Buying glasses.

[rivka]

Yay 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.

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

"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.


Bwahhahahahahahaha!!!!!! Whole different set of priorities. See, I have 20/20 vision, but growing up with a mom and a sibling who both had very strong prescriptions, I am well aware that glasses need to be practical as well as pretty. Not everybody realizes that, I guess. I'm surprised that a salesperson at a glasses store wouldn't have already encountered such an attitude before, though. Maybe she's new.

Boo, Alex. So, how much is she sleeping on average these days? Is 8:45 late for her? Has she achieved the Holy Grail known as sleeping through the night? That milestone was the point my mom always referred to as "When conception of future children becomes possible, because Mommy isn't a sleep-deprived zombie all the time anymore".

[rivka.livejournal.com]

So, how much is she sleeping on average these days? Is 8:45 late for her? Has she achieved the Holy Grail known as sleeping through the night?

Usually we go upstairs at 7 and she's asleep by 7:25. So 8:45 meant that Michael was trying to put her to bed for almost two hours, the poor guy. Still, it's not her fault. She has a cold, and apparently kept jolting herself back awake by snuffling or coughing.

We'd think of her as sleeping all the way through the night if we went to bed at 7 too. As it is, on normal nights she gets us up once between bedtime and morning - she'll sleep 8-10 hours, wake up for a bottle somewhere between 3 and 5am, and then go back to sleep until 6 or 6:30. With this cold that's been coming on, she's typically had one additional night waking. So it's not so bad.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

I am so SO tired of selecting glasses frames from a range running from Tiny to Small. Large frames can't come back into fashion soon enough.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Peripheral vision just isn't the In Thing anymore, I guess.

Me too!

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I actually bought a pair of big frames on Ebay. Next time I can afford glasses, I'm going to get my prescription put into them!

[redbird]

I would like to note that while I like large frames--I wear bifocals--it is possible for them to be too big. I have found this out the hard way: too big is when they rub against my cheeks and irritate the skin. (I've tried adjusting the nosepieces a few times, and it doesn't seem to be possible to eliminate the problem. I need new glasses. I need to sort out insurance w.r.t. my eye doctor.)

[ellarien]

I hear you on the frames thing. I've put off getting new glasses for ages because I like big frames that don't interfere with my peripheral vision. They were fashionable when I was a teenager, and they help broaden my narrow face, so I prefer them from the aesthetic angle too.

[brooksmoses]

Interestingly, the last time I got glasses, my optometrist was the one who tried to talk me into getting smaller glasses.

His reasoning largely involved weight, really, along with the claim on his part that really large lenses didn't actually make much difference with peripheral vision, since the eye doesn't really focus well or have much difference at the sides anyway.

So, I took his advice and tried some that were a bit smaller. They were among the biggest of the ones on display -- somewhere around a small-medium, I'd guess, though, and after a year or so with them I'd say they're perfectly fine visually. (The only problem, actually, is that I notice the frames a bit in my peripheral vision, but I definitely don't notice the peripheral vision itself being limited by the edge of the lenses, even when I look for it to be.)

In any case, the point I was going to make was that I did look in the catalogs they had, and discovered that my old style -- which was quite large -- is still made, and they wouldn't have had any trouble ordering it. So if you are willing to order from catalogs (or from "do they still make this style" on an old pair), you should be able to get at least some large styles currently.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I also have a thing about the weight of my glasses. My nose tends to fall asleep if my glasses aren't light and sit at exactly the right place on my nose, so small would be better for me, except that I also have bifocals so I need enough space for each half.

[platypus]

I do not have a small face, but I've found smallish wire-frames that work for me. They give me a decent field of vision while still being small enough to keep the edge thickness of my glasses down a bit. I am a little sensitive about the edges, being a very high myope (-8.50 in both eyes with another diopter of astigmatism). I hate, loathe and abhor edge polishing, another thing they like to foist on us in the interest of appearance. I personally think it looks horrible and distracting. I do get a slight edge roll. Vanity.

I really quite like Hoya's 1.70 index lens, the thinnest one can generally find in the US. There aren't any annoying optical effects of note -- not like back when I used to have polycarbonate glasses in grade school and all the lights looked rainbowed.

I don't follow your optometrist's reasoning entirely

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I was able to get some lenses last time which were at least adequately wide. When I look from side to side with these lenses, I can see through my prescription. With tiny lenses, I would have a blur off at the side. I feel that's dangerous.

[ckd]

hr_macgirl has a pair of glasses that are frameless; the earpieces and nose bridge are just bolted to the lens directly. That gives no frame to get in the peripheral vision....

Re: I don't follow your optometrist's reasoning entirely

[brooksmoses]

When you turn your eyes but not your head, yes, it makes a difference.

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.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I had the opposite experience the last time I got glasses. I wanted a smaller frame and the saleswoman thought I should get bigger. I have no peripheral vision with glasses anyway (I do with contacts, which I am increasingly reluctant to wear because of the constant need for reading glasses), and since they didn't have any red frames, at least I could get some I liked (http://www.romm.org/minicon05/18.html). Now, the cat glasses in the currently-default picture are from my 8th birthday; the glasses in the Minicon photo are no-lined bifocals. I'm about due for new lenses again.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Employees have told me that the best possible discount at Lenscrafter is the 30% off for AAA members.

K.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I'm in the odd situation of having a strong prescription get weaker as I approach middle age. (Most nearsighted people just need bifocals when they start to get a little farsighted. My family is weird.) Anyhow, after many years of having my selection of frames very limited because my lenses were heavy, even with high-index plastic, and needed sturdy frames to support them, I could choose flimsy little fashionable frames last time around. They're such flimsy little fashionable things they don't have any frame at all, underneath. I think it's called "half rimless." Most of the glasses in the shop were such tiny little things I had a terrible time finding anything remotely acceptable. I wasn't worried about peripheral vision to the sides so much as correcting up and down. I never used to be able to look over or under my glasses, but now I find myself looking under them whenever I try to look at something close (especially down and close.) The optometrist said it would not be a problem, that when the glasses were the right size and adjusted properly they would give me the same visual field as my old ones, but they don't. It's infuriating that I can't look down and see my hands buttoning my shirt. (Or that the buttons and my fingers are uncorrected, then there's the edge effect and my hands are in focus.) I wear my safety glasses a lot.

I don't want to go back to that optometrist, even though she's the only one covered by my health insurance that's open Saturday and doesn't seem to have a business model based on advocating eye surgery to everyone who comes in for corrective lenses.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the 'I don't want a frame in my field of vision' bit. Optometrists without glasses never get that one. (I'm in the -10 range. Serious stuff.)

[riarambles.livejournal.com]

I got talked into somewhat smaller frames the last time I got glasses, and I'm not entirely happy with them. My old frames let me use my eyes to look down without moving my head, but the lower edge of these ones is too high. They have straight bottoms instead of rounded ones. Ah well.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Zorinth says that his friends say that my (big, five years old) glasses look like dinner plates. I say that peripheral vision is like being able to actually see things.

I'm actively resisting getting new glasses, partly because these are still fine, and partly because I don't want stupid little frames suitable for a very aged jeweller.

[ailbhe]

My main problem getting glasses is that I don't care what they look like as long as they're babyproof. My current ones are apparently the wrong shape for my eyebrows or something. I think they look fine - they are still *intact*, after all.

I do prefer smaller glasses, though, because I like to look under them at things.

Re: I don't follow your optometrist's reasoning entirely

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

My experience is the same as brooksmoses - I wear small oval frames with a prescription of about -3.5 on each side, and I don't find that my vision is perceptibly worse than it was when I used to have large frames. I don't notice the frames unless someone mentions them.

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

It's a conspiracy, I tell you. My current pair of glasses is half the size of my old pair, because I couldn't *find* any of a reasonable size. They said I'd get used to it, and I suppose I have, but I still feel like I'm only using half my field of vision.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

My new ones are superbly babyproof - they can be twisted and bent and they spring back into shape. They're marketed as good for people who play sports, but what's more of a contact sport than motherhood?

[ailbhe]

Mine are like that! The advert has a man folding them up and putting them in his mouth, which clearly said to me that they were appropriate to my needs.