I think I need to fire my optometrist.

[kthompson]

N80, makes me wonder if you used same one I have. But think you are in the upstate.

I meet a semi retired optometrist last fall who had his own practice but now has retired and working at Wal Mart. I asked about the product they offer and he said same as what he sold. Have friend how did use largest practice in my town and now brags on Wal Mart. No idea how price compares. I have bought pair of bifocals, from two different offices, was not impressed by either but certainly not with the no line ones I have now.
Met a lady who was manager for optometrist chain up north before retiring near me. She said one of the differences between the grades of the glasses was how wide of focus area there is in the no line bifocals. Makes me think my high price ones were way over priced. Either they did not get my glasses or exam right or my eyes have failed a good bit since getting them.

 

[Code54]

Get mine at Walmart (bifocals also)- mostly insurance covers everything and they've held up great (Wife and kids both go there also with no issues.)
Mostly have glasses in a couple days - always say a week but it is not unusual to have them in hand in 3-4 days.

 

[PILOON]

My eyeglass story:
Picked up a pair of prescription specs at Cosco on a Friday.
On Sat I was doing heavy work so I hung the nice new specs on a tree branch so as not to drop them due to sweating heavily.
Well the long and short story is they fell and a heavy rock kinda did them in.
Immediately called Cosco and asked them to order a replacement frame, meanwhile I taped them back to usable.
They called couple days later saying frame is in.
I suggested that I'd keep the damaged ones for 'spare parts' but was told that it would annul the insurance.
End result was a total FREE replacement under the Cosco warrantee**!

Also add that the Cosco optician discovered an eye problem* that 45 yrs of wearing specs that no other optician was able to discover.

*Not 'cross eyed' (common) but up/down eyed, in that I see. IE, 2 TV's one above the other.
No wonder I could trip over things.

**Warrantee is more an insurance policy built into the purchase price.

 

[MossRoad]

Why don't you go to one of those 2-pair for $99 dollar places and pick up a couple el-cheapo sets to keep in your dresser drawer or tool box in case you lose the good ones again? They're a good stop-gap while you wait for the good ones to come in.

 

[N80]

I've got cheapo back ups that I got online. They're just not very good and they are from my previous prescription. Fortunately my prescription did not change this time and has been stable for a year now. Prior to that it was changing every year for about 4 years. Having backups will be a lot easier once my prescription is stable and I may even be a candidate for lasik to get my far vision back.

 

[deserteagle71]

Cost of the glasses and the time needed to make the glasses is largely determined by the prescription, frame design/material, and lens design/material. I have a very complicated prescription - trifocal plus several other factors - so contacts are not an option. One part of my lenses is exactly 9/16" thick - as checked with my calipers! Yes, my eyes are in awful shape.

The last two times I had to have glasses made, it took 6-7 weeks. From what the optometrist tells me, there's only like 1 lab in the country that will even attempt to make the glasses I require. I retired a year ago; up till now the company paid for my glasses but now I'm on my own.

 

[kf4uda]

I wear progressives as well. My usual wait time on new ones is a week. I think there was one time that I had to wait two weeks but it has never taken longer that that.

 

[RalphVa]

I recently went to an eye doctor to try to get my left eye working for me. Right eye had suddenly gone bad about 2 or 3 months back with a supposedly "wrinkled cornea". Took only a week to maybe 10 days to get some progressive lens back for the left eye. Didn't work that well because the left eye is so quirky. Asked the doc what I should do about my right eye. He said to go to the new cornea specialist in the same practice as the guy who misdiagnosed me.

Went to the cornea specialist. He said he couldn't see a wrinkle and that I likely had a secondary cataract like happened in the left eye (both have had DSEK surgery to fix cataracts and fuchs dystrophy). A week later he shot a hole through the cataract in the right eye. Now, I don't need glasses at all because the right eye is good for both distance and reading.

Ralph

 

[Dftodd]

I usually get 2 pair of glasses every other year. One pair is regular glasses, other pair is safety glasses.

Eye glasses are Oakley frames, no line bifocals, with transition lenses. Cost me $130 after insurance. Safety glasses are Wiley X, Lined Bifocals, with transition lenses. Ballistic rated. They cost me $80 with insurance. Work will reimburse me for up to $200 out of pocket, so I just turn in an expense report with a receipt and the $80 is in my next paycheck. Outside the safety glasses look just like regular sunglasses. Not the birth control glasses you used to get

My safety glasses come direct from Wiley X. They took 3 1/2 weeks. Generally my regular eyeglasses take 1 1/2 to 2 weeks since my insurance requires the use of there own lab. If not it would only be a couple day.

 

[tallyho8]

I wore hard contact lenses since 1970 and just used my glasses for a backup and early morning and late at night. I have had cataract surgery and no longer need glasses except to read fine print in the newspaper.

My insurance company paid $200 a year toward my glasses or exam but only if done at a certain hospital. I priced my glasses there and they were over $800 since the only frames they had were "designer" frames costing over $100, so my total price would have been $600.

I had the exam at the hospital and my insurance covered that and I took the prescription and went to MyEyewear2go.com and ordered my glasses with expensive high index lenses for just over $300. I could have gotten them with standard lenses for only $30. After a few years as my eyes were getting worse due to the cataracts my exam showed that I needed a new prescription. So I got the hospital to give me one new lens for $200 which my insurance covered and put it in my $7 frames that I got online. Then a few months later in January I got them to install the other lens for $200 since it was a new year and that way the insurance paid for both lenses and my $7 frames were as good as the "designer" frames they sold for much more.

Now that I only need glasses when I am reading very fine print, I got my exam for free at the hospital for reading glasses with a different prescription for each eye and they wanted over $200 for those lenses to install in my old frames. So I went to WalMart and bought 2 pairs of readers, one with the prescription for my left eye and one for my right eye. The 2 pairs were about $15 total. I went home and removed the lens from one pair and put in the other pair to match my prescription and threw away the other 2 lenses and now have a pair of readers and an extra frame for under $15.