XPost: sci.med   
   From: siegman@stanford.edu   
      
   In article ,   
    Eric  wrote:   
      
   > Quick question about progressive lenses:   
   >   
   > I've had progressives for many years. No problems. Uniform focus   
   > side-to-side with no noticeable distortions.   
   >   
   > Just got new progressive lenses, and I've had tons of problems.   
      
   Can't give any technically informed facts about this subject, but have   
   been encountering similar problems, and will toss in a couple of   
   opinions for what they're worth.   
      
   It's been very difficult (for me, anyway) in the past to make useful   
   "A-B" comparisons between "my old progressives" vs "my new progressives"   
   because my vision keeps changing with age; the latest fads in frames and   
   lens shapes that my wife and children keep pushing on me keep changing;   
   problems in assessing quality of focus get muddied by secondary   
   problems, like floaters and increased glare sensitivity; and I wouldn't   
   be at all surprised if the eyeglass industry keeps changing the manner   
   in which it designs and grinds progressive lenses (and not necessarily   
   in a direction for the better).   
      
   In any event, I also have progressive lenses, and associated problems,   
   which seem to be similar though I'm not sure they're the same as yours.   
   If I hold my head still and pivot my eyes to look hard left and right, I   
   seem to retain reasonable sharpness of vision for distant objects --   
   except considerable double vision on any sharply defined and more   
   brightly lit distant objects.  If I perform a similar test on near   
   objects -- for example, scanning horizontally across a very wide page of   
   text on a large wide computer screen -- the outer ends of the text do   
   seem a little fuzzier and slightly distorted; but hard to tell for   
   certain.   
      
   In any event, my one definite observation is that, in conformity with   
   current fashion, the lenses of my recent glasses have all been notably   
   smaller in area than the big "aviator-style" glasses I used to wear; and   
   this means their "progressivity", however it's done, has to be done in a   
   sharply smaller area -- which can't be particularly good optically, can   
   it?   
      
   And so this time around, I intend to move to two separate pairs of   
   glasses optimized for near and far vision, maybe with a couple copies of   
   each.  I think I can keep track of these in my daily routine; and given   
   the large added costs of progressive lenses, the total investment in   
   doing this may be nowhere near doubled.  This is especially so since I'm   
   also planning to bypass the local upscale Lux store, and even Four Eyes   
   and Lenscrafters, and head straight to Walmart and/or Costco, or even   
   the Internet.  (When the local Lux boutique recently sent me a mailing   
   inviting me to a "trunk sale" to preview the latest and hottest in   
   fashion frames, that really sealed their fate for me.)   
      
   YMMV.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)