Progressive glasses

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Vis1/0N

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My optician is pushing my heavily to get progressive glasses and I don't understand the push.

45+ so reading vision has worsened recently. I dislike bifocals and am on contact lenses for the day time, so am looking to get reading glasses over the contacts. I work with 3 monitors and from what I read up on progressive lenses will have a narrow tunnel where I have to point my nose and chin to see optimally. I don't have a problem with the screens with the current mono vision prescription.

We have tried mono vision optimised for reading on the the weaker eye and full strength on the dominant eye, it is okay but not good for driving, the left eye has difficulty with potholes or indicators. Again I do not have a problem with the dashboard. Just with reading newspapers and small fonts on the cellphone (tiny font selection by me, but the difficulty is new) on the old mono vision prescription. Reading is better with lenses removed.

We have also tried toric (already on toric) multifocal contact lenses but it seemed too weak and not good for more than 10m, I think the prescription was not adjusted too well but I am reluctant to invest back and forth with this - I cannot even make out faces on the road.

Progressive seems to be ground into 3 zones for far, intermediate and near onto the lenses, and I would need to point my nose, chin and eyes from what I can tell. I would much rather have separate single vision and reading glasses, is progressive so great for the heavy push?
 
Last edited:
Vis1/0N said:
My optician is pushing my heavily to get progressive glasses and I don't understand the push.

45+ so reading vision has worsened recently. I dislike bifocals and am on contact lenses for the day time, so am looking to get reading glasses over the contacts. I work with 3 monitors and from what I read up on progressive lenses will have a narrow tunnel where I have to point my nose and chin to see optimally. I don't have a problem with the screens with the current mono vision prescription.

We have tried mono vision optimised for reading on the the weaker eye and full strength on the dominant eye, it is okay but not good for driving, the left eye has difficulty with potholes or indicators. Again I do not have a problem with the dashboard. Just with reading newspapers and small fonts on the cellphone (tiny font selection by me, but the difficulty is new) on the old mono vision prescription. Reading is better with lenses removed.

We have also tried toric lenses but it seemed too weak and not good for more than 10m, I think the prescription was not adjusted too well but I am reluctant to invest back and forth with this - I cannot even make out faces on the road.

Progressive seems to be ground into 3 zones for far, intermediate and near onto the lenses, and I would need to point my nose, chin and eyes from what I can tell. I would much rather have separate single vision and reading glasses, is progressive so great for the heavy push?
Click to expand...
Maybe get a second opinion? Which area are you?
 
Vis1/0N said:
My optician is pushing my heavily to get progressive glasses and I don't understand the push.

45+ so reading vision has worsened recently. I dislike bifocals and am on contact lenses for the day time, so am looking to get reading glasses over the contacts. I work with 3 monitors and from what I read up on progressive lenses will have a narrow tunnel where I have to point my nose and chin to see optimally. I don't have a problem with the screens with the current mono vision prescription.

We have tried mono vision optimised for reading on the the weaker eye and full strength on the dominant eye, it is okay but not good for driving, the left eye has difficulty with potholes or indicators. Again I do not have a problem with the dashboard. Just with reading newspapers and small fonts on the cellphone (tiny font selection by me, but the difficulty is new) on the old mono vision prescription. Reading is better with lenses removed.

We have also tried toric lenses but it seemed too weak and not good for more than 10m, I think the prescription was not adjusted too well but I am reluctant to invest back and forth with this - I cannot even make out faces on the road.

Progressive seems to be ground into 3 zones for far, intermediate and near onto the lenses, and I would need to point my nose, chin and eyes from what I can tell. I would much rather have separate single vision and reading glasses, is progressive so great for the heavy push?
Click to expand...
I have progressive glasses and they took some getting used to and I enjoy wearing them now that I have had them some time, the plus is if they have to be made stronger I am already used to them so it would not be a big adjustment.

That said if I wore contacts I would just get +1 or +2 etc readers as needed at Clicks to wear over my contacts simpler and cheaper?

As already mentioned a 2nd opinion is a good option
 
I would rather have opinions from users than the salesperson.

To be fair I have been seeing her for 27 years, and annually for the last 19 so I have a long history. Cost is an issue, but even then I am using contact lenses (17 years) out of necessity, glasses is very inconvenient - I make use of peripheral vision, use multiple monitors at work, and can't stand glasses in the summer. So maybe a large frame will help, but the costs keep me hesitant to go for something that may not work well.

Progressive sounds like an optimised compromise.
 
I recently got progressive and from day-1 it was a pain, they said you will need 2-3 weeks to get used to it.

After a month went to them and they did some tilt or whatever adjustment.

again after 3 days it was back to the same issue. Since more than 2 weeks now my frame is with the opticians. Not sure what they are doing

I am using my old spectales(normal -ve power with cylinders) and it still works and while using this I am thinking why the hell I went there in the first place and spent the money........
 
Have you thought about laser eye surgery? I believe in the 45-55 age group they do one eye near and one eye far sighted.

I'm also getting on in years and having bad eyesight and fiddling with different glasses isn't something I'm too keen on so considering that approach.
 
I see progressive glasses have zones that cover reading, intermediate and long and that is activated by looking with your eye movement and pointing of the chin - this bit is the horrible bit for me, looking at documents and the monitors.

Multifocal contact lenses have the zones activated by the dilation of the pupils so I understand that that would be harder to get right. That prescription had the distance compensation scaled back too much in the trial, and as these are specially imported it was too much trouble to get right going back and forth.
 
Personal update :
I went with reading glasses adjusted to be used over the contact lenses. Which helps with reading but the zone for the computer screens is not as well focused obviously and there is some magnification - which I have gotten used to.

Selecting the larger frame did not help too much because I use 3 displays - 1 primary screen and 2 stacked vertically and looking at the paperwork the frame gets in the way so I end up bobbing my head about 40 times a minute for my work tasks. That was one of the issues I was expecting with progressive glasses and now for reading it is the frame that is the issue not the lenses so much. I have taken to dropping the reading glasses down my nose and peering over the top of them to look at the primary screen.

The monovision contact lenses with optimised for reading for the weaker eye and distance for the dominant eye worked best but I did not like driving through intersections and junctions with it. Maybe multifocal contacts woud have worked if I went back a few times to get it right.
 
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