Are my expectations for an eye test unrealistic?

Posted by BeardedBaldMan@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 17 comments

I wear glasses as I'm short sighted and went for an eye test as I've noticed I'm having difficulty focussing on small text close to me. The initial eye test was run through at speed because I couldn't read the text with my glasses, despite it not being sharp and having a significant difference if I covered an eye. I showed how large the text is ony kindle and where I find it comfortable to read, and said how far away my monitor is as I want to be able to focus on that. Then they said "you might need reading glasses or varifocal" but that would be a separate eye test. I came out with a slightly different prescription for distance vision and absolutely nothing done about the problem I have with close range vision. Is this normal or was a poor job done?

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17 Comments

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Demiboy94@reddit

I say always go to an independent opticians. You can't trust chains. Get a 2nd opinion

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WVA1999@reddit

Yeah, those damn fake chain opticians.

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Demiboy94@reddit

I trust independents to be more caring towards the customer than making a profit/squeezing money out of you.

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mysp2m2cc0unt@reddit

They do to their long term customers. If OP pops out of the blue they might not be too arsed. My independent had a night and day shift when I said id buy a pair of frames from then. Then we had to redo the test as he couldn't be arsed to do it properly the first time round.

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WVA1999@reddit

They have a duty of care. I have had excellent care from a chain, including free tests, prescriptions and referrals.

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bishibashi@reddit

A full eye test should include all of that, was it a freebie?

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BeardedBaldMan@reddit (OP)

Paid for £35

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bishibashi@reddit

It’s weird, as most of the money in being an optician is in selling glasses, and let me tell you from experience varifocals are surprisingly spendy. I can’t for the life of me think why they wouldn’t do a full test and try and get you into some.

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BeardedBaldMan@reddit (OP)

That's what I thought. I am a bit nervous about varifocals as they're expensive and I don't want to find that they're useless for working at the computer. However, if I need dedicated reading glasses I know I'm going to wear them around my neck and I'm too young to give up on life that much

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bishibashi@reddit

I went to varifocals when advised to - but at that point I was fine with laptop screen but needed to pop my glasses up to read close up text. 3 years on my laptop screen is blurry with single vision lenses, perfect with varifocals. If I was doing it again I’d stay away from the varifocals until laptop became an issue.

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BeardedBaldMan@reddit (OP)

I use a huge ultrawide monitor and 32" 4K monitor so they're quite far away. I'll look at reading glasses for close work

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No-Jicama-6523@reddit

How young? Unless you’re mid thirties, it probably shouldn’t be assumed that the need for both types of lenses is age related.

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Spiklething@reddit

As someone who has been going to opticians for over 50 years, this does not sound correct to me. I have been short sighted and needed glasses since forever but as I age, my reading ability is deteriorating. I get by by taking off my glasses and holding whatever I am reading close, but I have discussions with my optician every time about possible reading glasses/varifocals and they are willing to give me some if I need them. In the past, when I have also used contact lenses, I have been unable to manage entirely (you can't remove and then replace a contact lens like you can a pair of glasses) and the optician told me I could buy reading glasses off the shelf as my eyes were not bad enough to need prescription only reading glasses. They even told me which strength reading glasses to buy.

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BeardedBaldMan@reddit (OP)

That's what I thought. I've been wearing glasses for twenty years, but I did wonder if they did separate appointments if you needed a different type of glasses

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Spiklething@reddit

Not in my experience, just seperate apopointments for contacts. I use specsavers at the moment but have used boots in the past.

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No-Jicama-6523@reddit

An eye test should include a reading prescription. They did it for me last time when I had no problems, simply because it was my first test after turning 40.

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