eyes

[forgotten_aria]

So WAY back when (15ys?), I got an eye exam to get fitted for contacts and at the time I knew I might need glasses. (My vision has been a little blurry most of my life.) At the time I said, "should I avoid squinting, it puts everything into focus?" The doctor said, "I've given you drops, you can't squint." At the time I had my doctor stupidity on (this is the effect that when I'm in a doctors office, I will listen to what they have to say without much thought then afterwards be ("what was I thinking?") And so he determined I didn't need glasses.

Last week I decided I was squinting too much, and that not only was my face getting tired, but I think I was making faces at people, so I decided to have another eye exam. I found good reviews for the doctor at the Woburn target and went to see her. I'm sure most of you who get eye exams regularly won't be as amazed by I am, but she put me in a machine that I assume measured the roundness of my eye and said, "you have an astigmatism, I have no clue why you aren't already wearing glasses." I mostly knew this because my blurriness is very obviously worse in one direction.

She was quite patient with me, explaining things like she was going to back off the prescription a little so I could get used to it without getting motion sick and showed me the compromise between distance and reading (I didn't want to jump right into progressives for my first pair.) I left very happy with Dr. Li. What was nice is she wasn't actually affiliated directly with target, she was an independant doctor with her office in target, so there was no hard sell to get the

I spent a little bit in target trying on some frames. Of course I fall in love with the $273 frames, but I had heard good things about mail order glasses. I now have some glasses on order form Zenni Optical, two pairs for $45, including the lenses. I hope they'll be good. I worry at that price I'm giving something up, but also know that eye glasses are one of those artificially expensive things because of the Luxottica Monopoly, but it's also always chancy buying stuff from China, which is basically what Zenni Optical is.

In my circle of friends, glasses wearing is normal, so I feel like getting glasses is perfectly natural. And my vision is still good enough I don't have to wear them while doing TKD.

It was interesting how wrong I was about what would look good on my face. What I thought I wanted wasn't what actually looked good when put on, so here's hoping one of the two pairs I ordered will look good.

Comments

[jadia]

Yay being able to see!

I don't know if you found it or not, but Zenni has the thing where you can upload a photo of your face and virtually try on the glasses. I found it really useful since i also have no good mapping from glasses on the shelf to glasses on my face. And I have the added problem of not being able to see my own face if i am trying on glasses at a store, because my eyesight is so bad!! Anyway i was pleased with the zenni tool because my current pair of glasses is one i would never have thought would look good, and i love them.

I look forward to seeing your new glasses! :)

[forgotten_aria]

Yes, I used the tool. Good to know they worked for you!

[nacht_musik]

I've been experimenting with Zenni for a few years now. For a while it was just for occasional-wear glasses (e.g. fancy glasses, sunglasses.) But my main glasses for the last 6 months came from Zenni, and I think they're great.

Zenni offers a wide range of frame qualities; pay close attention to materials and construction - some models cut corners, some don't. In particular, I've found some of their adjustable nosepad mechanisms are a lot less fully adjustable than most frames sold in brick-and-mortar glasses stores. But some of them are just fine.

[mathhobbit]

I paid $700 for progressive lenses from my fancy optician and $70 for a pair of distance-only glasses from Zenni, and for a long time preferred the Zenni lenses. My only complaint about Zenni is that the transition lenses I got from them don't darken for driving.

[forgotten_aria]

There was an ordering option for darkening. Did you try that and they didn't work or was that option not there when you ordered?

[mathhobbit]

I was trying for something that would work both indoors and outdoors. I failed.

I believe that option was there, with a special note that it was good for driving glasses. Now I know why.

[blk]

Also in my circle of friends, but even moreso as this group gets older, glasses wearing is normal. I am very frequently the only person in the room not wearing them. (now that I occasionally wear them for computer use, even that isn't always the case)

I look forward to seeing what you look like with them! I have always admired other people's ability to find stylish looking glasses. I tend to take whatever my tiny doctor's office has on hand that fits my face.

[dr4b]

I had something similar -- I didn't get glasses until 2 years ago, and I've apparently had astigmatism for likely a very long time, but my vision's always been okay so I didn't worry about it. Glasses definitely help but I also take them off for all activities like dancing/etc; mostly I really only want to have them when I need to read a lot of things.