4 ms·

I've tried for a couple of years to get this sorted, but I can't find an optometrist who can understand what I'm trying to say. I got so animated trying to expl

I've tried for a couple of years to get this sorted, but I can't find an optometrist who can understand what I'm trying to say. I got so animated trying to explain it, I got told to "calm down" by the last one, who also gave me another useless prescription, which I spent hundreds of dollars having made into glasses, only to be disappointed. Again. Maybe someone here can help. One of my experiments was to get a pair of actual "computer glasses." If I sit at the perfect distance from the screen, they're fantastic. However, at that distance, even the top and bottom of the screen is enough of a difference that they are fuzzy. Apparently, the so-called "working distance" of the prescription is so narrow that even a couple of inches either way will ruin it. I don't want a laser-focused prescription that only works within an inch. Am I saying that right? Is "working distance" the distance at which the prescription works, or the distance between the near and far usable distance? I want my single-distance prescription _tweaked_ to work _closer_. My current prescription does pretty well from about 2 feet to near infinity. I want the "center" of this workable range brought closer. I want the usable range of the prescription to be "in the room," say, 20 feet at the far end to whatever it works out to at the close end. I expect this will bring my screen into sharp focus, at the expense of, say, driving, where I could use a different pair. I just don't want to have to change glasses when I get up and get a cup of coffee. How can I explain this to an optometrist? Because I've failed about 3 times now, and have $1000 of worthless glasses to show for it.

epmaybe 5y ago
If I understand correctly you want to pull your focus range in a little bit more, at the loss of some distance sharpness. Essentially, you just want to add a little bit of “plus” sphere to the first part of the prescription. That’s essentially the ethos behind the article, btw. Computer glasses mosty add plus to the spherical part of your prescription. All of this being said, if you’re older, you’re becoming presbyopic, whereby the intraocular lens has lost its elasticity and will no longer be able to change its shape to modulate focus. And thus prescriptions will almost never meet your demands, short of some major improvements in artificial lens implant technology which may be available in the next few years. Some currently available surgically implanted intraocular lenses do have some measure of this (Alcon panoptix, j&j symfony, to a lesser extent Alcon vivity/J&J tecnis), but you can’t cheat physics and will end up with aberrations that could frustrate you more than your current issues.
randcraw 5y ago
According to my optometrist, the default practice in choosing a prescription for computer glasses is to divide your typical prescription for nearsightedness in half. Thus a 1 diopter prescription for everyday glasses becomes a ½ diopter prescription for computer glasses. That worked nicely for me, where my screens are about 2.5 feet away.
MarkusWandel 5y ago
I have about -4.5 spherical and 0.75 cylyindrical (eyes aren't exactly the same but that's about the average). I chose to weaken the spherical on each side by 1, 1.25 and 1.5 (couldn't decide after holding reading glasses in front of my normal glasses at the grocery store). I didn't correspondingly weaken the cylindrical, though probably should have. Ordered all three from Zenni. If you get high-index plastic but no fancy coatings and a basic frame, this is really cheap enough to be worth experimenting, and they don't care if you upload hacked "experimental" prescriptions. About the only catch is you need your pupil distance. I got it written down for me at a couple of eye exams, a Costco optician measured it using a gadget he had, and I measured it by a method I thought up myself - just look at something distant through binoculars and adjust until the image circles merge, then measure center-to-center on the eyepiece lenses. ALL the numbers ended up different. So I just kinda picked the average. Not very scientific, but all three glasses are OK, and the ones I like best, I really wear them all the time now except for driving.
ivank 5y ago
You don't really need an optometrist to do the computer prescription. Just take the regular prescription and add to SPH (sphere) on both eyes, following the diopter formula for the distance you want for infinity, e.g. +1 SPH for 1 meter or +1.25 SPH for 0.8 meters. I put orders into Zenni and wait a few weeks.

epmaybe 5y ago

If I understand correctly you want to pull your focus range in a little bit more, at the loss of some distance sharpness. Essentially, you just want to add a little bit of “plus” sphere to the first part of the prescription. That’s essentially the ethos behind the article, btw. Computer glasses mosty add plus to the spherical part of your prescription. All of this being said, if you’re older, you’re becoming presbyopic, whereby the intraocular lens has lost its elasticity and will no longer be able to change its shape to modulate focus. And thus prescriptions will almost never meet your demands, short of some major improvements in artificial lens implant technology which may be available in the next few years. Some currently available surgically implanted intraocular lenses do have some measure of this (Alcon panoptix, j&j symfony, to a lesser extent Alcon vivity/J&J tecnis), but you can’t cheat physics and will end up with aberrations that could frustrate you more than your current issues.

randcraw 5y ago

According to my optometrist, the default practice in choosing a prescription for computer glasses is to divide your typical prescription for nearsightedness in half. Thus a 1 diopter prescription for everyday glasses becomes a ½ diopter prescription for computer glasses. That worked nicely for me, where my screens are about 2.5 feet away.

MarkusWandel 5y ago

I have about -4.5 spherical and 0.75 cylyindrical (eyes aren't exactly the same but that's about the average). I chose to weaken the spherical on each side by 1, 1.25 and 1.5 (couldn't decide after holding reading glasses in front of my normal glasses at the grocery store). I didn't correspondingly weaken the cylindrical, though probably should have. Ordered all three from Zenni. If you get high-index plastic but no fancy coatings and a basic frame, this is really cheap enough to be worth experimenting, and they don't care if you upload hacked "experimental" prescriptions. About the only catch is you need your pupil distance. I got it written down for me at a couple of eye exams, a Costco optician measured it using a gadget he had, and I measured it by a method I thought up myself - just look at something distant through binoculars and adjust until the image circles merge, then measure center-to-center on the eyepiece lenses. ALL the numbers ended up different. So I just kinda picked the average. Not very scientific, but all three glasses are OK, and the ones I like best, I really wear them all the time now except for driving.

ivank 5y ago

You don't really need an optometrist to do the computer prescription. Just take the regular prescription and add to SPH (sphere) on both eyes, following the diopter formula for the distance you want for infinity, e.g. +1 SPH for 1 meter or +1.25 SPH for 0.8 meters. I put orders into Zenni and wait a few weeks.