Saturday, August 07, 2021

New New Glasses

      Have you been keeping count?  These are my third "new glasses" since cataract surgery:

      1. A pair very shortly after surgery that were meant to be temporary; I knew going in that my eyesight was going to change as my eyes healed.  They made a remarkable improvement nevertheless, especially compared to the old-glasses-layered-with-reading-glasses I was using to get around.  I got them from the nearest Lenscrafters franchise and the optician there did the exam.

      2.(A)  A pair a month (and a week) after surgery, when my usual optician did a full eye exam and determined my new prescription.   (The office used to be part of Ossip Optometry, a local chain and a very good one.  Steady growth had them at 36 locations and three years ago, the second and third generations of the art-loving* Ossip family merged with MyEyeDr.)  The eye doctor I have been seeing there for over a decade is careful and thorough.  I'd been having increasing difficulty keeping the images from my eyes in registration -- the left was rotated a few degrees with respect to the right.  The exam revealed that the prismatic correction I'd had since High School (and had needed less and less of) was going to need an increase -- probably a sign that both eyes were now equally clear, since my left eye had the most serious occlusion prior to surgery and I hadn't been using it much.
         (B) I like MyEyeDr. nee Ossip but the lens supplier they use is  s l o w.  So I ordered bifocals, then took my shiny new prescription† over to Lenscrafters, hoping for single-vision glasses that day.  Nope -- prisms take specialist attention.  They had to send out for the lenses instead of making them in-house.  Still, it only took a week and I had new glasses that worked very well.  (The efficient little onsite lens workshop is a marvel these days, with a lot of automation and a single skilled tech working in an area about ten feet square.  My temporary glasses didn't have a prism and were ready in forty minutes!)

      3. Three weeks after the exam, my new bifocals arrived!  I'd been becoming more and more frustrated at having to look over my glasses (and often close one eye) to read or do fine work, so it's been a pleasure to no longer have to.  Insurance paid for these lenses and about half the cost of the frames.

      This leaves me with a workable spare pair (the single-vision glasses) and I can have my prescription "glacier glasses" sunglasses and the frame with temporary lenses upgraded as finances permit.  Both Lenscrafters and MyEyeDr. have given excellent service and I am happy with them.
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* The Ossip billboard in Broad Ripple was legendary!
 
† At least in Indiana, eye doctors are obliged to give you your glasses prescription, with no quibbling.  It wasn't always this way; in 1977, when  a heavy lens fell out my glasses and shattered while I was at college, 30 miles from my parents home where I was still living, it took begging and tears to get them to read my prescription to a local lens shop in order to have an emergency lens made so I could drive safely!  These days, nobody blinks if you ask for your prescription, though most opticians with an in-house eyeglasses shop don't volunteer it.  It's certainly a lot easier to have things changed or repaired if you get your glasses where you have your eyes examined -- but you are not obliged to do so.

6 comments:

  1. Hooray for being able to see straight! I'm happy for you.

    Commiseration: it took the VA three tries to get my previous bifocals where they should be. The last time it took just twice. Progress! Six weeks 'twixt changes...

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  2. Welcome back to the land of the sighted.

    It's such a relief and a change that you wonder how you ever lived "the old way".

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  3. Curious - Do you notice a nasty glare with your new implanted lenses?

    I went with the 3-range lenses (supposedly close, mid-range, and distant), and the near-focus is quite disappointing. I mourn the loss of being able to see *extremely* close up, if I needed to.

    I make up for it with using my departed mom's magnifying lens with a surrounding florescent tube for the close-up work.

    But it beats the cauliflower in my eyeball by a longshot...

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  4. I haven't notice more glare than usual, but I have always had a problem with it. These days, I wear two pairs of sunglasses (clip-ons and overglasses) on very bright days.

    I only got simple lenses, and ended up slightly less nearsighted than I started. I wanted to be able to read without glasses and they gave me that. My close vision is not as good as it was before cataracts, but I have magnifiers when I need them.

    My insurance coverage was only really good for basic operation. Doing more got into some substantial out-of-pocket costs and I was leery of anything very complicated.

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  5. My new glasses, from back in March and April, were my first bifocals (and probably ten years after I should have been wearing them), and delayed a couple extra weeks for ??? reasons.

    So, they finally arrive, I go in and have the frames physically fitted to my gourd, and drive home - which is when I started nticing something... off. Seems I had *excellent* focus and clarity dead-n-level and straight ahead. And as soon as I started trying to look off-center in X-, Y- or mixed-axis, focus would degrade. TO the point of complete blur near the edges.

    The kind of off-center vision you kinda need when trying to check your side mirrors while progressing in four lanes of rush-hour traffic.

    I get home, do some non-vehicular testing, and yeah, center-focus only, and my old glasses did not have that issue. Back to the eye-pokers with you!

    Seems that the plastic used in the lenses (for weight-reductions purposes) was incompatible with the combination of my scrip and my eyes. Two more weeks...

    They work now, although I still have a tendency to pushing them up or removing them for close-in focus/reading, and using colourful language when trying to look downwards, as the lower prism is for near. (Distracting on stairs, for example.)

    Still better than the old ones, especially as the frame hardware had gone from "needs repairs" to "hobby-store tubes, wire and soldering required". Eyewear by Theseus. :V

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  6. With my multiple eye problems, I need new eyeglasses every 2-3 years. For many years, I have had my eyeglasses made at zennioptical.com, with good results and low costs. My opthalmologist's technician does a refraction on me every year; however, the optometrist at a chain optical store consistently gives me a better prescription. May your eyes be healthy!

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