Bifocals

Jun 4 15:14 UTC 2002

Another survey item.  Young people may run along to the next item.
 
I got my first pair of bifocals Monday night, and I'm not happy.
Nobody told me when I was ordering the pair that progressive
bifocals are mostly out-of-focus along the periphery of your 
vision.   I feel like there is one small spot which is in 
focus, and everything else is blurry.  Bleah.  The spot is so
small that it usually doesn't take in one complete telnet window
on the computer.

We'll see how the work day goes with them.  At least I'm not 
feeling ill, which I read can be a common early experience
with these lenses.

How do other baby boomers feel about their bifocals?

response 2 of 47:

Jun 4 16:17 UTC 2002

I'm not a baby boomer, but I had to get a pair thanks to law school.  The
progressive ones didn't work for me either, for the same reasons you're
complaining about.  When I first went back to Lenscrafters and told the
optician that I only got a very small in-focus area, not enough to cover an
entire page of a book, she told me I'd just have to learn to move my head when
I read. 

That didn't go over well (maybe in her job you can move your lips when you
read too, but not in mine).  I found a competent optician there on the next
trip, and switched to non-progressive ones.

response 4 of 47:

Jun 4 16:52 UTC 2002

I'm having problems with mine as well.  The focus spot for the reading part
is way, way too small and fuzzy on the edges.  I got the progressive just for
the monitor problem, the middle area is supposed to be able to focus on the
monitor.  I have found that it is too narrow and I get a kink in my neck 
trying to use them so usually take them off for computer work.  Makes it hard
to do homework using the computer when I need the glasses to see to write the
answers to questions that are on the computer. 

I am seriously thinking about getting non-progressive next time (soon) or
looking at actual trifocals.

I hate getting old in some ways.  In others it isn't as bad as it is made out
to be.   ;-)

response 6 of 47:

Jun 4 17:49 UTC 2002

I may have let myself get sold on the progressive lenses unnecessarily.
I'm finding that the "intermediate" range doesn't buy me much.
If I'm leaning back in my computer chair, I can see the screen clearly
through the distance lens.  If I'm up close, I find myself dropping 
way way down to the bottom of the reading lens.
 
I don't actually require reading glasses yet, but at optimum reading 
(or more importantly, writing) distance, I can no longer focus
when looking through my distance prescription.  With the glasses 
removed, I can still read and write just fine, though I can tell that
the range of sharp focus has narrowed drastically in the last few 
years.  The optometrist gave me the weakest possible reading 
prescription, he said.
 
I have 30 days in which I can have these lenses remade in a 
"Franklin/Executive" old-fashioned bifocal style.  Right now I'm
suspecting I'll exercise that option, but I'll live with these for 
a couple days.  I think I can accept the up/down focus changes, but the 
left/right changes are really annoying me.

Thanks for all the input...  obviously I should have started this
item *before* getting my eyes examined...

response 8 of 47:

Jun 4 20:58 UTC 2002

I had bifocals for a while when I was in high school and college.  Then
my eyes got better for several years, then I needed reading glasses
again and now I wear unifocals all the time.  The bifocals took some
getting used to, but after two or three weeks, I had adjusted.  I wore
both lineless and lined ones.  I remember liking the lined ones better. 
My prescription has not changed in six years.  

Have any of you bifocals wearers (or anyone else) tried eyeball
exercises?  The exercises may not make your sight better than it is now,
but they can slow down or maybe even stop your sight from getting worse.

Without moving your head:
Roll your eyes counterclockwise 10 times;
Roll your eyes clockwise 10 times;
Alternate looking as far up as you can and as far down as you can, 10
times each;
Alternate looking diagonally down to the right and up to the left as far
as you can, 10 times each;
Alternate looking diagonally down the the left and up to the right as
far as you can, 10 times each;
Hold your finger as close to your face as you can and still focus on it,
then alternate focusing on your finger and on some far-away object 10
times each.

When doing the up/down, diagonal, and close/far stuff, each position
should be held for a second or two.  The last one should be done daily,
even if you don't do any of the others.  Don't try to push your eye
muscles beyond their comfort level; I once pulled an eye muscle and it
was not pleasant.  It takes a week or two to get used to doing these if
you do them daily.

response 10 of 47:

Jun 4 22:56 UTC 2002

re #9: For exercising the jaw muscles, I use cheeseburgers.  Also, I 
talk a lot.

response 12 of 47:

Jun 4 23:39 UTC 2002

Carol passes this along:

My $.02:

Bi- or multi-focals definitely take a while to get used to. A friend of mine
is fond of telling about how when she got hers (bifocals), the doctor told
her to give it a couple of weeks before passing judgment. She found them
pretty disconcerting until exactly day 14, at which point she became
suddenly comfortable and has been absolutely sold on them ever since.

As for mine (progressives), they're not perfect, but the advantages far
outweigh the drawbacks. I don't have fuzziness on the periphery at the
middle distance, but I do on the highest power (reading distance). The clear
spot's too small for one page of a paperback. The other problem is reading
while lying one one's side--the pillow pushes the lenses into the wrong
position. My solution was to get a pair of cheap drugstore glasses for long
or lying-down reading sessions. They work just fine.

response 14 of 47:

Jun 5 00:22 UTC 2002

I had progressives for about a month and hated them as much on day
thirty as one.  They went back.  I got plain old bifocals for everyday
wear and a pair of high quality 2.0 non-prescription glasses for computer
use.

Works great.

response 16 of 47:

Jun 5 03:30 UTC 2002

I cannot see up close with my only pair of non-bifocal glasses (same
prescription as about 20 years ago) so I take them off to read.  I was always
losing them so Jim got me a $2 orange string with little plastic loops at the
end to put around the earpieces, and I can take them off and hang them around
my neck and they also fit under a bike helmet, but it gets tricky to remove
the one before the other, also if you are wearing a hat it can get even
trickier.  So I slip off one of the loops.  The only problem now is middle
distance (about 5') at which point I cannot see either way so I get up and
move closer.  A friend with bifocals never uses his.  The glasses on the loop
solution is okay unless you are bending over then they get in the way.  I
sometimes put them up on my head instead (if not wearing a helmet).  There
is a variety with little metal clips that is painful under a helmet.  Mine
are a souvenir of La Crosse Wisconsin where a friendly optician replaced a
missing nose pad for $5 including labor, and where bifocals are half the price
of regular glasses here.
        Jim has started using reading glasses for closeup work and distance
glasses for lectures and nothing the rest of the time.  He gets his reading
glasses very cheap used, or for $8 at K-Mart, and is always misplacing them
so we have 5 or more pairs at each place and I collect them into a drawer.

response 18 of 47:

Jun 5 22:20 UTC 2002

I avoided the whole question of bi-focals completely.

I have distance glasses and I have reading glasses.  I find that that works
just fine, for the most part.  (Something like Glenda describes - reading and
writing homework on the computer) would be a pain, though.

It's not the bifocals, per se ... it's all the neck strain I've watched people
go through over the years.  And the ability to see the wider vista at whatever
range I'm working with.  I just wasn't willing to go there.

response 20 of 47:

Jun 6 16:16 UTC 2002

I had progressive lenses and they were fine for the computer work, but  my
work depends on long-distance focusing from all directions except directly
down.  I had to walk turning my head side-to-side as if I were some damn bird.
This optomitrist I since then fired.  I now have two single-focus specs and
I need a third for intermediate focus.  

response 22 of 47:

Jun 6 18:30 UTC 2002

I'm very happy with my blended tri-focals.  

response 24 of 47:

Jun 6 19:42 UTC 2002

        I could list the people around AA I've had problems with.
        Sometimes I think about developing skills to  work with
        frames and lenses, and see what I can do myself.