Calculated Vision

                                                                               

One of my pet peeves about OLD people is when they go someplace and tell you they can't see read something. In truth it's usually not really old people who do this, it's newly old people who haven't come to grips with their changing vision. I find it aging.  I've vowed that even if I need another tote bag to carry my eyewear around, this will not be me!

I've talked about my quest for vision before. Lest you think I've embarked on a personal vision quest let me assure you that I just want to be able to see my iPhone!




I recently updated my vision prescription but find with my progressive lens that I get cross-eyed when reading my phone or small print.  Since the alternative is dragging around multiple newspapers -you know I'm old because I just used the word newspaper- I resolved that the situation had to change. 


Vision prescriptions are not hard to understand, but they require training to decipher.  My Lawyer-child took Latin in high school, likely he'd have understood this. OD = oculus dexter, OS = oculus sinister.  All the stuff on the OS eye with the X pertains to a distance offset, happily I could ignore it when looking for reading prescriptions.

OD = right eye
OS = left eye
PAL = for progressive lens
FT = bifocals
ADD = for reading glasses

When I looked at my prescription I thought, oh - I need +2.25 reading glasses. I went to Target, tried some on and couldn't see with +2.25, or +2.00.

It turns out, you subtract your distance prescription from the Add amount to get your reading strength. 

Eye	Distance	Reading Strength
OD – Right	-1.25	(2.25 + -1.25) = 1.0
OS - Left	-0.5	(2.25 + -.5)     = 1.75

So I need reading glasses with 1.0 and 1.75 in the right and left eyes. Skeptic, I went to Target and tried out each strength with the other eye closed to validate my findings. 

As with all shopping endeavors this one started on the Internet. It wasn't too hard to turn up someone who would sell reading glasses with different lens strengths. The place I settled on made you pick from their frame selection. Given that I have a drawer-full of out of date frames this was a waste, but for about $40 (total) I decided to hold my fancier frames for another day.

I'd hardly hit enter to order them before I got a note that that frame was out of stock, and a page full of other frames that hadn't been shown originally, I could choose as my alternative selection.

The second time around I decided to go for a frame that would be hard to confuse with my other distance and computer frames so I wouldn't be picking up the wrong frame by mistake.  These purple glasses fill that requirement.

In the end the glasses came from Zenni optical. I've done business with them before, but the web site I bought the glasses from was not under their brand.  They sent me a new pupil measuring tool.
It wasn't needed with the reading glasses, when ordering other types you need to mark the center of your pupils.  It's the trickiest part of ordering on-line eyewear.

The new readers work wonderfully! I can read my periodicals on a moving subway car without eye strain and that cross-eyed feeling.  They cost more than off-the-shelf glasses at Target, but less than something from the optician.  I'm happy.