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Doctor, I Can Read Better With My Old Glasses!

How can that happen? Easy. What do you mean, easy? Itīs all about communication and education, between YOU and the doctor and the doctorīs staff. Remember, when the technician checks your vision and you hold the special reading card in your lap. Well, is that the same distance as your computer screen? Itīs up to you to describe what special situations you encounter or are having difficulty with - like, needlepoint, photography, woodworking, reading your prescription bottles, etc. Do you read for hours with your arms extended or do you rest the book in your lap for pleasure reading? How you read is important to arrive at the correct near vision prescription.Now, letīs talk about the technician or doctor testing your eyes for the best eyeglass prescription (they call it refraction). Could you easily make all the decisions they asked you to? Did you need them to go slower? Speak up, because these are important comparisons you are making - is it better, one or two?. Having the proper distance vision prescription is extremely important, because the reading prescription is added to the distance one for the final effect up close. So, if there are small errors in your distance prescription or both eyes are not working together properly (the eye doctor calls that binocular balance), you wonīt have a chance to read well. Make sure you are happy with your distance vision first! After checking the distance prescription, your near vision should be checked at YOUR preferred reading distance. Donīt let the examiner pick an arbitrary distance like 16 inches, although thatīs a pretty good average. Make sure they check your near and/or intermediate vision (thatīs the computer or piano or deep in the car engine distance that you rely on) at the distance that you do your most work. If you re-satisfied so far, then you probably have a great distance and near prescription. The next step is where a lot of patients make a mistake. Did your doctor say, there wasn t much of a change or no change at all. Well, sometimes not a lot of change to one person is not the same to another. So, make sure the examiner shows you the difference.Youīre going to spend some money at this next step - and you usually get what you pay for these days. Ophthalmologists and Optometrists hire well qualified staff to work their optical dispensaries. So do, most private enterprise opticians. In some of the bigger chains, it may be a different story. Less than half of these United States has state licensure for opticians. So, itīs consumer beware - or ask questions of the person selling you the glasses. You may say it costs a lot of money for eyeglasses, but how important is your vision. How many suits or dresses have you bought that you wear EVERY day, sun up to sun down? Or, how many times do you pick up the same screwdriver for every job you are doing - you need the right tool for the job, right? Well, so too it is with eyeglasses. Make sure your optician educates you about the different progressive addition lenses available, those lenses that enable you to see like you were 30 years old again, and they do