I just got some new glasses, and my prescription has changed sufficiently that using my old ones as spares (and wearing for DIY!) is no longer an option, so I just called my optician and they want £240 to relens my old frames. Gulp. (OK, they're Varifocal Transitions with antiscratch and antiglare coatings, but £240!)
A (very) quick Google leads me to
formatting link
but they want £233.
Can anyone recommend anywhere cheaper to do this? The new ones were expensive enough as it is, without spending another £240 on the spares. And they want £150 to relens my prescription sunglasses, too!
They do reglazing, and if I've managed to work their desperately crap website right, it comes out at about £130, which is way better. Still more than I wanted to pay, but WTF.
The quality of varifocals varies greatly. Are you sure you're comparing like with like?
You could check with your optician that the prescription has changed a great deal. Did you compare the new prescription with your existing glasses, and was there a big improvement?
I went the other way and reframed my existing lenses. That cost around £40. The lenses, which are complicated, cost about £200.
In the mid 80's I was studying 18 hours a day for 6 years. During this time my eyes deteriorated and I was in need of glasses. A friend advised me to 'diy' with the glasses I was about to buy.
He urged me to buy a good sturdy frame off the sunglasses counter and present them, along with my prescription, to a local optician. And so I did. Frame costs; £6.
For his own needs my friend went the step further and took his prescription direct to a lens maker. After a little chat and money talk he came away with the lenses he wanted.
So, I offered the prescription and frames to my local optician. The look on his face told me he was not at all happy. Particularly as he was displaying from up and above £80.
I went back a week later to pick up my glasses and was met with the same discord as before. He spoke no words. He went under his counter picking up a coarsely bubble wrapped bundle and dropped it onto the counter where it bounced it's way across to me. He snorted £37 at me. I paid and left.
OK, I have to fit the lenses myself. No problem. I have made a saving. In has anger the optician hadn't even bothered to unwrap the bundle as it came from the lens manufacturer leaving the receipts inside. The cost to the optician? 1 lens @ £2.70, the other £3.50!
No wonder these robbing ******* try to make Vision Therapists seem like criminals.
OOI how are Varifocal Transitions different from "normal" Varifocal?
I have (or according to the optician - need) Varifocal with my current script (because the correction for long distance usage over-focuses for close up viewing, not because I need correction for both long distance and reading), turned out to be a complete waste of time and money.
The hazy bit in the middle makes them CFU at correcting my long distance sight at nighttime and they don't work at all for close up work, so I end up taking them off, just like I had to do before I got the VF.
(and I deliberately didn't use near-sight and long-sight because that's f-ing confusing)
I have complex lenses (more than 10 dioptre correction). There is a very limited range of suppliers of those. In order to prevent the weight pulling the glasses down my nose*, I need to choose small lenses using high refractive index plastic. High refractive index lens need anti-reflective and anti-scratch coatings. That all adds to the cost and, as it is cheaper than having separate sunglasses, I also get Transition lenses. £120 a lens is quite cheap for that combination.
With my level of correction, I can adjust from perfect distance vision to perfect reading vision by a fairly small amount of change in position up or down my nose.
Sounds like the lenes have not been placed in the frame in the correct place. Your normal straight ahead gaze should be through the "distance" part of the lens and where that is in relation to the frame depends on the frame and you head as to where the frames sits on yoru face. The optician should put frames that you are going to have on your face, and mark the false lenes where your gaze is.
I've got varifocals and they are fine, look ahead and distance is focused. Look down through the bottom of the lenes and close stuff (that would be well out of focus if I looked directly at it) is also in focus. This *not* moving the head just moving the eyes can take a bit of getting used to.
Exactly. For 99% of use I don't notice my varifocals. One time its a problem is looking up to fix something on the wall. Then I need my glasses to be upside down.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.