasses are so much better.

I can appreciate that an Optician needs a different set of skills than the Optometrist, which is probably why many people don't get their PD as part of their prescription. But that is also why I would be cautious about ordering progressive lens online without the help of an Optician, since the margin for error in aligning everything is so much smaller.