Giving up on my new eyeglasses
Last summer when I was laid up, I exclusively used my reading glasses – and managed to misplace my regular glasses. When i went back to work, I just used the reading glasses. This is not exactly a hardship since I spend 90% of my time either reading or looking at some glowing rectangle.
But for some reason the coating on my reading glasses failed so I needed some new specs. I got another examination, picked out some frames, and they tried. Oh, how they tried. They got the prism backwards – made me see double. They got the prescription just a bit “off” so I couldn’t read my computer screen. Not useful.
After enough return visits, I’ve given up. This evening I asked them to just reproduce the lenses in my old reading glasses. But that means using my “street” glasses (which I did eventually find) for a few days while they get it done.
It’s a wonder that eye examinations ever result in a useful prescription, when you think about it. They’re trying to calibrate a variable, partially self-compensating optical system on the basis of verbal feedback from an untrained person who is partly influenced by wishful thinking. The people who made corrective lenses for the Hubble space telescope had, in that respect, a much easier time.
I went through something similar with my previous round of glasses. Especially when the prescription is strong, getting it right can be tough. I stuck with it and kept going back, and finally they got it right.
The current round of glasses is where I had to go to two pairs, one for driving and one for reading/computing/microscope work. And they’re both progressive lenses! My eyes are just junk.