Doc, don't change what ain't broken.
Jan. 6th, 2018 09:23 amI don't think I can recommend my optometrist anymore.
I have always been mildly nearsighted. I wear glasses to drive, although technically I don't have to. The secret of my wearing glasses since my mid-30s is that, when I was young, I had phenomenally good vision, and what most people consider "normal" or 20/20 is, to me, quite a blurry world, and I've worn fairly pricely lenses that restore me to the 20/10 I had when I was 17.
I also have very mild presbyopia. That's the condition that happens as we age: the cornea hardens, the muscles weaken, and the result is that we can no longer focus on things close up, hence the whole idea of "reading glasses." While I have reading glasses, I've always found that a custom prescription feels better and, frankly, it's important enough to me that I be able to read comfortable for hours that I'm willing to spring the cash for prescription lenses there as well.
Last month I went to the optometrist and got my eyes measured. He wrote out a prescription, I went to the lens place and ordered new glasses. Two pairs: a progressive pair for work, with multiple reading distances (on the screen up top, in-hand on the bottom), and a progressive day-use pair (driving distances up top, in-hand reading on the bottom).
The work pair are fantastic. Light weight and well-focused, and wearing them is rather comfortable, although for laptop use they're still a little awkward.
The day-use pair were a complete fuckup. I'd ordered a pair with a bigger glass surface in order to increase my reading zone. Insead, when I put them on while the distance part worked well, the reading zone was unusable. My eyes were quivering trying to make them work. It hurt to wear them. The woman tried and tried to adjust them to find "a sweet spot," and I said I didn't want a sweet spot, the bottom zone on my old lenses was broad and effective. We eventually found that the lenses had been ground wrong, and the reading zone was not a full 8mm on the bottom, but only the bottom 2mm of the lens.
Okay, I get that. People make mistakes. I'm willing to accept that someone got the wrong information and applied to my order.
What's more perplexing to me is that the technician who did the grinding just accepted this weird order without question. "Only a 2mm reading zone? That's seems weird." I would think that it would take an extra confirmation, and maybe an override on the machine, in order to make that sort of thing work.
But then the kicker was, while I was looking through that tiny zone, I said, "My old glasses have a broader zone, too. I thought the whole point of buying a bigger glass area was to increase my reading zone."
"It looks like your doctor increased the strength of your reading prescription. That'll make the horizontal zone a little smaller."
That's when I flipped my lid. Because my doctor never checked my presbyopia. The tests were all distance related; I could still read just fine with my old lenses and my old prescription. I explicitly said I wanted it kept.
He went ahead and changed it anyway because, you know, old people's eyes get worse with time and patients sometimes don't know what's good for them.
Bugger. Anyway, the frames have been sent back to the grinder for new lenses, and I have get everything customized. Thankfully, I don't have to pay for the regrind, but what a paternalistic pain-in-the-ass this has been!
I have always been mildly nearsighted. I wear glasses to drive, although technically I don't have to. The secret of my wearing glasses since my mid-30s is that, when I was young, I had phenomenally good vision, and what most people consider "normal" or 20/20 is, to me, quite a blurry world, and I've worn fairly pricely lenses that restore me to the 20/10 I had when I was 17.
I also have very mild presbyopia. That's the condition that happens as we age: the cornea hardens, the muscles weaken, and the result is that we can no longer focus on things close up, hence the whole idea of "reading glasses." While I have reading glasses, I've always found that a custom prescription feels better and, frankly, it's important enough to me that I be able to read comfortable for hours that I'm willing to spring the cash for prescription lenses there as well.
Last month I went to the optometrist and got my eyes measured. He wrote out a prescription, I went to the lens place and ordered new glasses. Two pairs: a progressive pair for work, with multiple reading distances (on the screen up top, in-hand on the bottom), and a progressive day-use pair (driving distances up top, in-hand reading on the bottom).
The work pair are fantastic. Light weight and well-focused, and wearing them is rather comfortable, although for laptop use they're still a little awkward.
The day-use pair were a complete fuckup. I'd ordered a pair with a bigger glass surface in order to increase my reading zone. Insead, when I put them on while the distance part worked well, the reading zone was unusable. My eyes were quivering trying to make them work. It hurt to wear them. The woman tried and tried to adjust them to find "a sweet spot," and I said I didn't want a sweet spot, the bottom zone on my old lenses was broad and effective. We eventually found that the lenses had been ground wrong, and the reading zone was not a full 8mm on the bottom, but only the bottom 2mm of the lens.
Okay, I get that. People make mistakes. I'm willing to accept that someone got the wrong information and applied to my order.
What's more perplexing to me is that the technician who did the grinding just accepted this weird order without question. "Only a 2mm reading zone? That's seems weird." I would think that it would take an extra confirmation, and maybe an override on the machine, in order to make that sort of thing work.
But then the kicker was, while I was looking through that tiny zone, I said, "My old glasses have a broader zone, too. I thought the whole point of buying a bigger glass area was to increase my reading zone."
"It looks like your doctor increased the strength of your reading prescription. That'll make the horizontal zone a little smaller."
That's when I flipped my lid. Because my doctor never checked my presbyopia. The tests were all distance related; I could still read just fine with my old lenses and my old prescription. I explicitly said I wanted it kept.
He went ahead and changed it anyway because, you know, old people's eyes get worse with time and patients sometimes don't know what's good for them.
Bugger. Anyway, the frames have been sent back to the grinder for new lenses, and I have get everything customized. Thankfully, I don't have to pay for the regrind, but what a paternalistic pain-in-the-ass this has been!