Posts Tagged ‘lenses’

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A Problem Shared….

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

There are many reasons why a client does not get on with their glasses. The prescription could be wrong, the order may have been made incorrectly, but the most common problem is misunderstanding – what is the prescription suitable for? What are it’s limitations? And can we do anything to put things right? Here are a few common issues that people raise.

I could see my computer in my old reading specs, but not in the new ones. What do I do now for work?!

This is an easy one, and we come across it fairly regularly. To enable you to see to read we give you a magnifying lens that allows you to see small print and fine detail. When you need it strengthening, the focal length will be shorter than in your old weaker pair. You’ll see to read in the new ones, but not see so well far away. Just use the old pair for the screen, as they are what we would prescribe for a middle distance lenses. If you constantly refer to small print and the screen however, you’ll need varifocals or vocational lenses, to allow you to do more than one thing at once.

I love the look of my new flat lenses, but my table is weirdly sloped away from me, and the walls are kind of curving in!

If you switch from a standard to a flatter lens design you will see some distortion at the edges of the lenses, but it will wear off. It just feels very odd to start with, so the key is to put the specs on and leave them on! Your brain will adjust and after a day or two the odd effects will be gone.

I know I’ve got Cataracts starting and my sight isn’t as good as it was, but I can’t see as well in my new glasses as with my old ones. Are they wrong?

Of course there could be a problem with the prescription or with the way the glasses have been made, but the answer here may be about your Cataracts. The lens inside your eye will have little opacities in it, which obscure your sight. If the old specs are weaker and you’re not seeing as clearly then you won’t see the opacities as clearly either! The new power is probably showing your visual defects up. Get the spex checked out, but patience is probably all that’s required, when you are ready for your Op your sight will be restored.

If you have any concerns about your glasses or your vision then mail us at the Internet Glasses Company for an individual and confidential reply.

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Optimum Position

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

When a patient has a problem with their glasses it seems an obvious answer is to query the strength of the lenses. Sometimes of course the prescription has been read wrongly, or sight may have fluctuated, but more often than not the glasses are correct and so was the examination. So what else may be wrong?

The positioning of the lenses in your frames is as crucial as the correct power. If you have an astigmatism then the lens has to sit at the given angle – the axis – on your prescription. The higher your cyl or astigmatism strength the more crucial this angle is. You’ll feel seasick and suffer distorted vision if the axis is wrong. This was a dreadful problem when frames were round as the lens would swivel at will within the frame!

If you sit on your frame or manage to distort it in some other way, then you may inadvertently change the orientation of your lenses, so get them straightened before you give yourself headaches and eye strain. Return them to your online optician or go back to your high street optician and get them adjusted. If returning them to the online optician make sure they have a copy of your prescription so that the axis definitely in the right place.

The distance of your frame from your eye can also be an issue if you have a high prescription. This measurement is snappily called the back vertex distance, and is the space, measured in millimetres, from your eye to the back of your spectacle lens. Wearing glasses too far down your nose can be as detrimental to your sight as wearing the wrong power, so if you feel the power of wrong then talk to your optician. Here at the Internet Glasses Companywe advise clients if this will be an issue for them and discuss fitting options.

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Let’s Be Accommodating!

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Of all the wonderful things that our bodies are capable of, there’s a very clever system in your eyes that does a great deal of work without you ever having to think about it! It lets us lead busy, dynamic, varied lives and lets us work, rest and play with clear vision and no effort what so ever. This little trick that the eye performs is called accommodation, and the only time we ever think about it is when it stops working….

Your eyes are capable of accommodation from birth onwards, and the process is due to the crystalline lens, a lens that works away inside your eyeball. This lens is held by ligaments which keep it suspended, and they stretch the lens or relax it to allow you to focus on near or far objects. By altering the shape of the lens it effectively gives you a system of different powers to look through, thereby letting you see at different distances.

As babies, we have very bouncy lenses which change power and let us see really close too. As we age the lens keeps growing, adding layers like an onion. As the years go by we loose the very close focus, until around the mid-forties when the focus is just too far away to see close too, and our arms get too short to read comfortably. If you had a group of people of different ages with perfect vision, you could plot accommodation changes by seeing how close they can read. You would see that as they get older they have to hold things further away.

We call the need for near sight correction presbyopia, and at this stage people need  separate lens powers for distance and reading. It’s only when this happens that we realise how easy life was when accommodation did all the work for us! Any solution for the close work problem is a compromise, and while most people find the glasses and prescription lenses that suit them, it’s still not as easy as when accommodation was accommodating their requirements!

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Safety First!

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

We see a few orders and a few queries due to broken specs, which have suffered a variety of mistreatments. So a cautionary tale……

If play cricket, squash, or do a lot of lawn mowing near gravel paths, then don’t go for glass lenses. These are still used nowadays as the best thin material lenses are glass, and they’re also used because people think plastic scratches too easily. If you want thin glass lenses then you need a plastic pair of lenses too for tasks or hobbies where the lens might shatter.

If your spectacle frames are very curved, or have a wide trim piece between the front and the side, then make sure your spectacle case is wide enough to accommodate your glasses. Don’t squash them into a soft or very narrow case – they might look as if they fit, but over time you’ll be putting pressure on the bridge area of the frame, and eventually it will crack, right across the centre of the frame!

If the weather does warm up, and we get a summer, take care not to leave your glasses where they can get very hot. This means not leaving them on a dashboard or windowsill, where the temperature can soar. Heat will buckle your frames, and may damage your lenses. It can stop your photochromic lenses from working properly, and can cause crazing across coated lenses.

If you break your frames don’t ever be tempted to try superglue as a repair. Firstly, it’s rare that it will work, and you might end up with a bit of frame stuck to your finger, your face or your hair! Secondly, fumes from the glue or the slightest smudge of it on your lenses will damage the lens surface and make it useless. You have been warned!

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How Tinted Lenses Can Make You Better At Sports!

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

We’re all becoming much more active nowadays, taking note of advice to keep fit and stay fit, and the sportswear market is important in maximising your performance. The only neglected area is in eye wear, where you need to know that the correct prescription glasses will help you in your efforts and protect your sight.

The obvious point to make is that if your eyes are properly corrected, then you will avoid eye fatigue. This means keeping your prescription up to date, and ensuring that you have UV filters and/or tints if your sports are outdoor. Polarised lenses are useful if your sport is on or in the water. These lenses cut glare from horizontal surfaces, and make your vision sharper.

The colour of the lens is important if you choose a tint, as each shade does a different job. Grey lenses transmit light evenly, so give true colours. Plump for these if you’re into road sports – jogging, racing, rock climbing. Brown give you excellent contrast and depth perception, ideal for golf, hiking over rough ground, fishing and biking sports. Yellow is great in poor light, giving the best contrast – good for driving later in the day, and for shooting.

For many sports a specific frame is not necessary – golfers for instance will be fine with standard specs, but with a good quality tint and UV filter. Check out sports magazines for suitable frames for your area of interest  – wrap around masks etc give protection for racquet sports such as squash. Try out the products designed for your sport and stay ahead of the game!

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Progressive Progress!

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Within the portfolio of lenses available to optical consumers, varifocals – also known as progressives, or three-in-one lenses – are the one most queried, feared and maligned! So let’s take a look at this incredibly useful and technologically advanced lens type, and hopefully destroy a few myths…

If you’ve got no idea what a varifocal is, a quick summary - a clever lens that does what your eyes did before presbyopia developed. At that certain age – usually around the forties – our eyes stop allowing us to focus on detail close too. Then the computer screen gets difficult. A progressive lens let you focus close up, at arms length, and in the far distance, in a lens with no visible lines.

Many people know someone who wore these lenses in the past and didn’t get on with them. As the first varifocal was developed in 1959, clearly technology has moved a little since then! Lens designs have dramatically altered since their first introduction, and all varifocals are now easy to wear.

The other story you may hear is that they take forever to get used too. In the past, this was certainly an issue. Some patients felt sea sick, others got terrible headaches, but thankfully this is now a thing of the past. You may feel a little odd for a day or two, but these problems are usually short lived and do not affect the majority of wearers.

As more and more of us use computers on a daily basis, and the ageing population stays fitter and healthier for a long life span, varifocals are the only option that allow you to do everything you want to do in a single pair of glasses. If ordering from an online optician make sure you can return them if there are problems, and then you have a safeguard – in the unlikely event that you’ll need it.

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Easy Summer Looks

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Summer is on the way, and if the weather men are to be believed then we may be in for a scorcher. So how do we keep our cool in the simmering heat of the summer months?

Wearing glasses can make you feel hot, itchy and uncomfortable in the summer. A heavy frame that sits on the skin will make you perspire beneath it, and might even give you a rash. If you get hot and start to sweat then the frame will slip and lose shape as the specs become malleable. Not much fun!

There are simple ways to combat all of this. Firstly, make sure your frame does not sit on your cheeks, so have it adjusted to move it off your skin, or invest in a narrow shaped, lightweight frame with the lenses made as thin as possible. This will reduce weight and slipping, and allow air to circulate behind the frames. A metal frame with nose pads does the best job here, as it lifts the specs off the skin, and is fully adjustable.

Always wash the specs after wearing them. Sweat can discolour frames, and in time make some materials brittle. So dilute some liquid soap or washing up liquid in warm water, and immerse the whole frame. Dry them on a soft, lint free cloth. Try to get into the habit of doing this before you go to bed, so damaging skin acids are not left on the frame overnight.

Investing in a couple of different pairs of specs will also help, they all sit slightly differently on the face and swapping them will stop pressure points becoming sore. If the temperature does rise, never leave your glasses anywhere really hot, such as the dashboard or on a window sill. This may damage coated lenses, or warp the frame.

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The Painless Fix for Your Wrinkles!

Monday, May 18th, 2009

We’re all chasing the dream of looking thirty when we’re sixty, injecting, plumping, slathering on miracle creams and lusting after Michelle Obama’s gravity defying biceps. If the surgical fix isn’t for you though, or the gym is too much like hard work, then settle down at your keyboard, get on line, and select some instantly age defying eye wear.

Your glasses are on your face every day, and nothing says I’ve got bingo-wings- hidden- under- this cardie like granny glasses. You may not fit into the fashions at Topshop, but you’ll never have a problem getting your glasses on. Change them for a modern update and it’ll knock ten years off you.  All frames can be worn by any age group, so don’t think fashion spex are only for the young.

Go funky, go trendy, don’t go Deirdre Barlow. Interestingly, Dame Edna has the perfect idea  with her specs. That Fifties/Sixties upswept shape is flattering on most faces, and gives a lift to your features. Detail at the temple also lifts the eye. Rimless frames are not good on older faces – all that detail in the twiddly little bridge and temple parts brings attention to your laughter lines.  The lenses are also made slightly thicker to give strength, so this will magnify  imperfections in your eye area.

If you’re sagging a little around the jaw line, an upswept shape will help with this too.  Don’t go near aviator styles, or frames which are wider at the top than the bottom. This ‘pulls’ everything down.  At online optician prices you can afford a few pairs, so keep it fresh and up to date.

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Get Three-for-One

Monday, May 18th, 2009

We often mention varifocals, blithely throwing them into the conversation as if you’re all as geeky and glasses obsessed as us. We do realise though that some of have more of a life than us, and may not spend your time getting excited over new lenses and coatings. So – back to basics – what is a varifocal? What does it do? Do you need one?

You may already know that even if you don’t wear glasses when you’re young, everybody needs them for reading at some stage, usually when they reach their mid-forties.  (See our notes on presbyopia) A varifocal lens – also called a multifocal, or PAL, or progressive lens, gives you back the sight you had when you were younger.

The lens looks like any single vision lens – get some Grecian 2000 on your hair too and swear blind you’re only thirty – so nobody need know that you’re wearing them. Within the lens however there are different powers, to help you see close too, at arm’s length, and for far distance. The lens has the three prescriptions you need all in one, blended together to make things easy and comfortable

It’s better for you to get into varifocals as soon as you need help for reading, they are easier to adapt to when your reading prescription is lower. As so many of us are chained to our computer nowadays and all you baby boomers have such busy, active lives, varifocals are really the only solution if you want to everything without having to carry endless pairs of specs around – three-into-one will go!

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Mind The Gap

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

Customers often ask us about the weird moment when you look up from close work to distance, and your sight takes a moment to catch up. It happens to specs wearers and those with no spectacle prescription. As it’s come up quite a bit we thought we’d go through this for you.

Lenses are not just the bits of plastic or glass set in spectacle frames. We all have a lens inside each eye – it’s called the crystalline lens, and along with other structures in your eyes in helps you to focus. The lens is a clever little thing that changes shape to let you focus both close too and far away. It does all this work without us even having to think about it, although as we get older – forty onwards – it loses this ability and we need reading glasses.

At any age though, the lens is still doing it’s best to help you see close up. This is why you get that little visual gap – as you focus on different distances your lens and your brain have to catch up and let you re-focus. Of course you notice it more if you’re tired, or have been concentrating hard on anything at a specific distance. It’s nothing to worry about, although you should always make sure that your prescription glasses are up to date, to give your eyes all the help they need.

When you’re working close too, give your eyes a frequent rest by looking around the room at different distances, and remembering to blink, as this washes a fresh layer of tears across the eyes to lubricate them. If you only wear reading glasses you could consider swapping to varifocals, as they let you look comfortably into the distance without having to take your specs off.

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