Buying glasses.
Jan. 31st, 2006 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaYay for the glasses-buying experience: After I filled in psychologist where the medical form asked for my occupation, the optometrist smoothly greeted me as "Dr. Wald." That never happens.
I bet it never-happens to him every bit as often as it never-happens to me, which is why he thinks to do it.
Boo for the glasses-buying experience: "These frames all seem so small," I complained to the saleswoman. "With a prescription as strong as mine, I want as much surface area as possible."
"Oh no," she said earnestly. "With that strong a prescription, small frames are good - the glasses won't be as thick at the edges."
"But I'm more concerned with how well I can see than with how they look," I said.
She blinked at me.
(I eventually found a lovely pair in the men's section.)
Boo for the finances of glasses-buying: My health insurance coverage allows the princely sum of $28.80 for single-vision prescription lenses.
Yay for the finances of glasses-buying: Lenscrafter discounts single-vision prescription lenses an additional $91.20 for customers with my variety of health insurance.
Yay for family support of glasses-buying: Michael came home from work early so that I could make a 6pm appointment for an eye exam.
Boo for family support of glasses-buying: Alex didn't go to sleep for him until 8:45.
I bet it never-happens to him every bit as often as it never-happens to me, which is why he thinks to do it.
Boo for the glasses-buying experience: "These frames all seem so small," I complained to the saleswoman. "With a prescription as strong as mine, I want as much surface area as possible."
"Oh no," she said earnestly. "With that strong a prescription, small frames are good - the glasses won't be as thick at the edges."
"But I'm more concerned with how well I can see than with how they look," I said.
She blinked at me.
(I eventually found a lovely pair in the men's section.)
Boo for the finances of glasses-buying: My health insurance coverage allows the princely sum of $28.80 for single-vision prescription lenses.
Yay for the finances of glasses-buying: Lenscrafter discounts single-vision prescription lenses an additional $91.20 for customers with my variety of health insurance.
Yay for family support of glasses-buying: Michael came home from work early so that I could make a 6pm appointment for an eye exam.
Boo for family support of glasses-buying: Alex didn't go to sleep for him until 8:45.
Re: I don't follow your optometrist's reasoning entirely
Date: 2006-02-01 05:04 am (UTC)What he was talking about was peripherial vision -- by which I mean what you see to the side with your eyes pointed straight ahead. Peripheral vision is really a complete blur off at the side anyway (though our brains don't interpret it as blur, so we don't notice this), so not having lens there doesn't make things enough worse to matter.
I think my optometrist's answer to the "what about when I have my head straight ahead and turn my eyes to the side?" is that one really doesn't do that very far except for quick glances -- and on a quick glance one doesn't really focus anyway, so again it's a case where things are blurry but the brain doesn't notice.
I will say that my current lenses are such that if I turn my eyes all the way to the side, the frame is not quite in the middle of my view. At that point, my eye muscles hurt if I hold that for more than a half-second, so in anything that wasn't a "test" I'd be turning my head immediately anyhow. I think that's about the size of lens that my optometrist was talking about being adequate, not something significantly smaller.
Re: I don't follow your optometrist's reasoning entirely
Date: 2006-02-01 06:02 pm (UTC)