Posts Tagged ‘varifocals’

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One for All!

Monday, July 19th, 2010

I didn’t need glasses until my early forties, when my previously perfect sight let me down and suddenly I couldn’t see to read. I could still manage if I squinted and held things at arm’s length, but obviously this became somewhat impractical as time went on and one day my poor tired arms simply became too short! The optician told me this happens to everyone but to be honest this was wasn’t much of a comfort! So I ended up gradually collecting glasses to help in different situations.

I had reading glasses, and after a nightmare meeting when I ended up with a raging headache and very tired arms when I forgot my specs, I started keeping one pair at work, one at home, and one in the car just in case! Then I started to need help for the computer, and couldn’t really see the dash board clearly either. This meant another pair of computer specs for work, one for home, and one for the car! This worked until I’d go home with the work pair in my bag etc and then end up with all of them in the wrong location! Then of course there were my sunglasses, which I wore for driving, but still couldn’t see the dashboard.

Exhausted by all of this, and fed up with my worn out glasses that got squashed in handbags and were constantly bent, I went back to talk to the optician again. I still didn’t need glasses for distance sight, but we decided that the time had come to go for varifocal specs. The advantage for me was huge – one pair of glasses that I could leave on all the time, so they wouldn’t get worn out or left anywhere. I could also have them going dark in the sunshine, so instead of seven pairs of specs scattered around my life, I had one pair that I could keep on for all situations!

This was life changing! My varifocals let me see to drive, at the computer, the dashboard, and all my close up vision. I don’t have to take them off and they’re always with me. The lens goes dark so I don’t need sunglasses, and they are clear when I’m indoors. The lenses looked expensive when I first got a quote, but of course they were less than my vast collection of specs and look an awful lot nicer!

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Reading Between the Lines

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Out to dinner last night with five fifty-something friends, the conversation at one low point came round to counting grey hairs, checking out expanding waistlines and advancing wrinkles, and that other issue of ageing – reading specs! This was a hot topic because in the dimly lit restaurant only three of us could read the menu, which annoyed our waitress somewhat! The interesting thing was how six different people with different lifestyles have different ways of coping with needing help for reading….

Sue doesn’t go out to work but tends her small flock of specialist sheep which she hand rears. As she’s short sighted she doesn’t need specific reading specs yet, she just takes her distance glasses off! She then has to retrieve them from the barn or the paddock and wipe off any sheep dribble!

Phillip travels all over the world and is long sighted for distance and needs help for reading. He has Varifocals which go light and dark in the sun. This lets him see at any distance, and when work takes him to South Africa he has sunnies built in!

Jeremy is a GP, he uses vocational lenses for his desk and computer. He pulls them down his nose and looks over the top of them to talk to patients.

I’m bashing away at the keyboard all day, so I use an old pair of reading specs for the screen, and my strongest new ones to read small print.

Johnathan sells cars, he wears contact lenses, a distance lens in one eye and a close work one in the other. This means he can spot a potential customer a mile off and can always read the small print!

Rob just needs a little help for reading, but as a teacher he moves around the classroom all day, so he keeps ten pairs of ready readers in every useful location. He can also peer over the top of them to intimidate any troublesome students!

We had an excellent meal and over a few drinks we forgot about the issues of ageing – at least without our glasses on we can’t see the wrinkles!!

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Communication Breakdown

Monday, July 12th, 2010

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Some of the most common problems that consumers have with glasses boils down to the same cause time and time again. It’s not the product or the optician’s prescription that means people aren’t happy with their glasses – it’s their expectations against what the specs actually do. So let’s try and repair this communication breakdown …………

My new reading glasses are really good for reading the newspaper but now I can’t see the Computer – what’s gone wrong?

This often crops up when people have their second or third new reading power. We first know we need help for reading because our arms get too short! We find we have to hold things further away to see small print. Reading glasses help you to see fine detail again, at a comfortable distance. Every time it’s strengthened, small print gets closer again, but you do reach a point when your eyes change a little more and the arm’s length or computer distance isn’t clear with reading specs any more. You need a separate strength for the screen, or Varifocals, which let you see everything at any distance.

I’ve been putting my new Varifocals on and off for a month and they’re still not comfortable, I feel much better in my old glasses.

We all need time to adjust with a new prescription or type of lens, but usually it only takes a week or two. The key to getting used to new specs is actually putting them on and keeping them on – don’t switch between old and new lenses. This will make the adjustment period longer. You might feel a bit odd for a day or two, but persevere with the new lens and soon you’ll forget you’ve got them on!

I had thin lenses but you can still see them outside the edge of the frame. So what’s the point of them?!

The issue here is the patient expectation of just how ‘thin’ is thin! There is a choice of materials which reduce the lens thickness, but many different factors affect the final look of a lens. The distance between your eyes, the strength of the lens, and the frame size all have an impact on the thickness. Thinner materials reduce thickness by up to 50%, so will always be an improvement on a standard lens, but with really high lens powers we can’t promise to disguise the lens edge fully.

The way to avoid these disappointments is to ask your optician or online optician as many questions as possible before ordering, and go back to them if you’re not happy with your glasses. Sometimes we can improve what you’ve got, or suggest alternatives that will help you.

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Road Test – Varifocals

Friday, June 4th, 2010

I tried my very first pair of varifocals last week, and was asked to give an honest assessment of how I’ve got on, so for any first timers out there who are not sure if they should take the leap… read on!

I’ve always had perfect sight and never worn glasses, so it was a shock when I first needed help with small print. I struggled on for a while with ready reading glasses, but they looked pretty dreadful, I was always breaking them or losing them, and then I began to find the computer screen difficult too.  I discussed this situation with my optician, chatted to friends, and finally took the plunge after further advice from the InternetGlassesCompany. The specs arrived in the post with a helpful note about how to wear them. So I sat at my desk and nervously tried them on…

The small print was absolutely wonderful, and I could read totally clearly for the first time in a couple of years! It seemed blacker and sharper than before. I could also thread a needle and see things like stitching. The computer screen was clear, but the edges seemed to slope sideways.  I had been warned about this, apparently it’s because I have a little bit of Astigmatism, and is common with vari lenses anyway.

I worked quite happily for a couple of hours, but did suffer a slight headache. When I stood up the floor seemed to be on a bit of a slope, but much better than trying to look down with my reading glasses!

Although I didn’t need the glasses power for driving I did try them in the car, and it was great to see the dash clearly, and useful when I went to pay for petrol. You do have to turn your head more to see to the side, but I got on ok with this.

Two weeks on, I’m not sure how I ever managed without my varifocals. I wear them all day because it’s easier than trying to find them every time I put them down! The headache went after a couple of days, and I’ve adjusted my screen and things on my desk for perfect comfort. No going back, and I’m happy I stuck with it for the first few days when everything felt a bit odd. Thankfully my screen and my floor also now look like they used to!

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Great Expectations

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Obviously you can’t please all of the people all of the time, and we do get glasses returned to us because clients aren’t happy with them. Fortunately it’s a really tiny percentage, and often with a bit of adjustment or explanation the specs go back home and give many years of happy sight! The main problem that we have to contend with is the unrealistic expectations of the client. We wish we could perform miracles of Physics but sadly we can’t! So what are the main problems that we would solve if we were granted Super-Powers?!

The No-Effort Varifocal – Varifocals are wonderful lenses that give you back vision at all distances. They let you see near, far, and everywhere in between without swapping specs. The only drawback is that you so have to work with them, and compromise. You have to turn your head a little more to look to the side, you have to drop your chin slightly to see in the distance, and you have to get used to them when you first get them! Persevere, buy the best you can afford, and be grateful you don’t have to change glasses every time you try to focus at a different distance!

Wafer Thin Lenses – You can get lenses in thin material nowadays, but the higher your prescription, the more substance you have to your lens. You also get visible rings around the edges of the lens, which increase with stronger lenses. Brutal though it sounds, you have to be realistic. If your prescription is higher than minus 10 or plus 8, the strength is tricky to disguise. We can use the thinnest material possible, we can add coatings to reduce the rings, but your specs will never look as if there is no power there. Any optician who tells you otherwise is raising false hopes! So be thankful that you can reduce thickness by up to 60%, and be happy with the knowledge that lens materials are improving all the time, and we’ll do everything we can to make them look as good as possible for you.

Reading Specs That Focus Far Away – The magnifying power of your reading glasses is in inverse proportion to the focal length – in plain English, the more they magnify, the closer to your eye you’ll have to hold things! So for very fine detail you have to hold things close too, for bigger print you can have a weaker lens that focuses further away. If you need to see detail at near and far, you need to move yourself closer!

So there are our three wishes, if our Fairy-Godmother pops up any time soon, we’ll be as happy as our clients to get this little lot sorted!

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The Perfect Marriage

Monday, May 10th, 2010

When it comes to making glasses, it’s not quite as straightforward as clipping a lens into a frame and sending the wearer your blessings! For the specs to give perfect vision, look good and feel comfortable, you need the perfect marriage of suitable frame, lens design and material and coatings.

Every optical establishment needs a qualified Optometrist and a Dispensing Optician in residence. The first step is for the Optometrist to look at your prescription and make sure it makes sense with reference to your age, optical history, and visual needs. Here at the InternetGlassesCompany we have a fully professional team who verify prescriptions and check with clients if anything looks amiss. Does the power ring true for your age? If there is a difference between your two eyes does it seem likely? While every prescription is different we do get some orders that would be a miracle of science!!

The next step is for the Dispenser to look at the choice of lens material and frame. For instance – a high plus prescription may be problematic in a rimless frame as the lens edges will be thin and may chip over time. A high minus strength will be very thick in a huge frame. They also look at your pupil distance, because if you’re petite and your eyes are close together, the lenses will be thick in a big frame. If they don’t think your choices would work they contact you to suggest alternatives.

They then consider your lens choice in relation to your prescription. Are Varifocals really suitable? Will a specific lens type be very heavy? Do you really need thin materials? Again, we occasionally have to verify with the client before we go ahead. It’s not in your interest or ours to produce a finished article that just won’t work.

When the order reaches the Lab, they again will look through everything and check that the glasses will do the job. Sometimes the Dispensing Optician will have sought their advice on technical aspects of lens finishing etc before they pass the job on.

When the glasses have been completed, success is once again assessed. If we didn’t foresee a potential problem then we start all over again!  Our precious work is shipped off to you with our congratulations on your choices, and we wish you happy ever after with them!

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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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Can You Dig It?

Monday, March 29th, 2010

So it’s officially Spring and the sun is finally shining. Time to dust off the gardening gloves and hit the greenhouse, full of vim and vigour for the new growing season. Now before you start madly plating and digging, let’s think about the perfect eyewear to help you see the woods for the tress!

There are three aspects to specs for the garden, physical safety, glare/UV protection and your prescription. So much to think about! So let’s take it easy – safety is fairly straightforward and common sense. Don’t ever garden in glass lenses, pulling up a tough weed or strimming may fling tiny particles up that could shatter your lens. So stick to plastic, with an anti-scratch layer, and wash them before polishing after use. For heavy duty work with a chain saw etc, wear protective goggles over your specs. Many Gardeners end up with nasty scratches across their specs from branches, so preferably wear an old pair rather than your best ones.

If you’re out in the Garden for hours on end, UV can be a problem even on overcast days. Just wearing clear specs gives some protection, but consider investing in a UV coat if your life is spent outdoors. UV can trigger Cataract formation and Age Related Macular Degeneration. If glare bothers you, have a photochromic lens, which change to adapt to the light conditions, useful if you’re out dawn until dusk. If you’re strictly a fair weather gardener then a dark tint may be better, and useful if you snooze off for a well earned siesta!

Prescriptions become difficult once you need help for reading. Bifocals are annoying, as without the middle distance area pruning and separating tiny seedlings is difficult. You also don’t want to mow over your toes! Varifocals are probably the best option, as they allow you to see delicate detail and admire the view. So sort out your eyewear and pray for that Barbeque weather this year!

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As Young as you Feel

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

We all know that our bodies throw us a few curve balls as get older…..aches and pains, grey hairs, senior moments….and of course Presbyopia! Much to the excitement of Opticians everywhere, we can finally sell even the most eagle eyed amongst you some specs. Presbyopia occurs as the lens inside the eye stiffens over time and makes it increasingly difficult to see fine detail and small print.

In years gone by, we all joked with patients that Presbyopia is a sign of getting old, a sure indicator of middle age. Things in 2010 are however a little different. What does a fifty year old look like today? How many of us succumb to elasticated waistbands, comfy slippers and letting our wrinkles run free? Nowadays Botox is as common as mascara, and none of us are willing to admit to middle age, even at the age of forty, fifty and beyond. Would you want to tell George Clooney, Shah Rukh Khan or Brad Pitt that they’re old?!

So if these guys are still hot property, then potentially so is every other forty plus Presbyope, who just happens to need a little help for close work. Some suggestions to help stave off the Botox and choose the easy option to look younger:

1.Never go for Bifocals! The visible line is a dead giveaway, and the next step will be the Zimmer frame!

2.Avoid the dreaded half moon reading specs, you’ll look like an aged Headmaster. If you do need to look over your glasses pick a shallow little trendy frame and only peer over the top if no one else is watching.

3.Try varifocals – there’s no line, they’ll fit in the trendiest of tiny frames, and you can see the computer, small print and far distance without anyone guessing your age.

4.Talk to your Optician about varifocal contact lenses, for permanent or part time wear.

As we all live longer and healthier lives, Presbyopia will be a nuisance that we live with for many years. Don’t pick an ageing solution that makes you feel bad about it!

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Even Barbie Goes Geek Chic!

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

It’s an interesting fact that the mere sight of a studious looking girl in glasses makes most men go weak at the knees. That Librarian image of a good girl who might just turn out to be bad if you can persuade her to whip off her specs and shake loose her hair is an ever popular fantasy that has been used in photo shoots, film and possibly real life since specs wear began.

This week, even Barbie dolls get in the act, as Mattel launches a new version of the blonde bombshell, complete with laptop, Bluetooth earpiece, and geeky chunky specs. The new model was chosen by fans and is based on the personality of a computer engineer. So if you want to be taken seriously by your male colleagues, and use all the deadly weapons at your disposal, then the look for girls is clearly computer geek chic.

Women are taken more seriously in the workplace, and are likely to be more successful in interviews if they wear glasses. Something work appropriate and stylish is a heavyweight, dark and single colour plastic frame, with the minimum of embellishment and the maximum of blue stocking appeal. It will lend a fashion edge to your boring work suits, and is sturdy and practical for every day wear.

Chunky rim plastics are perfect for high prescriptions, as they disguise your lenses. If you just wear specs for reading they are wonderfully intimidating if you slide them down your nose and peer over the top edge! They are also great for varifocals as you can choose a shape that’s deeper, giving you plenty of room for your distance, reading, and middle distance prescriptions.

With your bold and eye catching Librarian specs in place you only need to add a slick of bright lip colour to make it clear you’re one of the girls not the boys, and you’re good to go – just ask Barbie!

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