For Eyes 2
August 25th, 2008 by ComputerBob
Several years ago, when I got my first pair of no-line bifocals (progressive lenses) up in the Frostbite State, I adjusted to them within about ten seconds. All it took was two or three times of looking down at a piece of paper and back up again.
About a week ago, I picked up my second pair of no-line bifocals at JC Penneys. They have a little bit more astigmatism correction and a stronger close-up prescription than my first progressive lenses. The distance part of the prescription seemed perfect, but it was only perfect at the very top of each lens, which forced me to tilt my head down slightly in order to focus on distant things. All the rest of each lens appeared to be configured for “close-up” vision.
So I had Penneys do them over again.
This past Saturday, I went back again and picked up their second attempt.
At first, it felt like I was looking through binoculars or the paper tube from the inside of a roll of paper towels. Everything at a distance directly in front of my eyes was in sharp focus, but if I looked at something that was even slightly off-center, it was a blur. After a few minutes, that started to improve. But when I moved my head while looking down when getting out of my car, my whole field of vision warped and moved, making it look like the car was moving.
Now that it’s been a couple of days, that sensation of things moving has mostly gone away, but I don’t like the fact that there’s still only one tiny “sweet spot” of focus in the entire (close-up) lower part of my lenses. If I hold something exactly 15″ away, then both of my eyes can focus on it, but if I move it even one inch closer or farther away, or one-quarter of an inch to the right or left of center, my eyes converge through a slightly different part of each lens, and only one my eyes can focus. So I end up moving my head slightly from side to side, trying to find that one tiny spot that allows both eyes to be in focus at the same time. That doesn’t seem right to me — my previous progressive lenses have an entire “band” of focus across each lens, not just in one tiny spot in the very center of each.
If that close-up vision doesn’t improve by the end of the day today, I’m going to go back to Penneys and see if there’s anything they can do to improve the situation.
I’m also going to stop in at my eye doctor’s office and ask them if they think that what I’m experiencing is normal or not. I suspect that it’s not, because, other than not being quite strong enough, my old glasses still work just fine, without any distortions or tiny sweet-spots.
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