New Glasses.

[Padma]

Rudge, let me remind you that as we age, our eyes age also.  As we get older, our eyes can no longer flex  (how they focus) like they used to.  You went eight years without a prescription change.  I think that's great!

I first started wearing glasses in the sixth grade (11 yrs old).  Ten years later, I got my first bifocals.  Twenty years after that, the doctor started muttering about trifocals.  Instead, I got variable-focus "progressive" lenses.  They did take about a week to get used to.  If you get them, you have to resist the urge to "rest your eyes" by putting on your old pair.  You have to retrain your eyes to use them, and "backsliding" just makes it worse.

The problem is that the "sharp-focus" area of the lenses is rather narrow.  (There are some difficult technical issues that cause that.)  That means that you need to move your whole head to bring something into sharp focus, not just shift your eyes.  Once you get yourself retrained, it's not a problem, unless you are an avid hunter, birdwatcher, outdoorsman, etc., where being able to sharp-focus without moving the head is critical.

[ElCuervo]

Rudge, let me remind you that as we age, our eyes age also.  As we get older, our eyes can no longer flex  (how they focus) like they used to.  You went eight years without a prescription change.  I think that's great!

I first started wearing glasses in the sixth grade (11 yrs old).  Ten years later, I got my first bifocals.  Twenty years after that, the doctor started muttering about trifocals.  Instead, I got variable-focus "progressive" lenses.  They did take about a week to get used to.  If you get them, you have to resist the urge to "rest your eyes" by putting on your old pair.  You have to retrain your eyes to use them, and "backsliding" just makes it worse.

The problem is that the "sharp-focus" area of the lenses is rather narrow.  (There are some difficult technical issues that cause that.)  That means that you need to move your whole head to bring something into sharp focus, not just shift your eyes.  Once you get yourself retrained, it's not a problem, unless you are an avid hunter, birdwatcher, outdoorsman, etc., where being able to sharp-focus without moving the head is critical.

+1 - and when I'm outdoors looking for birds or sneaky predators I just rely on peripheral vision to catch some bit of movement first, then home in with my excellent vision enhancement devices.

[Bald Brick]

Rudge, all "funny glasses where the lens changes from seeing far to reading when you look down" (as longtom expressed it) are not created equal. When I last got new glasses I had to choose between six different kinds of progressive lenses (in English, I think, they are also called "graduated lenses", "varifocal lenses", "multifocal lenses", and perhaps "seamless bifocals"). My point being that both the the area of the lens used for looking at distant objects and the area used for reading can vary considerably in size and shape, as can the "graduated" area in between.

So if you hated your progressive lenses, they were probably not optimized for you, even if they were made according to a correct prescription.

I've used progressive lenses for the last twenty-five years and the only problem I've had with them has had to do with too computer monitors placed too high. (For those I have my computer glasses.)