Posts Tagged ‘Varifocal lenses’

A Leap of Faith

Monday, August 29th, 2011

Reviewing our stock and sales figures recently we were pleased to note how many pairs of varifocal lenses we dispense, and how few ever come back to us under our no quibble returns policy. When we set up the Internet Glasses Company we spent a great deal of careful thought on the subject of varifocals, as not many internet suppliers sell them. After much debate we decided that we would offer them to our clients, providing we could offer the reassurance of a guarantee.

The decision to supply them was tricky because of the many myths that surround varifocals. These magic lenses give the wearer far distance, intermediate and close work powers all blended together within the one lens. This means you can walk around, drive, use the computer, and read or sew etc without swapping specs around, a problem common to those of us over the age of forty! But many patients know someone who tried them and didn’t like them, people were worried that the measurements cannot be done in an internet purchase, that specs had to be fitted correctly for them to work properly – the list of potential hazards to the client goes on, and we do get e-mails enquiring how the specs can possibly work – so to answer that first query – they most certainly do! Our many happy customers prove that. So how do we do it?

Firstly, we only use premium products that do the job well. Regardless of any other considerations, we don’t use lenses that aren’t up to our strict quality expectations. Secondly, we only accept prescriptions that are straight forward, and will always communicate with patients if we feel we cannot provide a good service for them. Thirdly, we employ the skills of qualified staff, optometrists, dispensing opticians and technicians, who take pride in their work and bring many years of experience to the IGC. They use their knowledge and skills to calculate measurements, put specs together properly, and liaise with patients to ensure success.

In our years of trading, we have a miniscule amount of specs returned, and if you’re not happy, we refund you, no fuss or quibble. So if you’re toying with the idea of varifocals, take that leap of faith with the IGC – Vision Perfect – or your money back!

Varifocal Glasses

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That Difficult Age……

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

I never needed to wear glasses until the dreaded ‘difficult age’ arrived, and I found my arms were too short to see small print. Even threading a needle became a Herculaen task that only be achieved in bright light and then with the help of the nearest teenager! My optician told me I only needed glasses to see close up, so I duly ordered a pair of snazzy black frames with a simple reading lens. Little did I know my problems were only just beginning!!

The reading specs were great for sitting down with my favourite book, and at least I could sew a button on again. Everyday life however became a nightmare round of lost specs, a marked nose where I kept pulling them down to peer over the top, and pulled hair as I stuck them on top of my head and then got them entangled in my tresses!

So it was back to the drawing board, or rather the pc. I felt my optician didn’t think about my lifestyle when suggesting my glasses – a chair bound book worm would love my readers, but I’m a teacher and I need to move around, see what little Johnny at the back of the class is doing, and a thousand and one other things during the day. A bit of surfing (the net that is, I’m not that dynamic!) and I came across some really helpful info from the Internet Glasses Company. I browsed and after a chat with friends took the plunge and ordered some varifocal lenses. I wasn’t sure about getting them off the net, but the cost was low and I decided to give it a whirl.

One month on, and I’m over the moon with the varifocals. They let me see my book, the pc and little Johnny, without glaring menacingly over the top rim of my specs. They felt odd for a day or two but now they’ve settled down I just stick them on and forget about them. I’ve even just placed an order for another pair, with lenses that go light and dark, so I’m sorted for all day every day – and they look like plain lenses so I can forget the difficult age thing and pretend I haven’t got there yet!!

Varifocal Glasses

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On Your Marks!

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Obviously we are all familiar with hallmarks – those tiny symbols engraved on jewellery and items of precious metal that tell us the date, maker, location and purity of the material used. Did you ever notice that your spectacle lenses are hallmarked? Well if you’ve ever seen some strange little symbols etched on your lenses, then that’s what they are! Or on varifocal lenses there are markings which tell us what type of lens you have and where they are placed.

The engravings on lenses are so shallow and so tiny that the human eye cannot detect them when the specs are in place and you are looking through them. To people looking at you, the markings are rarely visible, unless the light happens to hit them in exactly the right place and the observer is looking straight at them. If you do want to take a look at your lenses and see if they have markings, then stand under bight over head light and breathe heavily onto the lens. As the mist appears you might see some minute little marks engraved. If it is a manufacturers hallmark then it will be in a random place on the lens, depending on the axis or angle of your prescription. This is applied in high quality lenses where you have paid for a branded lens.

If you have varifocals, then all lenses will have markings when you first get them. In time, and as you diligently polish your specs the marks will lessen, and even the most eagle eyed will no longer be able to see them! The varifocals will have the manufacturers mark, the power of the reading segment, and the lens type marked on them. Makes you wonder how on earth you could see through them! They also have tiny little circles or elliptical shapes etched at the temple and the nose edge which allows the optician to tell where your clear areas of vision are. If you specs get seriously bent out of shape and you then need to have them re-aligned, the optician will use the tiny engravings as a reference point, to ink a full varifocal template onto the lens. The specs can then be re-fitted and the ink removed. A vital tool in ensuring the continued success of your varifocal wear.

So in an idle moment you can take a look at your lenses and if your sight is sharp enough, you’ll see the reassuring sight of hallmarks and markings that tell us about your specs.

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Varifocals – Top Five Tips for Three-In-One Success!

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

For those of you over the age of forty with arms that are a teeny bit too short now, you’ll be making that tricky decision to go for reading glasses, bifocals or varifocal lenses. This is always a difficult age, especially now that we all use computers and have busy, dynamic lifestyles. Unless you do just sit in a chair and read a book varifocals are the only specs that will let you everything without having to take your glasses on and off. So are they for you? Will they work? Here are our top five tips for varifocal success….

Varifocal vision

Varifocal vision

1.Be prepared for the fact that you will have to move your head. The varifocal lens has reading, intermediate, and distance vision all within the lens. This leads to distorted areas at the lens edges, so you have to turn your head to see past these. You have to work with the lens to get the best result.

2.Give yourself time to adjust to the lenses. It is rare for a patient to put varifocals on and immediately feel at home in them. They take a good few days to get used to. Put your old specs away, put the varifocals on, and resign yourself to a day or two of feeling a little odd! Most people settle down with them within a week. A little adjustment or advice may tip the balance and make the lens work for you if problems persist, so contact your optician.

3.Choose a frame which is deep enough for the lenses. Frames don’t have to be huge, but they do need enough depth to give you room for the reading area. If your optician tells you the frame is not suitable, then don’t even attempt it. There is a minimum workable depth for each design of lens, ignore this at your peril! Your optician will notify you if the frame you’ve chosen won’t work.

4. Keep the limitations in mind. Although varifocals allow you to do most things happily without thinking about your glasses, there are a couple of situations where they won’t work. Depending on your stance, they may be difficult for golf. If you like to burrow down and read in bed, this can be the wrong angle to see out of the bottom segment of the lens. Prop yourself up and make sure you’re looking down through the lower area. For any career where you need to see detail above your head – electricians and pilots take note – you’ll have difficulty as fine detail is only accessible through the lower porton of the lens.

5.Only order varifocals if your optician guarantees them. All varifocal manufacturers offer guarantees, so a good optician will pass this on to the consumer. If all else fails and they don’t work for you, make sure they can be returned or replaced with another option.

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Third Time Lucky!

Monday, September 14th, 2009

I know we all listen to advice from our friends and relations, and generally, going by their experiences and ideas helps us to make choices. Well, I wish I hadn’t listened! My life has changed thanks to my new varifocals, so here’s what I’ve learnt for myself!

My Mum had tried varifocals, and so had my Dad. Now admittedly this was a while ago, and I know things change, but they had ended up spending out on glasses they couldn’t use, and getting very frustrated going back to their bifocals. I was not looking forward to reaching the milestone of needing glasses for reading. My optician said that I was quite young (39 and a half!) to need readers, but need them I did, and for a while sticking my specs on for small print worked just fine.

As I use a VDU more and more, I now can’t cope with taking glasses on and off. So I did some online research and talked to the dispensing optician at the practice I usually visit. I found out a couple of reasons why they probably didn’t work for Mum and Dad. In Dad’s case, he tried them twenty years ago, and varifocal lenses were very different then. He needed them for his desk job, and the way they were made in those days meant they were great for drivers etc, but not so good at work. Times have now changed, and lenses are even specifically designed for computer users.

With Mum, she suffers from neck problems, so she couldn’t make the lenses work with her posture. Nowadays they might give her a different lens design, or measure them to suit her individual needs. I was still worried about taking the plunge – times are hard and varifocals are not the cheapest. Lots of online opticians don’t make them, so I was pleased to find the IGC, and when I mailed them an optician rang me back. He said that if I didn’t like them he’d have them back! I felt confident to give them a go – and I’ve never looked back. I don’t even think about my specs now, I just keep them on. I might even persuade Mum and Dad to try again – assuming it wasn’t just that I’m third time lucky in our family!

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The Facts about Presbyopia

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

We’re all aware of visible signs of ageing – a sprinkling of grey hair, a few lines that show we enjoy life and laughing. There is however one sign of time passing that many of us do not understand. We’re talking about the visual problem Presbyopia, an unavoidable change in your sight that occurs after the age of forty. Let’s give you some facts, explanation and options to help you to deal with it.

Presbyopia usually becomes noticeable around the age of forty, although some people don’t have a problem until their early fifties. You’ll notice:

  • Having to hold things further away to see them – handwritten items, sewing, newspapers.
  • Finding it hard to read in poor light conditions, such as a restaurant menu at night.
  • Headaches or tired eyes after reading for long periods.
  • Difficulty seeing small detail or print.

Presbyopia occurs due to ageing of the lens inside your eye. From birth onwards this lens changes shape to let you focus at any distance. As time goes on flexibility decreases and the lens does not allow you to see close too any more. You’ll now need a prescription lens for reading and fine detail. It happens to everyone in time, and while you can’t prevent it, you can make wise choices to make life easier. So what are your options?

If you don’t have a distance prescription then reading glasses are a simple and cheap solution. They give a wide field of view, and you just pop them on when you need them. If you have a complicated prescription an Optician will make them, or you may be able to buy ready made glasses. If you decide on ready readers, get the correct power – ask your Optician what you need.

If you want to do more than one thing at once, such as read and look at TV, then you’ll need glasses that let you see both far and near. Varifocal lenses have three powers within the lens – distance, middle distance and reading. This restores your natural vision, letting you focus on everything with a smooth transition between all areas of the lens. They look just like single vision lenses – no one will guess your age!

Bifocals just have a reading and distance prescription. They can cause problems because they don’t have the middle distance section, so cannot be used at the computer, and you can’t see the dashboard when driving. The reading segment is also visible to people looking at you.

There are contact lens options too. Multifocal contact lenses give the same effect as Varifocal specs. Or you can wear distance contacts with reading specs over the top. The other option is called monovision, a compromise where you wear a lens in one eye that corrects your distance vision, and a reading lens in the other. Sounds odd but your brain does the job for you! It works well for suitable patients.

We hope that we’ve given you some useful information about Presbyopia, to help you make the right eyewear choices when the time comes. Think about what you do on a daily basis, and make a decision based on your lifestyle.

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