-there are 1500 different progressive lenses, and a lot of stire are still selling 35 yeae old lenses. You get what you pay for, and avoid chains.
-the eyeglass industry is full of reps who think they’re professionals, but don’t actually know fuck all about how they work. What the other person said about measurements is way more obvious with a progressive. Because of this, online progressives are dogshit.
-if you’re a hyperope, it takes more time to get used to the lenses. Plus prescriptions add more distortion, so it takes longer to adapt.
-the age you got the first progressive makes a huge difference. If you get one at 42, you’ll have a much easier time than if you wait until 60, because the reading addition keeps getting stronger and causes more distortion. Side note, if you’re over 42, you should be wearing a progressive. Stop lying to me and yourself.
-it takes about two weeks to feel natural, but you have to wear the glasses, and not switch back to an older pair. If you don’t put in the effort, you’ll be the old person with lines. If you wear them for two weeks and don’t get used to them, theres something wrong with the lens.
get a premium, dual sided antireflective. Plus power lenses have more space between the surfaces, and double the effects of glare on the lens.
-don’t take advice from anyone you know, youtube, or especially reddit. Nobody knows any of the actual science behind optics, they just keep parroting things that sound legit. Even supposed professionals in my industry are goddamn idiots, including most licensed opticians i know. The only sources of info that can be trusted are lifelong lab managers, and the people designing the products and systems of manufacture. Everyone else spouts buzzwords like they know what they’re saying, or they saw a video once.
I’m an advanced optician running three offices and a lab, working towards my masters designation, and i’m infuriated to be one of the last professionals in this industry.
It’s not that optical pros are idiots, it’s that there are so few of them you’ll likely never meet one, and only a true professional can tell they’re full of shit. I can give advice if you’d like. I may be a rando saying Trust Me, but you’re not one of my patients, and we’ll never meet, so I have no reason to mislead.
By avoiding the companies that made everything confusing and filled the world with misinformation and buzz words. No chain stores, no online retailers, no budget places.
Find a local optometry office, and get your script and lenses from the same place. Don’t fall for branding, and understand you’re getting a prosthetic. You’re going to wear these every day for a long time, and you’re picking how well you’ll see.
Online and budget retailers have made billions by convincing the average person glasses are a scam, and that they’re all the same. Insurance companies save a lot of money by propagating the same misinformation.
The big players and chains, luxottica, marchon, warby, vsp, etc. Refuse to let anyone know the real technology they use in their lenses, because if you only know their branded buzzy term, you can’t ask for the correct product from a competitor. You can’t find out that they buy their designs, and don’t actually produce anything.
Anyone with a c suite of people to pay has to cut costs somewhere to pay out million dollar bonuses. They hike up costs and cut quality, and want to make sure you think oakley and rayban are high quality when they’re just marketing.
Years ago, some optometrists started something akin to a union to fight back against luxottica buying everything. That group was called vision source, and then, as the biggest fuck you in the history of optics, luxottica fucking bought vision source a few years ago.
On the other side, Anyone advertising two pairs for 89$ can’t afford professionals. You’ll never get the kind of optician referred to above from somewhere like that. With my knowledge base, if my offices went under right now, I would have every office around beating down my door to get me in, so why would I ever agree to put up with corporate bullshit, or working commision? But they stay in business by making sure everyone thinks all glasses are the same, so you’d be wasting your money if you went anywhere else.
I don’t understand this statement, tbh. Or the odd antagonism of it. Are you saying all people above the age of 42 need to be wearing progressive glasses?
The antagonism? A copy and paste but you are right, that did sound antagonistic, sorry.
Progressive lenses specifically? No.
Regular check ups and some kind of prescription unless you are very very very lucky though? Yes.
Visual changes can be so slow people don’t realise how poor their vision has become. Its normal to then. Ask anyone who’s had a cataract operation for example.
I appreciate the clarifications, thanks! Yeah, I agree on that slow creep of vision loss. I’ve been nearsighted a long time and am now losing my reading distance vision. But I can still read without glasses, and so I do. But it’s probably not as sharp, and I suspect that might lead me to read less than I otherwise would
Most nearsighted presbyopes can read without their glasses. Presbyopia isn’t losing the ability to see up close, it’s losing the ability to change your focal length. The point of a bifocal or progressive is so you don’t have to put on and take off your glasses to see things. You just wear them and can see everywhere.
Useful clarification, thank you. I’m not sure where my vision is at. I definitely do the thing of taking my glasses off and back on depending on what I am doing. But even with them off I’m starting to find some print hard to read — mainly the small print on products. I’ll have to see. I’m overdue for a new prescription. Also getting intermittent splotches of white in my periphery so that’s a new fun thing to worry about.
Reminders of aging bodies + of capitalism’s negative impact on us: this post has not cheered me up today lol
So as someone who’s mid 30s and was proscribed contacts at 18 and had one blow back into my eye while on a motorcycle, then another crack (probably from my misuse) and irritate my eye real bad, and just give up on wearing anything. At what age would you say I should draw a hard line of making sure I get something so my eyes will adapt properly. I still passed the eye test at the DMV, but it’s gotta be close. Somehow I don’t think my distance has gotten worse from 18-35 because I can still read text on street signs and captions on TVs.
Just figured I’d ask because your talk about 42 vs 60 adapting to lenses, or if I could just keep ignoring it and adapt when I do get glasses eventually.
The DMV only tests your distance vision. Reading starts going at 38, is noticable by 40, and becomes a problem at 42. Your ability to focus at different lengths dissipates as your lens hardens from years of growth. If you can read just fine at 44, your distance isn’t as good as you think. If you’re distance vision is fine, you’re the guy holding his menu at arms length in a restaurant.
You’ll notice when something is up when:
-your phone is hard to see unless you hold it out further.
-you ever find yourself complaining about fine print.
-driving at dusk or in the rain is uncomfortable.
-you get tension headaches at the base of your skull from squinting out your astigmatism.
I don’t remember exactly what I ordered, but it was from an independent shop and I think I picked the middle out of five options. I’m going to give it the full three weeks, but the narrow intermediate distance band, the swimmy effect on the near band when I move my head, and the dead zone in the lower corners are all very irritating.
The prescription itself seems spot on; it’s just how the progressive is laid out. It’s on me for not realizing that aren’t just sort of linear, but it is — well — mildly infuriating.
For the record, I’m very myopic, -2 and -4.25, with a fair amount of astigmatism, and +1.75 near. My last pair had like a +.75 but I don’t recall the same issues.
I’ve worn progressive lenses for nearly 10 years now. I did get one pair on the cheap, and they were truly awful, unusable. That’s when I figured out that going cheap with progressive lenses isn’t worth it. That may be what has happened to you.
Even with good lenses, it takes me a few days, maybe a week to get used to them when I get a new pair.
Stairs are… difficult though, especially going down. I live in a busy European city, so I use public transport a lot, and that means lots of stairs. I can no longer run up and down them like I used to.
The first time I got progressives and went hiking in West Virginia all was fine until we decided to descend the steep rocky trail. It was a horrible experience. One stumble and I’d probably need to be airlifted out. I had to go really slow. Everyone else thought I was being a baby and left me in their dust, so I was alone on the hillside unable to see my feet. It took me a full extra hour to make it back to base. I swore off that style of glasses. 10 years later I got a fancy car with a computer screen dashboard. If I wore my driving glasses, I couldn’t see the computer. If I wore my reading glasses the road signs were blurry, so I’m trying these progressives again. They sometimes make me dizzy. At first I only wore them while driving, but I’ve slowly gotten used to them. I can’t use them for [computer] work because I’d have to perpetually tilt my head up, but I often wear them for more than just driving now. If I’m going hiking I still use my old driving glasses. So I lug around 3 pairs of glasses…
If you have access to an itemized receipt, I can troubleshoot for you if you DM me. Worth noting, an add jump from 75 to 175 will make you swerve for a week, but it can be lessened by good measurments and high end lenses.
There’s not really any true low and medium level products. They’re just older products. The mid grade was the top of the line 15 years ago. The basic progressive at most places is probably a Shoreview, ovation, or adaptar. They were great lenses, in 1993. But every few years there’s a new breakthrough, and the high end lenses at most places are the newest tech. Don’t want to have trouble with computers? You need a lens designed after everyone started working on one. Feel like your phone gets distorted? You need a lens designed after smartphones became commonplace.
There’s a few points to note
-there are 1500 different progressive lenses, and a lot of stire are still selling 35 yeae old lenses. You get what you pay for, and avoid chains.
-the eyeglass industry is full of reps who think they’re professionals, but don’t actually know fuck all about how they work. What the other person said about measurements is way more obvious with a progressive. Because of this, online progressives are dogshit.
-if you’re a hyperope, it takes more time to get used to the lenses. Plus prescriptions add more distortion, so it takes longer to adapt.
-the age you got the first progressive makes a huge difference. If you get one at 42, you’ll have a much easier time than if you wait until 60, because the reading addition keeps getting stronger and causes more distortion. Side note, if you’re over 42, you should be wearing a progressive. Stop lying to me and yourself.
-it takes about two weeks to feel natural, but you have to wear the glasses, and not switch back to an older pair. If you don’t put in the effort, you’ll be the old person with lines. If you wear them for two weeks and don’t get used to them, theres something wrong with the lens.
-don’t take advice from anyone you know, youtube, or especially reddit. Nobody knows any of the actual science behind optics, they just keep parroting things that sound legit. Even supposed professionals in my industry are goddamn idiots, including most licensed opticians i know. The only sources of info that can be trusted are lifelong lab managers, and the people designing the products and systems of manufacture. Everyone else spouts buzzwords like they know what they’re saying, or they saw a video once.
I’m an advanced optician running three offices and a lab, working towards my masters designation, and i’m infuriated to be one of the last professionals in this industry.
I mean, given all this, how tf is a layperson supposed to get the right product?
The same way a layperson knows how to get any medical intervention: taking the advice of a reputable qualified professional
But the guy said even the pros can be idiots. Sorta throws it all out the window.
Isn’t capitalism a blast?
Exactly
It’s not that optical pros are idiots, it’s that there are so few of them you’ll likely never meet one, and only a true professional can tell they’re full of shit. I can give advice if you’d like. I may be a rando saying Trust Me, but you’re not one of my patients, and we’ll never meet, so I have no reason to mislead.
By avoiding the companies that made everything confusing and filled the world with misinformation and buzz words. No chain stores, no online retailers, no budget places.
Find a local optometry office, and get your script and lenses from the same place. Don’t fall for branding, and understand you’re getting a prosthetic. You’re going to wear these every day for a long time, and you’re picking how well you’ll see.
Online and budget retailers have made billions by convincing the average person glasses are a scam, and that they’re all the same. Insurance companies save a lot of money by propagating the same misinformation.
The big players and chains, luxottica, marchon, warby, vsp, etc. Refuse to let anyone know the real technology they use in their lenses, because if you only know their branded buzzy term, you can’t ask for the correct product from a competitor. You can’t find out that they buy their designs, and don’t actually produce anything.
Anyone with a c suite of people to pay has to cut costs somewhere to pay out million dollar bonuses. They hike up costs and cut quality, and want to make sure you think oakley and rayban are high quality when they’re just marketing.
Years ago, some optometrists started something akin to a union to fight back against luxottica buying everything. That group was called vision source, and then, as the biggest fuck you in the history of optics, luxottica fucking bought vision source a few years ago.
On the other side, Anyone advertising two pairs for 89$ can’t afford professionals. You’ll never get the kind of optician referred to above from somewhere like that. With my knowledge base, if my offices went under right now, I would have every office around beating down my door to get me in, so why would I ever agree to put up with corporate bullshit, or working commision? But they stay in business by making sure everyone thinks all glasses are the same, so you’d be wasting your money if you went anywhere else.
As an ex lab tech and dispenser…
This.
Thanks for writing, saved me a job.
If you’re over 42, you should be wearing a progressive. Stop lying to me and yourself.
I don’t understand this statement, tbh. Or the odd antagonism of it. Are you saying all people above the age of 42 need to be wearing progressive glasses?
The antagonism? A copy and paste but you are right, that did sound antagonistic, sorry.
Progressive lenses specifically? No.
Regular check ups and some kind of prescription unless you are very very very lucky though? Yes.
Visual changes can be so slow people don’t realise how poor their vision has become. Its normal to then. Ask anyone who’s had a cataract operation for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia?wprov=sfla1
I appreciate the clarifications, thanks! Yeah, I agree on that slow creep of vision loss. I’ve been nearsighted a long time and am now losing my reading distance vision. But I can still read without glasses, and so I do. But it’s probably not as sharp, and I suspect that might lead me to read less than I otherwise would
Most nearsighted presbyopes can read without their glasses. Presbyopia isn’t losing the ability to see up close, it’s losing the ability to change your focal length. The point of a bifocal or progressive is so you don’t have to put on and take off your glasses to see things. You just wear them and can see everywhere.
Useful clarification, thank you. I’m not sure where my vision is at. I definitely do the thing of taking my glasses off and back on depending on what I am doing. But even with them off I’m starting to find some print hard to read — mainly the small print on products. I’ll have to see. I’m overdue for a new prescription. Also getting intermittent splotches of white in my periphery so that’s a new fun thing to worry about.
Reminders of aging bodies + of capitalism’s negative impact on us: this post has not cheered me up today lol
I just laugh and call my friends “donkey” every time one of them uses “cheaters”.
We’re all mid/late 50s. Zero reason these self conscious puds shouldn’t wear glasses. I’ve had progressive for about 15 years.
So as someone who’s mid 30s and was proscribed contacts at 18 and had one blow back into my eye while on a motorcycle, then another crack (probably from my misuse) and irritate my eye real bad, and just give up on wearing anything. At what age would you say I should draw a hard line of making sure I get something so my eyes will adapt properly. I still passed the eye test at the DMV, but it’s gotta be close. Somehow I don’t think my distance has gotten worse from 18-35 because I can still read text on street signs and captions on TVs.
Just figured I’d ask because your talk about 42 vs 60 adapting to lenses, or if I could just keep ignoring it and adapt when I do get glasses eventually.
The DMV only tests your distance vision. Reading starts going at 38, is noticable by 40, and becomes a problem at 42. Your ability to focus at different lengths dissipates as your lens hardens from years of growth. If you can read just fine at 44, your distance isn’t as good as you think. If you’re distance vision is fine, you’re the guy holding his menu at arms length in a restaurant.
You’ll notice when something is up when:
-your phone is hard to see unless you hold it out further.
-you ever find yourself complaining about fine print.
-driving at dusk or in the rain is uncomfortable.
-you get tension headaches at the base of your skull from squinting out your astigmatism.
I don’t remember exactly what I ordered, but it was from an independent shop and I think I picked the middle out of five options. I’m going to give it the full three weeks, but the narrow intermediate distance band, the swimmy effect on the near band when I move my head, and the dead zone in the lower corners are all very irritating.
The prescription itself seems spot on; it’s just how the progressive is laid out. It’s on me for not realizing that aren’t just sort of linear, but it is — well — mildly infuriating.
For the record, I’m very myopic, -2 and -4.25, with a fair amount of astigmatism, and +1.75 near. My last pair had like a +.75 but I don’t recall the same issues.
I’ve worn progressive lenses for nearly 10 years now. I did get one pair on the cheap, and they were truly awful, unusable. That’s when I figured out that going cheap with progressive lenses isn’t worth it. That may be what has happened to you. Even with good lenses, it takes me a few days, maybe a week to get used to them when I get a new pair. Stairs are… difficult though, especially going down. I live in a busy European city, so I use public transport a lot, and that means lots of stairs. I can no longer run up and down them like I used to.
I found going down stairs wearing bifocals lethal.
I mean, Im still alive but it was very scary.
I wish my SO would understand this… she leaves me in the dust (see also comment below)
The first time I got progressives and went hiking in West Virginia all was fine until we decided to descend the steep rocky trail. It was a horrible experience. One stumble and I’d probably need to be airlifted out. I had to go really slow. Everyone else thought I was being a baby and left me in their dust, so I was alone on the hillside unable to see my feet. It took me a full extra hour to make it back to base. I swore off that style of glasses. 10 years later I got a fancy car with a computer screen dashboard. If I wore my driving glasses, I couldn’t see the computer. If I wore my reading glasses the road signs were blurry, so I’m trying these progressives again. They sometimes make me dizzy. At first I only wore them while driving, but I’ve slowly gotten used to them. I can’t use them for [computer] work because I’d have to perpetually tilt my head up, but I often wear them for more than just driving now. If I’m going hiking I still use my old driving glasses. So I lug around 3 pairs of glasses…
If you have access to an itemized receipt, I can troubleshoot for you if you DM me. Worth noting, an add jump from 75 to 175 will make you swerve for a week, but it can be lessened by good measurments and high end lenses.
There’s not really any true low and medium level products. They’re just older products. The mid grade was the top of the line 15 years ago. The basic progressive at most places is probably a Shoreview, ovation, or adaptar. They were great lenses, in 1993. But every few years there’s a new breakthrough, and the high end lenses at most places are the newest tech. Don’t want to have trouble with computers? You need a lens designed after everyone started working on one. Feel like your phone gets distorted? You need a lens designed after smartphones became commonplace.