Telly
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2,395
I've had progressives for decades. It has only been in the last 5 - 7 years or so that any problems came up. All fixable.
FWIW, here's what I found as the problems:
My Ophthalmologist, who is a great surgeon, has office munchkins do the refractions. That's the first introduction of error. Then afterwards he was marking upwards the Read adder to +2.50 for anyone over the age of 60, irrespective of what was really needed.
I had glasses made by an optical shop I could trust. Got a pair, whoa! As I turned my head side to side, the reader area was like a fish-eye lens effect! A lot of movement! Never had that before! Walking, I felt like I was about to step into the great beyond. The optical shop folks were looking into it to try to figure out what happened. I did some experimenting at home. Then both of us got together and found we both came to the same conclusion! That the Read adder was too high in optical power. They knocked it down and had another pair of lenses made, was fine after that.
From what I am reading in this thread, let me describe an experiment I use. It's proved out to be a test that optical shops don't have.
It concerns the positioning of the Read area. Think about this - a measure of your pupil to nose to pupil distance is made with you looking straight ahead. That's fine for "distance". But for "reading", you are looking at something much closer, and your inter-pupil distance decreases. You can prove this with another person. Have the person hold their finger out at arms length, then have them focus on it, as they move their finger closer and closer to their nose. Watch their pupil to pupil distance as this happens. Your glasses should have the reader area closer to your nose.
I recently had a pair made at Walmart, DW has had good luck with them. I didn't. Right away I knew something was way off. I determined at home that not only was the read area NOT closer to my nose, it was offset on both lenses to the OUTSIDE of my "distance" area! What a screw-up! The Walmart person was very nice, offered to run another set of lenses. He had some difficulty understanding what I was saying was wrong. He did not have any sort of instrument to show it. I said no thanks, if the second run is bad, I'm not paying for it. I got my money back and we parted on amicable terms.
I went to a new chain shop, same prescription, whatever lab they use did it right.
Here's the experiment. If you have an analog TV, it's very easy. With a lighter-colored background video, hold the glasses a ways in front of you, and slowly move them around a little bit while watching the picture. Will have to try different distances from the TV. What you are looking for is the "hump effect" of the reading area. You can see how far it extends out, get a feeling of it's power, and where it is located on each lens.
No analog TV? Use a 8 1/2 x 11" page of smaller print, need a page with many lines of same-size text. Make one and print it off, if nothing suitable is at hand. Once again, hold glasses some distance away, figure out the distance to see the distortion effect of the hump as you slowly move the glasses side-to-side. you will see the lines of type rise upwards, then go back down. Play with it, you can see the extent and placement of the Read area. Is it where it should be, for both eyes? Is the area very small, or way too big?
For some reason, labs are screwing this up a lot in the last 5 years or so. Don't know why, probably a race to the bottom.
And yes, I stopped getting refractions done at my Ophthalmologist. A waste of money there. Instead, I go to an Optometrist who does his own lens-flipping and knob-turning. He's great!
EDIT - You can use the book I just wrote here as the source of text for the experiment, if you are reading this on a monitor. I just took off my glasses and tried it, it worked great!
FWIW, here's what I found as the problems:
My Ophthalmologist, who is a great surgeon, has office munchkins do the refractions. That's the first introduction of error. Then afterwards he was marking upwards the Read adder to +2.50 for anyone over the age of 60, irrespective of what was really needed.
I had glasses made by an optical shop I could trust. Got a pair, whoa! As I turned my head side to side, the reader area was like a fish-eye lens effect! A lot of movement! Never had that before! Walking, I felt like I was about to step into the great beyond. The optical shop folks were looking into it to try to figure out what happened. I did some experimenting at home. Then both of us got together and found we both came to the same conclusion! That the Read adder was too high in optical power. They knocked it down and had another pair of lenses made, was fine after that.
From what I am reading in this thread, let me describe an experiment I use. It's proved out to be a test that optical shops don't have.
It concerns the positioning of the Read area. Think about this - a measure of your pupil to nose to pupil distance is made with you looking straight ahead. That's fine for "distance". But for "reading", you are looking at something much closer, and your inter-pupil distance decreases. You can prove this with another person. Have the person hold their finger out at arms length, then have them focus on it, as they move their finger closer and closer to their nose. Watch their pupil to pupil distance as this happens. Your glasses should have the reader area closer to your nose.
I recently had a pair made at Walmart, DW has had good luck with them. I didn't. Right away I knew something was way off. I determined at home that not only was the read area NOT closer to my nose, it was offset on both lenses to the OUTSIDE of my "distance" area! What a screw-up! The Walmart person was very nice, offered to run another set of lenses. He had some difficulty understanding what I was saying was wrong. He did not have any sort of instrument to show it. I said no thanks, if the second run is bad, I'm not paying for it. I got my money back and we parted on amicable terms.
I went to a new chain shop, same prescription, whatever lab they use did it right.
Here's the experiment. If you have an analog TV, it's very easy. With a lighter-colored background video, hold the glasses a ways in front of you, and slowly move them around a little bit while watching the picture. Will have to try different distances from the TV. What you are looking for is the "hump effect" of the reading area. You can see how far it extends out, get a feeling of it's power, and where it is located on each lens.
No analog TV? Use a 8 1/2 x 11" page of smaller print, need a page with many lines of same-size text. Make one and print it off, if nothing suitable is at hand. Once again, hold glasses some distance away, figure out the distance to see the distortion effect of the hump as you slowly move the glasses side-to-side. you will see the lines of type rise upwards, then go back down. Play with it, you can see the extent and placement of the Read area. Is it where it should be, for both eyes? Is the area very small, or way too big?
For some reason, labs are screwing this up a lot in the last 5 years or so. Don't know why, probably a race to the bottom.
And yes, I stopped getting refractions done at my Ophthalmologist. A waste of money there. Instead, I go to an Optometrist who does his own lens-flipping and knob-turning. He's great!
EDIT - You can use the book I just wrote here as the source of text for the experiment, if you are reading this on a monitor. I just took off my glasses and tried it, it worked great!
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