New glasses (196/365)

[white_hart]

I picked up my new glasses yesterday lunchtime. I'm very pleased to have my close vision back, and the new glasses also make it obvious how much my distance vision had deteriorated. It's also reassuring to discover that new varifocals don't seem to require the adjustment period my first pair needed.

I also have special glasses for using my computer. It's definitely easier to see my screen with them, but I'm currently finding it quite difficult to work out how to manage with two different pairs of glasses and having to change over every time I want to do something that isn't on the screen*. At the moment I'm leaving the other pair in the open case next to me so I can swap them over as needed; I did wonder about putting the other pair on my head, but apart from the fact that that would make me look like Professor Branestawm I spend a lot of my working time wearing a headset and I'm not sure how easy it would be to fit glasses and a headset onto my head.

(Of course, it's made even harder at the moment by the fact that when I'm in the office, most of the things that require changing glasses - leaving my office for whatever reason, turning round to talk to someone who's popped in - also require putting on a face covering, so that makes two things I need to do rather than one. This may explain why I've managed to leave my office without my face covering twice in the last two days, both times only realising when I was on the way back to my office after doing whatever it was I was planning to do. Fortunately there are still very few people in so the chances of bumping into people in the corridor are practically nil.)

*I can read documents and see to write notes through them, at least, though I wouldn't want to use them to read a book and everything further away from the screen is blurry

Comments

[kaberett]

Hmm. Perhaps some kind of glasses stand? and/or you could put both of them on the necklacey things...

[white_hart]

I could put the main ones on a necklacey thing so I can shove the computer glasses onto my head and put them on to talk to people. Though I wouldn't want them to be on that all the time.

[sfred]

Happy new glasses!

[white_hart]

Thank you!

[antisoppist]

I revise documents on paper and write all over them and then type my edits in on screen. This is becoming very difficult because I now need reading glasses for the paper part but not for the computer (this is mainly because I have enlarged the font sizes on everything) and the whole thing has become unworkable because I can't see what I am typing in. Wearing the reading glasses to look at the computer makes me feel sick. Sometimes I have my reading glasses on the end of my nose and look over the top at the screen but that makes me a bit queasy too. Sorry for my rant but I am 2 days behind on a 115-page manuscript because of this. Obviously I need to go and talk to an optician.

Perhaps you need one frame with different flip-up lenses like the clocks man on The Repair Shop has. But you would still look like Professor Brainstawm, or a person who repairs clocks.

No, that would only work if you could wear the lenses on top of each other. Damn.

[white_hart]

I've been very happily wearing glasses for distance since I was 11, and even getting varifocals wasn't too bad after the initial adjustment, but this feels like a lot. (My head of department said that she had lots of problems in her 40s as her long sight and short sight slugged it out, but that it eventually balanced itself out and she no longer needs glasses at all, so maybe this is only temporary?)

You'd need some kind of system where the lenses you didn't need rotated out of the way. But that would be even more Professor Branestawn. Not that that's necessarily a bad look, of course.

I hope you can find some kind of solution for yours!

[antisoppist]

When I went a couple of years ago, the optician said "it's just age. you just need reading glasses" but it's a pity age does it to everybody whether they are used to wearing glasses or not. I am probably at the point where I need more than reading glasses but I don't have stereo vision anyway and when wearing my reading glasses, I find I tend to keep one eye shut, and I feel dizzy if I move my head when wearing them so I'm not sure I could cope! I need a magnifying monocle like Lord Peter Wimsey.

[alithea]

I think you need to see an optician, pretty sure trying to look at your computer screen in reading glasses should not be making you feel sick! Hope you manage to get it sorted

[nineveh_uk]

(My head of department said that she had lots of problems in her 40s as her long sight and short sight slugged it out, but that it eventually balanced itself out and she no longer needs glasses at all

The dream result! I really must get to the opticians for a check up. I think my current end of day computer Tired eyes is simply the muscles being fatigued, but I ought to check. Another lockdown casualty now it isn't so easy just to go at lunchtime.

[white_hart]

I was spurred into it by getting to the stage where almost any kind of close work (reading, knitting, sewing) was impossible with my glasses on. I will have to see if the new computer glasses make any difference to how well I can see things on my laptop when I'm working at home - I have definitely been squinting at that a bit too.

[serriadh]

I'm glad the glasses work for your vision, even they are posing practical problems.

I have a similar issue with sunglasses - I always remember about June-ish that a) I tolerate bright light really badly and b) I have prescription sunglasses which I could wear, but then follows tedious months of taking two pairs everywhere and having to swap everytime I go inside, etc. (I have tried the ones that change automatically but they stayed shaded all the time inside and I hated it.)

I suspect really I need permanently lightly-shaded ones (perhaps blue) but I worry that has similar Professor Branestawm and/or fey serial killer vibes.

[white_hart]

I have the kind of sunglasses that clip on to your actual glasses, which are not remotely cool, but do the job and are better for driving than prescription sunglasses as they just flip up, rather than leaving you attempting to change glasses while driving at 70mph when the sun goes in...

[alithea]

Congrats on the new glasses :)

I need to get some varifocals and some prescription sunglasses once I have the budget for them - I have to have my reading glasses perched on the end of my nose if I want to read my phone or knit and watch TV at the same time, and if I want to read in the garden, I have to choose between glare and eye strain :(

[white_hart]

I have clip-on sunglasses but I only use them for driving, because I don't like the way they change how the world looks.

[jinty]

Sympathies, I have also had similar glasses-related confusion and hassle in recent years. It is something you eventually get used to in one way or another but aaargh until you do.

[white_hart]

It is such a faff right now! I'm sure I will get used to it fairly quickly, though.