Reading glasses

Some of us need to wear reading glasses to do home repair (thus why no OT in the subject line). My question. I can go to the optometrist and have all the tests taken and then get glasses costing hundreds of dollars. I can go to the drugstore and other places and get cheap reading glasses, but they are only sold in single diopters. i.e. 1.00, 1.75, etc. Why can't I find these cheap reading glasses that come in more than one diopter, like gradients from 1.00 to 3.00 in the same lenses, 3.00 being at the bottom of the lens and 1.00 at the top? Is there some sort of restriction on the sale of these glasses? Just curious, but maybe someone here knows.

Reply to
willshak
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Even with anti-glare coating, our glasses cost not much more than $100 at Costco. I think their vision tests are well south of $100 too.

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

No restriction, they are made in both bifocals and progressive lenses. Probably trifocals too. They won't be cheap though and you won't (likely) find them at a drugstore.

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Reply to
dadiOH

Is there a whole legion of optometrists dumb enough to put themselves out of business?

nb

Reply to
notbob

Why can YOU get reading glasses, but I can't get distance glasses?

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I don't buy my reading glasses at the drugstore. Too expensive. I buy them at the dollar store.

And I did buy bi-focals once, since they were only a dollar. I didnt' really like them. Had to lower my eyes too much to use the strong part. Felt weird or even painful. There might have been more than one pair for sale, but I havent' seen them except that one time, maybe

4 years ago. If you mean with a hidden border between the different sections, or some sort of continuous change from weak to strong, I thin it's because no one makes them, because there isn't enough market for expensive cheap lenses. Even at the supermarket or drugstore, that's what they'd be.

Of course at the dollar store they're pretty cheaply made, and except for the style I bought a long time ago, all the plastic frames are pretty much guaranteed to break after a few months, I think because they are meant for women and my head is wider than a woman's.

I don't like the metal frames because those plastic feet that rest on the nose catch on my hair when I lift the glasses, unless I just had a haircut. But they don't break anywhere near as much, unless I sit on them, and the arms can be bent to make them tighter when the hinges weaken.

Reply to
micky

You don't need an optometrist to get supermarket/drurgstore glasses. Or dollar glasses. They're made far far away and you can tell what you need by trying them on. For me, less than 1.25 doesn't do anything, and while going up to 2 or 3 makes reading a trifle easier, they blur my vision when I lift my head and look across the room.

1.25 lests me look far away and still see almost as well as without glasses, so I don't have to take them off if I'm going right back to reading or close work.

Judge Milyan on the People's Court says she buys her glasses at the dollar store also, and I believe her.

I told my ophthamologist (that is, an MD) I bought glasses at the dollar store and he didn't say anything bad about that.

Reply to
micky

I've been getting my glasses online from Zenni optical made in China.

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Last pair with bifocal, memory titanium frames, anti reflective coating and shipping was $55. Same thing from local optician would be over $350. Wife criticizes me for not spending locally but I tell her that I use the savings to buy local beer. Besides, looking at the local opticians glass case, it says, "Made in China."

What you want is a progressive bifocal lens. Besides prescription, all you need is to measure your pupillary distance. My eye doctor did mine but you can do it yourself.

Reply to
Frank

Good question. No one sells really cheap distance glasses. I didnt' think to ask my ophthamologist, but someone told me it's because they are made in so many prescriptions. It may be true that there are more than for reading glasses, but I don't think it answers the question. They selll Duplicolor paint in more than 100 colors, 100's over the years. I don't see why they couldn't make distance glasses in all the prescriptions there are.

Do they need better fitting? Do they have to be centered in front of the eyes more than reading glasses. I don't see why.

Astigmatism. I've never understood how glasses correct for that, so nothing I say relates to that.

Cheap reading glasses always have the same strength in each eye. There are enough frame shapes that it would be hard to buy two pair and trade one lens. But even though one of my eyes is better than the other, this never bothers me Would it be a problem for distance glasses? You wear them. Do you know?

At any rate, I would think they could come up with a method to sell each lens separately and frames too. There is a lot of leeway between 100 dollars at a good store and 10 dollars at the drugstore.

This must be what I've been waiting for, a way to get rich. We just have to hire a company in the US or China to sell us frames and lenses for distance that fit the frames and we can sell them for 25 dollars. The extra 15 will include 5 more to buy them and 10 more dollars profit for us. We'll be like the first baker to sell sliced bread.

Let me see. This magazine has a house on a large wooded lot for $1,635,000. That's a lot for Baltimore. Now I think I'll be able to afford it. I'd like to close before the new year if you can get your act together.

Reply to
micky

interesting. have you tried exercising your eyes?

My father-in-law used to wear 'coke bottle' glasses. then went on a trip of eye exercising. Focusing close/far, close/far for ten minutes a day for a year. He said he had terrible head-aches, but finally he never wore glasses again.

The Chinese govt,with their socialistic health service started getting hit with requirements for prescription glasses - due to the computer revolution for them. Simple math tells you that's a BIG hit in cost! almost at any percentage. So they went into providing eye exercises for people and voila! fewer glasses were required.

for me, when things get a bit blurry, it's into eye exercises and blurriness goes away.

Conclusion is to try it.

focus far, focus close, one eye at a time, you'd be surprised how much that strengthens your eyes.

For close work, I still need the 1.50 eyeglasses from the drugstore, but at least they've held for over 20 years now. Whereas my brother has gone through tri-focal glasses now.

Reply to
RobertMacy

Hey, I had plans.

There aren't many houses for sale in that n'hood that I like, and you're screwing things up. Cut it out.

Reply to
micky

AFAIK, there are no restrictions, just no market. The number of combinations needed doesn't make it practical.

You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a pair of prescription glasses. I've had very good luck with Zenni Optical. I buy a good pair of distance glasses from the optometrist (insurance covers most of the cost), then several pairs of glasses set up for computer work, sun glasses, etc. from Zenni.

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Reply to
krw

Probably because there are too many distance glasses "variables".

Everyone reads at relatively the same distance. Magnify the letters in specific increments (1, 1.25, 1.5, etc.) and you'll satisfy the vast majority of readers. Reading glasses are just magnifiers. I can get by using my computer for short periods with off-the-shelf reading glasses, but I keep a pair of prescription glasses on my desk at work which were made just for using the computer. They compensate for the exact problem with my eyes as opposed to just magnifying the type. (I also have a special pair of bifocals for using a computer at 5 feet while also taking notes/reading)

Distance problems can be at 5 feet, 10 feet, 25 feet, etc. and caused by all sorts of different eyeball shapes and issues. You can't fix enough of any one problem with off-the-shelf distance glasses to make it cost effective.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Because they wouldn't be cheap. If they are not cheap, they won't get sold in bulk like they are at the drugstores.

I once had a pair of reading glasses that was sort of a bifocal - 1.00 reading glass on the bottom, clear glass on the top. I could wear them all day while working on projects. Now that I need way above 1.00, walking around with reading glasses on, especially on stairs, is dangerous. I am constantly putting them on and taking them off. I wish I could find a pair in my numbers with upper clear, but I haven't been able to.

Last year I had a special pair of bifocals made. I spend a lot of time in meetings where I am 5 feet from a computer screen and also have to take notes. I don't usually need distance glasses, but I can't see a computer screen at five feet well enough to work on spreadsheets, etc. The eye doc had one of his assistants come into the exam room and hold an eye chart five feet in front of me. He then did the "better 1 or better 2? thing until he found the prescription that worked at 5 feet. He then went through the process for a reading glass prescription and made a pair of bifocals that I use just for the meetings.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Reading glasses are popular because of Presbyopia. Everyone will get it. It's worthwhile selling the glasses. The market is there. Not so for distance glasses.

I don't either.

Astigmatism is just an elongation of the lens, and is corrected with a similar elongation at a right angle to it. The glasses have to be custom ground for each angle (at 10deg increments, that would be 18 times the number of prescriptions - at 1deg that's 180 different ones), making off-the-shelf glasses impractical.

Shouldn't be. It's a matter of marketing. No market, no product.

Marketing. Fashion. Too many different combinations.

Already been done. Zenni sells prescription glasses for as little as $7. It takes a couple of weeks from China, but their work is good (the Optometrist I went to last time couldn't believe they were bought over the Internet). You'll need your prescription, though.

Reply to
krw

One thing I discovered is old guys can also use a pair of 350s for that really tiny stuff you have to work on. The focal length is far shorter than comfortable reading distance but it really helps if you are doing work on tiny stuff.

Reply to
gfretwell

How old was he when he did that? How old is he now?

That's a reason not to do that. Don't want to end up like the Red Chinese.

In my case, I first needed glasses, 1.25, when I was 50 and the type was small and the light was bad. Now I need 1.25 when the type is not quite as small and the light is pretty good (but not if the sun is shining right in the window on what I'm reading.) and I'm 66.

If it gets worse maybe I'll try your exercises.

Reply to
micky

What are 350s?

I did notice, before I was 50 or maybe also afterwards a little bit, that there was no point in using a magnifying glass, because everything I could see with it I could see without it. That doesn't seem right, so maybe I mean at least in terms of repairing things.

That isn't true anymore, and a magnifying glass doesn't always help.

So what are 350s? :-)

I did buy, at a hamfest (though I have rarely seen them there). a lens that clips on the temple? arm of one's glasses and stands in front of the glasses to make a compound lens. Then it will flip up (sideways) when you don't need it. It was 2 or 3 dollars at the hamfest, not sure how much it would be retail, but it works well for me.

I bought a cheap jeweler's loupe too, plastic case with plastic lens, but the plastic is not the problem. I haven['t gotten used to holding it in with my cheek and my forehead. It's hard and even then it falls out.

Reply to
micky

The highest diopter reading glasses you usually see at the dollar/drug store

Reply to
gfretwell

Oh, I call them 3.50. I'll try again. Maybe I only used 2 or 2.5 the last time. Thanks.

Reply to
micky

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