Trouble with New Progressive Lenses? Answers from an Optician!

"I’m having trouble with my new progressive lenses – now what?"

It happens. You’ve worn progressive lenses successfully for years, and all of a sudden, the new glasses you got just don’t seem to be quite right. What do you do next? Where do you go first? What should you be looking for in the trouble-shooting experience?

Before you do anything, if this is a change of Rx (prescription), wear them for at least three days solid to make sure you are giving the new Rx a fair chance. Here is another quick tip I find useful: looking at a distant object, cover the left eye. Is the vision OK with the right eye? Now cover the right eye, and check your vision with the left. If that looks OK, but together the eyes seem blurry, this is just an adaption issue, and should resolve within a week.

If not, the very first stop will be to return to the optician who sold and fit your glasses. The optician should listen carefully to your explanation of how the lenses are not meeting their expectations. They should repeat what you told them to ensure they understand you correctly. They should then ask clarifying questions to get more information to help them determine each and every issue.

The next step SHOULD be that the optician takes your glasses, and “spots” them, finding the Major Reference Point (sometimes referred to as “seg height”) and verifying that the prescription, pupillary centers (PD) and MRP are exactly as prescribed and ordered. For many Rx’s, the PD or MRP being off by as few as 2mm can have a significant detrimental impact on your vision. Don’t be afraid to ask to see a copy of your lens “neutralization” which will show the prescription actually made on the glasses by the lab, and to see how they checked the PD, which should be by using a grid supplied by the lens manufacturer.

At that point, the optician should put the glasses on your head, and check for optimum fit. Today’s progressive lenses are very sophisticated; if the panoramic (faceform) or pantoscopic angles are not correct, your perception can be thrown off significantly. Once all the above steps have been completed, and only then, the optician should replace the glasses on your head, and ask you if any efforts they have made have improved your vision. If so, it is reasonable at this point to have them ask you to try the lenses for three more days. If they tell you a week or more, be a bit wary; if you’re NOT adapting, don’t put off returning on YOUR timetable.

An alternative outcome might be that an error in the ordering or fabrication of your glasses will be discovered during the course of verification. This is where it starts to get tricky. Does the optician recommend having your doctor do a recheck of your written prescription, or just go with their first analysis? Do they stop at the initial issue they find, or do they continue past the obvious to dig even deeper? What happens if they order new lenses for you and they STILL don’t work? Ask questions during this process – it benefits both you and the optician and clarifies options and expectations.

The optical marketplace continues to change dramatically on an ever accelerating time-line. Skills that used to be commonplace are disappearing; many states or well-known national eyeglass providers do not even use Licensed Dispensing Opticians. It really pays to have a good relationship with a great optician when you have issues with your new glasses. There is a LOT more to trouble-shooting than the few tips above. If you’d like another article with more in-depth and technical aspects of figuring out why you are having issues with progressive lenses, leave me a comment – if I get enough comments, I will share more of the hard-won information I have gleaned over the years. Hope this helps – good luck with your new progressive lenses!

Just another reason why YOU need a good Licensed Dispensing Optician!

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