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Making My Own Glasses

eidel.io

171–180 of 189 posts

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#171
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about legality but here in the UK you will find opticians will give you your prescription, but often exclude the pupil distance measurement (I think) which a lot of the online stores require. I think you can ask for it, but they will only give it begrudgingly.

That's cause PD is measured by the optician separately when you're ordering your glasses, not by the optometrist or opthalmologist who writes the prescription. In other words, it's not part of the prescription, it's instead part of the glasses fitting process. A non-eye related example would be if your doctor prescribed you a brace and the person at the medical supply store measured you to find out which size you nee…

There's no reason for them to not give it, as it's an easy item to address.

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#172
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty easy to get non-Luxottica frames. Not too surprisingly, independent small batch production runs of frames end up costing a lot of money. There are also artisan frame makers who hand make the frames. If you are going to pay $300 for some frames, mine as well get an actual work of craftsmanship. At the end of the day, most Luxottica frames are actually far cheaper than the high end independent frames you c…

Yeah, I buy Bellinger Blac carbon-fiber frames. Hand-made in Denmark. Not cheap, but as a guy, it's about the only accessory I own.

ok, how can i acquire this?

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#173
post #24

This article found 13 out of 30 opticians were off by a significant amount (poor or very poor): https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/high-street-opticians...

I had great glasses for about 25 years. Then my eye doctor retired. Over the next couple years the first couple pairs I received from the same location's new doctors were bad enough to cause me to return them. The third has been marginally acceptable. It's a real shame when talent retires.

I had someone recently quit my team for a way better opportunity that my company couldn't provide.

More or less jokingly we showed up with chains on the last day to bind him to the desk :) we allowed him to part after a couple of beers though.

Yes its super painful to lose talent.

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#174
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it fascinating, after moving to Finland and having an MRI scan done, that it was possible to order a copy of the results on CD-ROM posted to my house. Having worked in the medical field in the past exploring a DICOM dataset was no challenge, and the end result is I have a rotating 3D-view of my own brain! (Well just blood vessels, but still ..)

Here in the US, I got an MRI at a 3rd party lab (not a hospital), and they gave me a copy on CD-ROM as I walked out. I didn't even have to ask! I was quite surprised, as I assumed the results would just be shared with my doctor electronically. I have no idea if I would have gotten this same treatment if I had paid 10x as much for the MRI at Stanford Hospital. (I'm guessing not).

You do. We got MRIs on disc at UCLA Santa Monica, free of charge. It's pretty standard.

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#175

>I needed an “optician kit” consisting of: >Trial lenses: A large number of lenses with varying corrections >Trial frame: A pair of glasses without lenses into which you can insert the trial lenses >Turns out, you can order these kits online from very trustworthy Chinese resellers for around 190€. Seems like it would be nice to have these available for rent. I would rent that for 20 euros a week, and after 10 rent-ou…

Why not do it?

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#176

> As a doctor I know some things about the human eye so I understand how to use those lenses. However, I have no clue about the magic ritual of the optician (“Do you see better with this lens?” - selects random lens and holds it in front of my eye). >Luckily, I didn’t have to. There's a specific reason why they do this and ask you to make a decision in an instant. It's called accommodation. Your eyes will quickly try…

Yes, I am a doctor. As far as I remember, I studied medicine and graduated. As other comments point out, medicine is a very specialized field nowadays and I didn't specialize in any field (I got into coding healthcare software instead) - in Germany you study all disciplines at University (min. 6 years) and then specialize during something comparable to US residency in a hospital. I understand the process of accommoda…

Eye surgeon here.

Good job and interesting story!

As a side note: for optical reasons, the spherical equivalent of the lens (which will determine if you are overcorrecting or not) is calculated by adding the sphere value + half the cylinder value (whatever the axis value).

You ended with a correct prescription as far as I can tell by looking at the different measurements , however you did not totally grasped the optical subtleties of the accomodation process : astigmatism is important (a small overcorrection is not a big deal anyway)

It is usual to undercorrect the cylinder values given by the autoref and your ophthalmologist would have given you the right prescription I think.

I'm just saying that to underline that as I doctor myself, I'm usually very wary at thinking that I can fully understand, in a few days, what my colleagues do. I'm totally into the hacking spirit but let's stay careful, especially for more dangerous things than glasses.

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and can be measured at home using a ruler and a mirror, pretty simply. Close one eye, align the ruler at 0 under that pupil. Open the other eye, close the first, read off the distance to the 2nd pupil.

Did this for my wife recently. We measured multiple times very carefully, and got it very wrong.

Don't see how you can possibly do it for anyone else, using the mirror method, without getting it very wrong.

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do. I had lenses with cylinders (for correcting it) in the past and didn't like them. They're larger and asymmetric - the lower side must be heavier so that they always align correctly on your eye. With not-so-bad astigmatism, you can get away with not correcting it in your contact lenses. That's what I currently do. It works okay and brings you to a good level of vision (1.0 here in Germany, probably 20/20 in…

Ahhh, that won't work for me. I started off like that, but getting cylinders made a huge difference in my contacts. I've tried the bottom-heavy ones, as well as the ones with a "1" that's supposed to be positioned at the bottom manually. Neither has worked too well. The shifting position isn't a problem, I think the bottom-heavy ones adjust fine with a little bit of practice, but the experience is never that good.

I have astigmatism as well and the ones I use are acuvue daily moist. They apparently use some blinking technology to keep them stable. To be honest, I didn't know they were supposed to remain stable until I saw your comments, so I guess they work well for me. There are only very specific situations where I get discomfort and they misalign for me, but a few blinks puts them back in their spot.

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#179

Fascinating hacker story in an unexpected domain. Thank you! A side note about "getting your numbers"... The author remarks, "she’s not happy to share the measurements with me as she fears I’ll run off and get my glasses made online". This will obviously vary by jurisdiction but what the author describes may be illegal in some places. e.g. where I live, there is a law since 2010 requiring opticians and optometrists "…

The optometrist at my local Vogue Optical is actually only affiliated by location. She was happy to give me my PD as she doesn't sell glasses anyway. I'm sure most people walk out of her office into the Vogue Optical show floor and buy their glasses there.

Re: Making My Own Glasses

#180
post #23

> and she’s not happy to share the measurements with me as she fears I’ll run off and get my glasses made online I hate this! Are they really allowed to do this? "What's my prescription?" "Not telling"

Historically, at least in the Netherlands (and it seems also Germany), you get the eye test free as "service" because before or afterwards you'll then look for a frame that you like. Of course, under GDPR (or previously the DPD from 1995) you are totally entitled to learn what data they have about you, but going to get a free eye test and then ordering cheap stuff online is just a jerk thing to do.

I read in this thread that elsewhere on the planet, they're not free, and then of course you get the values. Would be super weird to pay for a test and then not get the result. (Nobody likes vendor lock-in.)

I've done eye tests before and not gotten glasses because it turned out not to be necessary, but it always felt really shitty. I always asked how much it was, as an offer to pay, but was never asked to pay anything. I'd be in favor of paying for what you use to avoid both guilt trapping and hard feelings.

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