A pair of glasses
Are the stories about how to wear spectacles, reading spectacles or spectacles for faraway people true or does every specialist say something different?
Anyone who investigates will come across very contradictory stories. When it comes to spectacles, only one thing is clear. They are an aid for those who do not see well in certain circumstances and this aid costs a fair amount of money.
The complaints of spectacle wearers are legion. Red marks on the nose, headaches due to the wrong lenses or the legs of the spectacles pressing on the side of the head or causing pain behind the ears. Many spectacle wearers have to make do with it and even if the optician offers to adjust the glasses properly, boasts about his quality product and knowledge, when it comes down to it, the buyer is deceived and all too often he can forget about the service and ends up with an expensive mis-purchase.
Eyes are precious, it is nice to be able to see. It is nice if you are not a danger on the road and can look without effort at what is happening around you, read a book or follow a film in detail. It is nice not to have to squint your eyes to read the small print, but it is difficult to get glasses or lenses in the right prescription.
More often than not, the strength measured by the optician or ophthalmologist is a strength with which the consumer cannot see clearly. A headache-generator, nauseating even after six months or even a year. Those who are cheated are left with spectacles that have already cost a few hundred euro. Yes, you read it correctly. A few hundred euros is no exception for a pair of glasses with a low-budget frame.
Everything used to be a lot simpler.
There were spectacles for those who could not see anything from afar, and older people had reading spectacles with a cord around their neck, which worked perfectly. There was not so much choice and therefore less disappointment. Health insurance glasses were the same for everyone. Not charming, not an eye-catcher and certainly not a fashionable item. Anyone with National Insurance was happy to get rid of them, and those who were vain only put on glasses if they really couldn't see anything. For example, when watching television, driving a car or as a child sitting at the back of the classroom and unable to see the blackboard, although even those children with poor eyesight managed quite well. After all, teachers say out loud what they are writing on the blackboard and if not, you just look at what your classmate is writing.
Do you see better when you wear glasses?
If you have bad eyesight, this aid will help you see better and with a bit of luck, you will be able to look more relaxed. Will it improve your eyes? No, the eyes become lazy. They do make an effort to bridge the distance to the lens, but otherwise, they become lazy and lazy things tend to deteriorate. So spectacle wearers' vision gets worse, not better. Incidentally, eyes deteriorate the most during puberty, so just so you know.
You used to get those glasses to see far away and far away was about six metres or further away. Nowadays, it seems that far distance starts at just over five centimetres and that is strange, to say the least. When you get older, everything gets older, including your eyes and therefore the eye muscles. Everything no longer contracts so tightly and your vision clearly changes. Reading glasses can be a good aid when you want to read or put a thread through the needle to do some adjusting. The kind of mending that my grandmother and grandmother used to do in the evening in the light of a paraffin lamp. Something that today is said to be very bad for the eyes. It is interesting, test this for yourself, that as long as there is light, many people who wear reading glasses can see very well, often reading the small print as well. Adjustments, crocheting, knitting, and fiddling should therefore be done in daylight and outside. A lamp does not make visibility better (the stamp collector has an extra-strong lamp and magnifying glass to see everything better and this applies to more people who work with small detailed things). Sitting in the house all day in lamp light does not make your eyes or your brain any better. You look with your eyes but you see with your brain. Indeed, the brain determines what you do and do not see. Personally, I like it when I don't always have to see every speck of dust and dirt. Life looks a lot better that way and when it comes down to it, I always see enough. There is not a fly or insect that escapes my notice and even cat hair is still flawlessly visible.
The glasses I went back for months ago, I still can't see anything with them.
When I look at walls, doors and windows, they are still crooked and round. So that is something to get sick of. The l difference. The reading glasses that were originally fitted enabled me to see very well from afar but to read nothing. I only found one message on the internet from someone who had the exact same thing. With the reading glasses, he could see far away but not read. Surely we can't be the only ones? The optician does not respond to it, so as a buyer I am left with an expensive purchase that I actually have nothing to do with.
In the past, everything was indeed much simpler. Glasses for the nearsighted so that he can see far. So far is more than about 6 meters. Today that is 50 centimetres! How is that possible? In addition, there were reading glasses, so they were close by. Just those little things that you hold under your nose or on the table when you're sitting at the table and still can't see. Nowadays there are reading glasses up to about 30 centimetres away from you and then a pair of glasses called computer glasses. This is then for the distance of 30 to approximately 50 centimetres. Something is clearly not right here. Modern man will soon have 6 glasses because otherwise, he will no longer be able to see?
It sounds more like the glasses are just a business model. We have gone from health insurance glasses to a fashion accessory, an expensive model where new glasses every year are no exception. In addition, the eyes run backwards and everyone seems to have to wear glasses. It sounds a bit like the nineties when everyone wore braces, something you hardly see anymore and the average teeth have really not gotten any better.
Contact lenses
Glasses are not the only aid for those with poor vision. There are contact lenses and they have been around for quite some time. First, there were the hard lenses, then came the soft lenses. We have gone from lenses that lasted a few years to daily lenses. It would all be more hygienic, but the question is whether this is true and how much waste all those daily lenses cause. Some sellers collect the lenses in something that is already a step in the right direction.
One of the newest lenses is the multifocal lens. With this lens, the nearsighted can read with age. How cool is that? Get rid of those glasses with those bits in them or glasses that overflow into a reading area. My grandmother hated those glasses because she often misstepped when she looked down.
People who wear multifocal lenses are not guaranteed good vision. It is all presented better than it is and it comes with a nice price tag. You do not get a guarantee of good vision. Both the optician and the lens manufacturer do not guarantee anything and state that you may still have to wear reading glasses. Perhaps a little less powerful, but still. Should those reading glasses still be on, the question is whether those lenses still make sense. Let's be honest, anyone who goes for multifocal lenses does not want to wear glasses, and certainly not two, which is why those expensive things are purchased.
What the specialist also does not mention is that these lenses only provide vision under optimal conditions. You look with your eyes, but you see with your brain. So the brain has to figure out which part of the lens to look through and if the pupils are enlarged in low light then there is a problem.
Optimal conditions for multifocal lenses are outdoors with sufficient light. Just that amount of sunlight with which you can see well on average. As soon as the sky clouds over, you are in the dark and the pupils get bigger, there is blurry vision. To the eye, there is no longer a part to see well at a distance or for near. The brain cannot do anything at all and will try to make the best of it.
Since there is no warranty on these lenses and there are now many brands and types that all claim something different, it is best to ask for a sample. There are also costs associated with this and it does not mean that the lenses that you like today will still be in stock tomorrow or will also be good in a few months. The eyes change, the eye muscles can be trained and a lot depends on the light, our mental condition and fatigue, dirty lenses, dry eyes, pollen and allergies also play a role.
I already said: I like not always seeing everything clearly. I also don't normally wear my reading glasses because they hurt me and give me a distorted image. Also in my case, the optician won. A dissatisfied customer who does not come back for the third time and who has strong doubts about the specialist and the end product. For example, I have never checked whether the centre of the glasses fits exactly on my pupil. When this was signed off, it was done very hastily and carelessly. Unfortunately, there is no other optician in the area anymore so I'll leave it at that. Who knows, one day I might see through it? In any case, I see many times better with cheap reading glasses from the supermarket and I bought those too.
Is humanity indeed going to see worse and is this the result of television, computer and the telephone? Now I can't imagine that. As a child I hardly watched TV and neither did my children and we were never allowed to sit right in front of it, just at an appropriate distance. I haven't watched TV for years and I don't spend hours in front of the computer (which I don't have) and when I did have one I mainly used it for typing and I type blind with 10 fingers. This means I don't even have to look or look at my screen when I'm typing something. So what's left? Reading, but if reading books, magazines and newspapers causes bad eyesight, then previous generations should also be massive spectacle wearers.
For the time being, I have taken the grid glasses out of the closet again. For now, I consider it a better way of improving my vision. Let's see if my old eye muscles can still be trained with help of these glasses otherwise, my eyes can just get some rest since they serve well as sunglasses.
