UKC

A few months ago I went to the opticians to have my eyes checked as I was sure I wasn't seeing as well with either my glasses or contacts as I used to. I reckon it is 6 or 7 years since I had last been checked.

Anyway, I am indeed becoming more short sighted with age - previously I had a prescription of -2.5 in each eye. Now its gone up to something like -3.75 and -3.5 (can't remember exactly, but some difference between the eyes). I got new glasses from the opticians so all is clear and crisp in the world once more!

For years I've been ordering the same brands of monthly and daily contacts I've used happily for ages, from various online shops. Having the same prescription in each eye made life simple. I'm only just running out of my old contacts, so need to order more with the new strength, but was wondering if people always go for the exact prescription for each eye and keep track of left and right? Or just go for equal strength and accept a tiny difference in the quality of their vision? I say tiny, in that I had been surviving fine with my old prescription until recently - it was only reading things at a distance that was becoming annoying for example.

Cheers folks.

My prescription's something like -2.75 in one eye and -1.25 in the other. I wear varifocals most of the time, but with contacts, which I use for outdoor activities and the gym, I use -2.75 and -.25 so that I can read maps and see close-up stuff as well as see where I'm going. Because there's such a big difference, there's no real problem in making sure the right lens gets in the right eye, but I also double-check the strength on the lens packet before opening (I use daily disposables). I carry a box of each strength in the car, and usually chuck a strip or a couple of each in a rucksack in case I lose one. I always end up with a few individual lenses that have lost their different strength partner, but it's a bit like odd socks, and eventually lost lenses of one strength will partner up with lost lenses of the other.

I go with the recommendations of my optician, who offers free trial lenses. After my last eye test I tried out 3 different strengths lenses to get the best possible vision. The nominal strength of the lenses I ended up with are significantly different to my spectacle prescription.

Cheers Jon - in which direction are they different? i.e. stronger or weaker than your glasses?

I wear monthly lenses, with a different prescription for each eye; I don't understand why you wouldn't just use the correct ones!

I often wish life was simpler, but as my lenses have the prescription marked on their individual packets, it isn't something I have any trouble keeping track of - do yours not have this?

I would guess weaker. Since you can't "look around them" to read stuff like you can with glasses.

My understanding is the prescriptions for contact lenses are not the same as prescriptions for glasses because lenses sit right on your eye whereas glasses are further away...  I would suggest getting a prescription specific for contact lenses and ordering based on that.

It's a fair point, I don't imagine its really that much more effort - I just wondered if its really that necessary if a small difference isn't really that noticeable beyond reading out the tiny letters on the opticians wall! 

You're self medicating medical devices that attach to your eyes? Are you really that poor? And btw, if you've been wearing contacts for 6 or 7 years without checkups, then you are pushing your luck. And as you get older (over 40) your vision will become increasingly difficult to correct as you can no longer accommodate change in viewing between distance and near.

There are about 400 brands of lenses currently available in the UK, giving different fits (a CL prescription, as well as having different powers to a specs prescription, has additional parameters as well); comfort and vision. Opticians typically can recommend what they think might suit you best, and then give you trials - these usually don't cost the optician anything, so within reason you can try as many as you like.

Why not visit a few opticians and make initial enquiries, walk away from any that aren't particularly endearing or communicative, and put yourself in their hands? There's a reason it takes 4 years to qualify as an optician you know.

Weaker, nearly 2 dioptres in one eye, but then I am -10.25 in my worst eye.

When I first started using contacts I obviously went with the opticians suggestion, and changed brands a few times over the years when I moved and started using a different optician. I think it was the opticians in Helsinki I was using at the time who said "you should order these off our website - it's cheaper" which I did for some years, before buying exactly the same lenses from a different website that sold them for less. The last optician but one told me to keep using the contacts I found comfortable when I asked her, and the one I saw this year said my eyes were fine beyond the standard getting old and weaker thing!

BTW, are you an optician? You have a lot of insight into the contact lens market!

No - my wife is, I have a half share in her practice and we also develop CL software for opticians...

I'm always really disappointed on these threads how poorly opticians have communicated what it is they do.

Well I', -4.75 in one eye and + 3.5 in the other, so I don't order a box of -0.50 and hope for the best, for sure!

OTOH, I never have to worry whether I've got the correct lens in the correct eye!!!

I use daily disposables and when I start a new strip of lenses I mark the foil of the right eye ones with - you've guessed it - an 'R'.  Takes the guesswork out of which is which. 

My glasses prescription is different to my contact prescription - dont ask me why - i have astigmatism so may be due to that - but its true.

I would say get a trial so you can get your contact prescription done.

ItS BEen AGEs since I HAd mY soft-lENSes changed. BUt I always go for thE SAME PresCripTion. At least, I hAVE DONE for ThE lasT 20 yeARS

also worth bearing in mind - it may well be useful, as one gets older, to have a "near vision" eye and a "far vision" eye. I have moved recently to different strength lenses 8.5 one eye, 9.5 other eye and this helps me read (without the need for +1 specs) and also see distance in a way needed for other things like driving and "seeing the world"!

All advice came from opticians - but I order lenses through Tesco's (using detailed prescription from Optician) because it is abut 60% of the costs of opticians own prices.

This thread has got me thinking, and as we try to move away from single use plastics what impact will this have on disposable contact lenses?

Good point - I use daily disposables, and have just started collecting the plastic pack for recycling - soon mounts up.

i was half wondering about having the eyes lasered, but always been a bit cautious....

Toby, I wear glasses most days but also use contacts for mountains, motorcycles and military. I would urge you to get a second opinion on your prescription. I had the first significant step up in prescription strength for 30 years from the optician at a well known supermarket a few years ago and later discovered that it was 0.5 too strong. I seem to have lost a slice of close vision during that period having previously been immune to the normal age related changes. More recent prescriptions have backed off a bit and are never tiring and much easier to read stuff. 

With contacts I sometimes wear the same in each eye (prescribed is 0.25 different) but usually I have the prescribed strength in the dominant eye and a significantly weaker one in the non-dominant eye to make map reading easier. This far-close trick works with contacts and with laser surgery but not with glasses. The brain adjusts readily for most people and for me the utility of it is superb.

Driving at night was one of the things that persuaded me that the strong glasses were OK. However, more recently an optician explained to me that this is exactly the circumstance where a stronger lens is suitable but for other purposes it was too strong.