Speaking of Vision -- How 'bout Progressive Bifocals?

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Roy Smith wrote:

Jay Honeck wrote:

Great stuff, Randy -- thanks.

I guess I don't understand this part:
*********************************************** **********************************
Progressive lens design
In order to create a no-line progressive lens, there are two large areas
of the lens that you cannot see through. Imagine what an hourglass looks
like. This is the shape of the area of the progressive lens that you can
see through. Objects seen through the areas of the lens to the left and
right of the narrow middle section are highly distorted and you cannot
see through them.

*********************************************** **********************************

Why would the areas to the left and right of the middle section be
"highly distorted"? Why aren't those areas simply made to your
"distance" prescription?


I don't fully understand the optics, but that's exactly what my
optician (who's a fellow pilot) explained to me, and when I got my
progressives, that's exactly what I experienced. I couldn't stand it,
and had him re-make the lenses as lined bifocals (which I'm still
struggling to get used to).

The above certainly does NOT describe my progressives.

Matt

It does not apply to the dozens of progressives I have had over the decades
either. Sounds like another OWT. Maybe they need to reconsider where they
purchase their eye wear.

them to be better (for me) than the bifocals. About 8 months ago I got a
new prescription and had the lenses made at LensCrafters. They never
worked very well (the hour glass was too narrow and so peripheral vision
was very restricted). I had a new pair made, but this time I told them to
use Varilux lenses and not their in house brand (my initial progressives
were Varilux). I am now happy again with my new progressives.

Thanks, Cary. My family has used Lenscrafters for many years, but they DO
have a problem with quality control.

A couple of prescriptions back, they made a lens that had a "wave" in it
that drove me nuts. I eventually had them re-make it. My current glasses
came in earlier this week, but one of the lenses was scratched, so they are
re-making it. (They discovered this before I did, thankfully.)

Of course, given all the glasses they have made for us over the years (we
now ALL wear prescription glasses, with Mary "joining the fun" with her
reading glasses), that's a small -- but measurable -- number.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Just thought I'd chime in with what I do... I am nearsighted,
astigmatic, and now presbyopic (the old man's eye problem

I have a single vision (distance) lens in my left eye (I fly from the
left seat) and a bifocal in the right eye, with the line 2 mm lower than
usual, to read my charts with. This has worked well for a few years,
but now I may need to move the line up so I can read my instrument
panel. The bifocal is just a +1 or so - whatever the least amount they
can put in is. I tried higher amounts but they don't work for me since
I don't like the different sized views I get from each lens (the bifocal
part gives a bigger image).

One optometrist would absolutely not fill my prescription - he didn't
think it was "a good idea". My wife also had a problem with some
glasses she bought (wavy distortions) and he absolutely would not
believe her, nor would he look through the lens himself. Alas, he died a
week later and we got everything straightened out.

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

One optometrist would absolutely not fill my prescription - he didn't
think it was "a good idea". My wife also had a problem with some glasses
she bought (wavy distortions) and he absolutely would not believe her, nor
would he look through the lens himself. Alas, he died a week later and we
got everything straightened out.

A harsh, but effective, way to clear up a customer service problem... :-)

Well, I'm typing this whilst looking through my new "progressive" lenses.
So far, I am VERY impressed. I have both sharpened my distance vision (the
doc "tweaked" that prescription a notch for me) *and* I can now see up
close.

No nausea or vertigo noted. Going up and down steps is fine. The only
unusual thing I've noted is this:

When sitting at my desk (or a table -- something with a straight edge for
reference), if I look down through the "close" vision part of the lenses
whilst turning my head from side to side, I can make the table "rock" up and
down, back and forth. It's rather disconcerting (and sorta fun, in small
doses), but the effect goes away when I focus through the "distance" part of
the lens -- so I don't anticipate that this will cause me any undo problems.

Thus -- other than my lenses being FAR too thick (like, half again thicker
than my former lenses, supposedly due to the "frameless" style Mary selected
for me) I like 'em a lot!

Thanks to everyone for the input -- it's been very educational.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"
"Jose" wrote in message
. net...
Just thought I'd chime in with what I do... I am nearsighted, astigmatic,
and now presbyopic (the old man's eye problem

I have a single vision (distance) lens in my left eye (I fly from the left
seat) and a bifocal in the right eye, with the line 2 mm lower than usual,
to read my charts with. This has worked well for a few years, but now I
may need to move the line up so I can read my instrument panel. The
bifocal is just a +1 or so - whatever the least amount they can put in is.
I tried higher amounts but they don't work for me since I don't like the
different sized views I get from each lens (the bifocal part gives a
bigger image).


Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

In article yY4ig.1012801$xm3.53417@attbi_s21,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

Thus -- other than my lenses being FAR too thick (like, half again thicker
than my former lenses, supposedly due to the "frameless" style Mary selected
for me) I like 'em a lot!

My wife's vision is so bad, I have to go with her to pick out the frames
because she cannot see what she looks like without lenses in the bare
frames.
So that I don't have to hear:
"What were you thinking when you picked these frames for me?"
We now have a digital camera solve that problem.

Howdy!

In article om,
Jay Honeck wrote:
I have reading glasses (now mandated by my medical...) that have relatively
small frames and are very light in weight. When I need them, I simply put
them on over my sunglasses and just slip them down my nose to where I look
over them to scan outside and can just glance down to read something.

I don't think that's an option for me, as I am incredibly near-sighted.
I need glasses on ALL the time for distance -- so swapping (or adding)
glasses in the plane really wouldn't help the situation.

It's really frustrating, as I've got excellent close-vision -- with a
focal length of about 6 inches from my nose. Thus, removing my glasses
has become my preferred way of viewing sectionals, but that makes
maintaining any kind of a scan (inside OR out) impossible.

That sounds a lot like my eyes.

My current glasses are my first bifocals, and I got progressive lenses.
My opthalmologist recommended that I get the mid-grade Varilux lens,
whose model name I can neither recall nor discover. I spend about $300
on the lenses themselves.

I still look over the top for really close work, but the lenses worked
exceptionally well for me. It took mere seconds to adjust to them,
although your mileage may vary. The lower corners of the lenses are
where the correction is imperfect, but I don't find it to be a problem.
Neither do I have problems working at the computer. The far correction
is sufficient for my normal screen viewing distance, so I don't need
to play "lean my head back" games to read the screen.

I suspect that you will find these lenses will take care of your
vision woes without too much pain. You don't want to scrimp on the
lenses, though.

yours,
Michael


--
Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
| White Wolf and the Phoenix narrowwares
Bowie, MD, USA | http://whitewolfandphoenix.com
Proud member of the SCA Internet Whitewash Squad

I suspect that you will find these lenses will take care of your
vision woes without too much pain. You don't want to scrimp on the
lenses, though.

So far, so good. No nausea, and I'm really liking being able to read stuff
without taking my glasses off again...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
I have been forced to face the fact that I can no longer read a
sectional chart with my current glasses. It's been getting worse for
some time, but lately I've realized that it has become downright
dangerous. (Moreso driving a car, actually.)
'
Jay,

I've had progressives for a couple of years now. I have to wear
glasses to pass the distance part of my medical. I can actually
read the charts just fine if I don't look through the glasses.
However, raising them everytime I wanted to look was getting
to be a pain.

The key to the progressives (and probably any bifocal) and
flying is to make sure they set the "line" at the right point.
The first pair I have are set way too low. The second optician
and eye spent some more time tweaking that and they are much
better.

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message m...
I've had progressives for a couple of years now. I have to wear
glasses to pass the distance part of my medical. I can actually
read the charts just fine if I don't look through the glasses.
However, raising them everytime I wanted to look was getting
to be a pain.

The key to the progressives (and probably any bifocal) and
flying is to make sure they set the "line" at the right point.
The first pair I have are set way too low. The second optician
and eye spent some more time tweaking that and they are much
better.

This has been my experience as well. I tried progressives and didn't like them due to the blurred peripheral vision
that others mentioned. It was especially evident while driving and was very distracting. I went to the lined
bifocals for a year, then gave the progressives another shot with the line moved up. It made all the difference in
the world. Wouldn't go back for nothing,

Joe Schneider
N8437R



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I've had progressives for a couple of years now. I have to wear
glasses to pass the distance part of my medical. I can actually
read the charts just fine if I don't look through the glasses.
However, raising them everytime I wanted to look was getting
to be a pain.

I have had NO problems adjusting to the progressives, from the very first
moment I got them last week.

Yet others complain of nausea, blurry peripheral vision, etc. Why?

I think I've got it figured out. MY eyes are so bad, distance-vision-wise,
that the "reading" glass portion of my new glasses is really just a weaker
"distance-vision lens", rather than a true "reading glass" lens.
Basically, the lower part of my new glasses is probably the same
prescription as my old distance glasses, circa 1985 -- and they simply allow
me to see the charts farther away than 6 inches from my nose.

This contrasts sharply with Mary, who has perfect distance vision, and
really needs "reading" glasses to force her eyes to focus up-close. I
think it is these folks who have great difficulty with the progressives,
since the lens is basically going from "clear glass" to "magnifying
glass" -- causing great distortion in their peripheral vision at the
"edges".

Guys like me simply have a slightly weaker correction at the bottom of my
lens, and that is not such a dramatic, vision-altering distortion.

Make sense?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"
"JJS" jschneider@remove socks cebridge.net wrote in message
...

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...

The key to the progressives (and probably any bifocal) and
flying is to make sure they set the "line" at the right point.
The first pair I have are set way too low. The second optician
and eye spent some more time tweaking that and they are much
better.

This has been my experience as well. I tried progressives and didn't like
them due to the blurred peripheral vision that others mentioned. It was
especially evident while driving and was very distracting. I went to the
lined bifocals for a year, then gave the progressives another shot with
the line moved up. It made all the difference in the world. Wouldn't go
back for nothing,

Joe Schneider
N8437R


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