Posts Tagged ‘Varifocal’

Making Progress

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

It’s frightening how time flies, and in every aspect of our lives technology seems to accelerate at an amazing pace too. Every week we get new innovations that we could only have dreamed of ten years, or even ten months ago! Sight, and how to improve it is an important area that constantly changes in terms of new screening equipment, products, and surgical techniques.

As our population ages, more and more of us will need Varifocal or Progressive lenses, which help us to see near and far in one lens. Once you pass the age forty mark there’s no escape from needing this help for close work, and obviously we all lead busy, healthy active lives for much longer! So a Varifocal lens is an important part of everyday life for many wearers. It lets you see to thread a needle, look at your computer, and see into infinity – all with a thin sliver of plastic or glass!

Since they first appeared on the market around fifty years ago, Varifocals have evolved into complex new designs that make life easier for wearers. The manufacturers have also created different lens types for specific lifestyles, careers and hobbies.

Common problems with the earliest Varifocals were pretty drastic for some patients, who complained of headaches, and feelings of sea-sickness! For many it was a long struggle to adjust, with a high failure rate long-term. The single design did not suit everybody – for instance someone who drives for a living needs a different lens design from someone with a static desk job. The main problem with these early lenses was the distortion at the edge of the lens, which gave rise to all the odd effects and a very narrow clear area to look through. You also needed a huge frame to make the lenses work, which made specs heavy and thick for higher powers.

As designs changed, life became easier for wearers – and opticians! We could provide different solutions for patients who were struggling, and lenses that could be fitted into smaller and more fashionable frames. We have a range of lenses that suit every prescription and every budget. There are even tailor made lenses that fit wrap around frames, and help patients with specific optical needs. If you’ve tried them in the past, don’t be afraid to give Varifocals another chance, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much things have changed.

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Need to Know

Friday, June 18th, 2010

When we first tell people that they need to wear a visual correction – glasses or contact lenses – their first reaction, and their first question, is about when they need to wear their glasses. There are a few myths surrounding this issue, so here are the facts.

Wearing glasses, or not wearing your glasses, won’t alter your sight in the long term. There are some studies to suggest that’s children’s sight can be improved with specialist lens types, but at present there’s no evidence to suggest that your correction will actually make your sight better or worse. If you don’t wear them, in the short term you’ll suffer from eye strain as you try to focus. Squinting to thread a needle or read a book will be at best uncomfortable, at worst will leave you with a nasty headache. So don’t be afraid to wear your glasses! Listen to your Optician’s advice and wear them when you need them, especially if you’re illegal to drive without them!

If you’re under the age of forty, your eyes will do the work for you in focussing close too and far away. You only need one prescription for both. For most prescriptions you’ll be perfectly fine wearing your spex all the time. If you’re short sighted, as you get near to age forty, you’ll be more comfortable taking your specs off for close work. In this case not wearing your glasses will save eye strain. If you’re long sighted you’ll start to find that you need extra magnification for close work at this point.

After age forty-ish, you need help to focus close-up, regardless of what your sight was like before this point. So if you had no prescription before this, you’ll find yourself putting specs on and off when you need to read and then look up. You could have a varifocal with no power at the top of the lens, just your close and middle distance magnification. It’s fine to wear the varifocals all through the working day if it suits your lifestyle not to have to keep taking reading specs on and off.

Trust your optician and your own common sense when it comes to the best times to wear your glasses, and the important thing is don’t suffer in trying to cope without them.

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Make it Work for Work

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Confusion arises time and time again due to the choices you have to make when you need help for reading. It’s a problem that comes to us all, as the eye ages the lens inside stops allowing you focus close too. Basically your arms get too short! As arm extensions are beyond our capabilities at present, here is the simple guide to what you need to bring life back into focus!

If you don’t have a distance prescription and you just like to sit and read:

You need simple single vision lenses. Choose a narrow frame so you can peer over the top, (on the off chance that something more interesting than the election comes onto the telly!) and have anti-scratch lenses because you’ll be taking them on and off.

If you don’t have a distance prescription, use a computer and need to read small print too:

You need Vocational lenses. These combine screen distance and near vision in one lens, allowing you to look up at the screen and check work close too. Also great for ironing and eating your dinner!!

If you have a distance prescription, and use a computer: You’ll be better off with a varifocal, which lets you see

a) Far Distance – driving, TV and generally walking around.

b) Middle Distance – Computer screen, display on a wall, across a desk.

c) Close Work – Reading, threading a needle.

These are the ultimate specs that do what your eyes used to do, allowing you to focus both far and near, without swapping specs around.

If you have a distance and a reading prescription, but don’t use a computer: You can have traditional bifocals, which are simple and correct both of your prescriptions in one lens. You wouldn’t be able to use them at the computer and some wearers find it difficult to see the dashboard clearly.

So there you go, there is a lens to suit any lifestyle, and you just need to take a few minutes to think about what would be good for you. Mail or phone us if you need advice – Vision Perfect at TheInternetGlassesCompany !

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Anatomy Lesson

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Wearing specs can be a curse as well as a blessing – ok it’s a nice simple solution that corrects your sight, but can’t they be annoying at times! How many of us speccy four eyes have almost dropped the dinner when we open the oven door, or crashed into a display walking into a warm shop on a cold day. If life is permanently in soft focus for you due to misting up, have a look at your anatomy…..

It’s a fact of life that chubby cherubic cheeks or even Kate Moss razor sharp cheekbones are not always a good thing if you wear specs. If your glasses sit close to the face and air cannot get behind them, then they will mist up at the slightest increase in temperature. This is especially a problem with plastic frames, as the moulded bridge sits right on the face with not as much air space behind it as a metal frame.

If you also happen to have a petite little nose with a flat bridge, your problem is compounded! So besides switching to contact lenses, what can you do? The first step is to make sure that your frame is a shallow as possible. So when you come to pick your new pair, look for a wide front that still looks big enough for you, but one where the depth from eyebrow to lower edge is as small as possible. Even varifocal lenses can go into small and shallow frames nowadays, so if you are a varifocal wearer don’t panic!

The shallow frame may be enough to solve the problem, if you have a nicely projecting bridge to your nose. If however you do have a flatter bridge, then you will need a metal frame. The nose pads lift the frame away from the cheeks, to allow a good flow of air behind the lenses. Thinner material lenses will also help if your lens power is strong, as this will decrease the weight and allow the frame to sit up higher. Don’t just put up with the problem – a funky trendy pair of shallow specs for spring will lift the fog for you!

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Could you be Fabulous At 50?

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

Whether or not you are a specs wearer you may have heard of a lens called a Varifocal. It goes by many names – progressive lenses, multifocals, PALS  (progressive addition lenses) or the world famous brand name of Varilux. They all refer to the same thing, a lens which blends together your distance, intermediate and reading prescription to give you back the sight of your youth.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of a lens which many customers think is some new fangled idea that will be difficult to wear and is expensive. History speaks for itself though, this is a tried and tested product which has made millions of lives easier, using technology which has constantly evolved.

The varifocal lens was launched in 1959, the first true innovation in optics for many years. These early lenses were hard to adapt to, but in 1972 the product made great leaps forward and the usable areas of the lens increased. As time went on the lenses were improved further by adapting the lens design for different prescriptions, and reducing the distortion on the edges of the lens that made it difficult to wear.

These lenses are now available for most prescriptions, in different materials to make them thinner and lighter, go dark in the sun, or for tinted sunglasses. They fit in most fashionable frames, and there are different lenses for specific jobs, hobbies and professions. If you need help for reading and distance, then varifocals are the state of the art solution. They’ve grown up at the age of fifty, along with the Baby Boomers who now use them to make the most of their busy lives.

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