Have you worn other forms of progressive lenses in the past?

Sometimes it takes some time to get adjusted to new lenses.

Hi gray...thanks for taking pity on me and replying :) I was a bit *frustrated* after having to drive home with my head down so I could see out of the top enough to focus. Didn't have any depth perception, though. And then I would look at things around the room and wonder why I was getting woozy and nauseated...then I looked at a page of print and saw that even if I sat still, one side of it would be clear and one would be blurry. There's something really wrong here. With all the vaunted measurements they take, I am thinking Zeiss over-individualizes, if that's possible, so that the glasses don't work if you have them sitting slightly differently on your face from how the person at the store put them on (which always feels odd to me anyway)...I was ready for the up and down, but the side to side, where the image *rotates* a bit on an axis if I move my head to the side, can't be right.

I'm dragging my feet about calling them this morning...everyone wants their money now and I paid in good faith and I'm going to be told to adapt to them or something rather than have them acknowledge there might be a problem. Side to side shouldn't be rotating on an axis or clear/blurry, should it?

You should be able to go back and ask for the one lens to be fixed. If one is good and the other blurry, someone made a mistake. Even if you can't get a refund, you should be able to get a new lens.

I had new glasses once with the same problem. Turns out one of the lenses was not the correct prescription. The shop corrected it for no cost.

If you get a big hassle from the place you bought the glasses about correcting the problem, go to a different shop and ask them to check the lens against your prescription. I think there's a good chance that a mistake was made somewhere along the way.

It sounds like you are psyching yourself up for a big fight before you even talk to the optometrist.

DH and I both ordered progressive lenses this year (Kodak) and when we picked them up either of us were happy. There was no problem with the people who were helping us, they said they will switch them out to a different brand. They could not have been more eager to please us. It is true we hadn't paid yet, but I have no doubt if we did pay and came back a few days later with our complaint they still would make things right.

It is true that they are selling you a product, but these people still are medical professionals. Give them the benefit of the doubt, that their primary concern is to help you SEE better.

If after they learn that you aren't seeing correctly, they choose not to make the situation right, well... THEN you can get all huffy!

Nicole

I had a similar situation with my progressive lens. I picked up my glasses and when I looked down to see my feet I became dizzy. I also had blurry spots from side to side. Distance vision was fine; reading was not.

I went back to the eyeglass store and explained what was happening. They rechecked my eyes; compared their result to the Rx my eye doctor wrote and it was really off.

I called my doctor; went back and he also rechecked my vision and admitted a mistake had been made.

My eye had doctor prescribed 3.0 for my reading lens when I should have been prescribed 2.5.

I returned to the eyeglass store and I was given (at no charge) new lenses...I chose standard bi-focal this time. I was also credited with the difference in cost between the progressive and non lenses.

I know what you're feeling right now. I simply could not function with the new glasses, either.

Is it possible your Rx is wrong?

Sometimes I understand paying for things with a credit card. This sounds terrible, Fly! I think there must be a mistake. Don't drag your feet. The sooner you alert them, the better your chances toward satisfaction.

I am anxious to hear how this gets resolved.

It takes a while for your eyes to adjust to progressive lenses. I found that the world was tilting and I had to hold on to a banister when walking down stairs. No problem, now.

Ah ha, ((golddust))--you've seriously alleviated my stress with a good factual reminder!!

nigel, I know I'm sounding pre-rev'd, but it's an effect of having been blindsided by professional incompetence paired with stubbornness way too many times. As with courtesy from fellow drivers in my area, I've learned not to expect good customer service anymore. Any time it happens is the rare exception that proves the rule. I could say "treat folks nicely and you'll be treated nicely" but I've done that, believe me, and I think that era is gone :(. Medical professionals are not immune to this change,unfortunately. Interesting that you didn't have to pay up front. I had to, and the salesperson suddenly couldn't even look at me when he asked for my credit card "let's take care of it right now" is all he said. I said "what if there's a problem and I decide to go back to regular lenses?" He said, again without meeting my eyes, "oh, no problem, no extra charge." Excuse me?? That's part of what is giving me pre-agita. These people have a good reputation, but that gave me the willies.

suero, yes, that was the lack-of-depth-perception thing I was talking about--a bit bothersome but I figured that was part of the breakin period.

I'm really glad to hear that the prescriptions might be messed up -- and the idea of going somewhere else to have them check the glasses against my prescrip really helps, too. mona, I might be willing to do the visible line (is your line visible?) and I'm glad to hear you were credited with the difference. Of course I'm going to go in with a civil attitude--who knows. Maybe they'll do the right thing.

O.K. (deep breath); I'm goin' in..

Fly, it took three weeks to adjust to my progressive lenses. They seem like regular glasses now, no problem whatsoever.

fly, just wanted to say it's very possible a mistake was made. Depending on whether your eye Dr uses an on site lab or not will depend on who they pass the buck to (IME anyway). IOW they'll blame it on outside lab or if onsite they'll wriggle out. I get your anger, I have a great eye M.D. but the dispensing side is a PIA that nickels and dimes customers to death over stuff they should not. And I've had to stick to my guns a time or two with them. (I paid a whopping amount of $ for 'superior' scratch coat on my last pair of progressives, had a two year warranty vs typical 1. About one year mark I was getting annoying wispy marks, they fixed it free. About 18 mos mark, same thing. Only that time they tried to charge me $15 S&H and would 'bill me later'. Heck no! A no strings/no cost warranty is just that. But I failed to tell DH and he paid the bill when it came in, darn it. So I lost my leverage on that one.

I got new glasses once and was wearing to get used to them so skipped a few days of contacts. I was reading OK at work so didn't notice anything dramatically "off". By day 2 I started feeling woozy and having pseudo dizzy spells. (Not fainting dizzy, but a similar swoon type feeling.) The 3rd day I was walking along the side of a large building, perfectly straight wall that went almost 3 blocks long, and the darn building was curved in my glasses. I went straight back to optician (used a quickie place back then before my eyes got worse). They had cut the lenses on an angle somehow (and told me so). Fixed at N/C and I never went back.

I was ready for the up and down, but the side to side, where the image *rotates* a bit on an axis if I move my head to the side, can't be right.
IMHO you shouldn't be seeing what you are. I've been wearing progressive for about 8 yrs. There is an adjustment period, and depending on your Rx, it can sometimes not jive well w/frame size. (I can't use those hip teeny frames, I get side distortion.) My first pair of progressives the worst thing was going down stairs, because frames were smaller, it threw me off. After about a week I adapted. But no way did I see what you're seeing.

They'll tell you that you need to adapt, you just have to be firm that something is wrong. (BTDT) You know what you see through them better than they do.

My glasses do have the visible line, but I'm okay with that.

Let me explain that the lenses in my new glasses did match the Rx that I was given. It was an error made by the doctor when he wrote the Rx. The Rx should have been for a 2.5 strength, but he wrote 3.0 instead.

I got my glasses at Lens Crafters and they have a policy of correcting the lenses for free if the Rx doesn't feel comfortable.

My Doctor is an MD with an independent practice and does not sell glasses in his office.

I'm an optician and I work for an eye doctor. Please take the glasses back and have them checked. Progressives have laser marks on them that are hard to see but can be used to remark the lenses to make sure they are done correctly.

When you take them back be nice but make sure they remark the lenses and check them on you with the marks on them. The fitting cross should be right over your pupil. Progressives have to be fit just right and if one of the lenses is off a bit it can really mess with your vision. They should also double check the prescription and make sure it's correct.

Please give them a chance to fix the problem.

I am always amazed at what a talented and diverse crowd hangs out here. Happyladi, I am talking about you this time. Thanks for checking in and offering professional guidance.

I wear progressive lenses (glasses) and have had no problems with them at all. The first 5 minutes was interesting but I quickly adapted. I have worn glasses since 2nd grade and have had a couple poor fittings. It does happen once in a while.

I wanted to come back and apologize. This is a sore spot for me recently, this past year especially. Hope my post didn't come off as sounding like all offices are the same. Despite a good eye doctor & optician I adore (he calls me "darlin", heh) office policies are gearing more toward owners' profits (a different eye doctor & her DH) at the expense of patients care. Know two people who have left this past year because of it. There are a lot of outstanding people in this field, don't want my crabbiness to imply otherwise.

Plus I needed a nap. ;)

moon, I understood what you meant. Changes are happening and I know they're stressful for well-meaning professionals--heck, even back in 1998, our then baby daughter's GI specialist quit his longtime practice at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Phila. He handwrote out (and xeroxed) a 5-page letter he sent to all his patients explaining his view of how medicine was changing and he could no longer be the kind of physician he wanted to be. And things have only gone downhill from there. I think everyone is stressed, patients and providers alike.

And happyladi, I wish you could be my optician :) So what happened was that I was told that with the Zeiss, one supposedly has "more" lateral field of vision than with previous progressives, but still, it was literally about the width of one shop door at about 30 feet, like 10 degrees off center in either direction. Other than that, I have to turn my head. The optician tried to exaggerate what I was talking about to the point of ridiculousness-holding something WAY out about 110 degrees off center, saying 'you're just going to have to turn your head'. I had to reiterate several times how narrow the field was before somewhat nauseating blurriness set in, and she finally said that lowering the top field (which I have to look out with my head lowered in order to use) *might* increase the width of field of vision, and would definitely help with the having to hold my head down part of it.

But really, happyladi--are you familiar with Zeiss individual lenses? What can conceivably be the good of having blur any further than 10 degrees off center? It's just not intuitive that someone would have to turn her head when she wants to look just a slight bit to the left or right. I can't figure out why Zeiss thinks it's so good. It seems like I've basically got *blinders* on. I have better peripheral vision with my plain old single-vision distance glasses.

Is there any other kind of progressive that has more width of field? Zeiss talks about how these are so different--maybe I just need one of the old-fashioned (and less expensive, maybe?) kind? I really don't think these are safe to drive in, if I have to be turning my head all the time to look around me. I depend on my peripheral vision when I drive, and I drive a lot. I see migraines (have one starting now, after about a half hour of wearing these things) and neckaches in my future.

If I read a magazine, if I turn my head from side to side, the edges of the magazine go up and down like waves. And I just tested with a magazine--I can see one column of print clearly, but the next one over is blurry until I move my head! Not even one whole page of a magazine? Is this expected?

I'd be really interested in your thoughts on the Zeiss, or if there's another progressive that might be better (have more width of field), and on what the optician said tonight.

Flyleft, did you call them today? Any updates?

Nicole

LOL...and I thought maybe I'd gone on too long about what happened yesterday :)

nigel, look at the post above yours...

When you first get the lenses, you will have blurred vision out of a narrow field of view, but -- trust me on this -- within three weeks you should not have the problem any longer. When I first got my progressive lenses, my head was bobbing up and down and side to side as I tried to get things in focus. The brain does adjust, even my brain, to process the things you are seeing.
Some people can't take the progressive lens, and you may be one of them.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Sue. I probably should explain that the optometrist kept saying that the Zeiss "individual", which are more expensive, give much more range of vision, are fit to each wearer's eyes (with lasered micro-initials!), and are so much better in every way than Zeiss's regular progressives. That's partly why I'm more distressed than might seem regular for a new user--I thought I was paying more for a better-functioning innovation in progressive lenses...I just can't imagine what those regular ones must be like.

...don't know that it's directly causally related, but I wore the glasses watching the Olympics and mosaicing (to get experience with upclose and far, as I was instructed last night), and I woke up around 2am with a really bad migraine and aching eye muscles, iykwim.

Side question: I wonder, is it a good thing that our eyes/heads adjust to a more limited range of motion?

Zeiss Individual is a great progressive but how good any progressive is depends somewhat on your prescription. Is this your first progressive? Do you have a strong correction or a lot of astigmatism? Do you have a strong add power like a +2.00 or more?

The higher the add and the more astigmatism a person has the more distortion progressives have on the sides but some are better then others. It is also true for most people that you don't notice the distortion after a while.

Have they rechecked the lenses by remarking them and looking at them on you? They need to do this to make sure they are correct. How they fit is also very important. The frame front should be curved slightly (face form) and the bottom of the glasses should be in closer to your face then the top of the glasses (pantoscopic tilt). The fit can make a big difference.

Thanks, happyladi. I appreciate your writing. Yes, I'm at 2 for the add, but not much astigmatism, I don't think...I'll also see how the frame fits. That's one thing that seems kind of problematic, at least for me -- you have to have them on exactly the same way, same place, every single day, or you get distortion...They've only looked at where the pupils are, marking them with a little marker. I'll try to check the rest.

So there's no other progressive that would have less distortion? Again, I really appreciate your help. Haven't gotten anything like this from them.

The testimonials on the Zeiss website lead you to believe they give you more latitude in where you look through the lenses:

"The moment I put them on, I knew these were something special. Clarity wherever I looked without searching for the sweet spot like with my old lenses. They're great." - Claude, Mill Valley, CA

"I absolutely love the ZEISS lenses. I know can be laying on the sofa and watching TV and not have to adjust my head to have clear vision. Everything is so sharp and clear. I love them. Worth the investment. I recommend them to everyone." - Debbie, Temple, PA

It sounds like there is something wrong with your lenses.

Yes, graywings--that's how they were sold to me. That's why I don't get it. Maybe I should have been clearer at the start that these are supposedly a great improvement on regular progressives. I have great respect for folks who have regular ones, if these are so much better...

I wish I would have seen these postings. I just got mine on Friday and they are single-vision...I'm having the exact same issues as you are with the progressives. I feel like I got ripped off..so much for Zeiss being the best and advertising "larger field of vision." My old cheap lenses had a much broader field of vision than these. Did you try contacting Zeiss?

I just got a pair with Zeiss Individual 2 progressives on 6/1/15. Not happy. My Varilux were better until my prescription changed

I got Zeiss individual lenses quite some time ago without my optometrist telling me and explaining the "new technology" to me. . Fortunately I usually wear contacts and not my glasses. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my glasses. My optometrist wouldn't fix them, my med plan only pays for changes in eyewear every two years. I am wearing my old glasses until the two years is up. Like the OP my eyes flitted between being blurry and in-focus. It is dizzying. I will be finding (and this time interviewing) a new optometrist.

I feel better knowing I'm not the only one that is discovering it takes time to adjust

I have ordered a Zeiss individual 2 eyeglass with fusion for more usd.1000, , got a inferior Zeiss class and when complaining to local Zeiss Lab, they only reported to their ECP, replying despite of being consumer I am not their customer. therefore the communication is to flow via optician (ECP). ECP took eyeglass and after weeks give me back same one. ZERO guarantee from Zeiss. DO NOT RECOMMEND

J.R.

I just got my Zeiss HD2 progressive lenses. Suppose to have a much wider field of view and better vertical progression for computing and reading comfort. Actually turned out to have as small or smaller width and vertical progression than my three year old glasses. I have had similar results from all of my progressive lenses and I guess Zeiss feels that if they tell you something it will work. I am Taking them back within the first two hours and getting my money back. I really don't think they are as good as my old ones. I have had lots of progessives and there is no fit or other problem here. It is just the same or has worse limitations as all progressives and that is not what I was promised. ZEISS THESE ARE NOT AN IMPROVEMENT and $400.00 is a lot of money for no improvement.

I know this is an old thread, but was of interest to me. A few years ago, I got new Zeiss progressive transition lenses and had to go back 3 or 4 times to have them remade until they were acceptable. I ran into a friend there who was on her 3rd trip back. I attributed it to the opticians; never guessed it could have been Zeiss. I've also been unhappy with the transition feature, as they never seem
to get completely clear and take forever to transition to their lightest
phase. I just ordered new glasses with progressive lenses from a different optician and they don't carry Zeiss. I'll be interested to see if I have better luck with them. I skipped the transition feature.