Any opticians who could help please?

[GnarlyOldGoatDude]

Morning! Could do with some prescription interpretation please. I’m NHS but know nothing about eyes

There’s an offer of a free pair of specs online. I have a “proper” pair of varifocals from a very good local optician, but thought I could use the freebie to get a pair for watersports (I lost a very expensive pair of glasses doing this last year).

However I have very bad astigmatism in one eye. The cyl measurement on my right eye is -5.00, but the online company only go down to -4.00. If it’s not a silly question, would -4.00 still give me ok vision, or is it a completely different prescription, if you see what I mean?

This free pair would literally just be for out on the water, to save my good (£400 ) pair.

Any advice would be great, thank you

[underneaththeash]

Do you mean a single vision pair, just for distance? If so, yes, if will be okay for watersports (but don't drive there in them) - but you need to interpret the prescription - if you post the whole rx, I will work it out for you.
If you mean varifocals - they'll never work as it's too difficult to work out things like fitting heights and with such a big cyl you'll just get masses of distortion.

[GnarlyOldGoatDude]

Thanks so much! Am at work now but will post the whole thing later. Would just be a pair suitable for being able to see while out on the water, rather than being for any other use.

I’ve got a v complex prescription so may not be feasible anyway, they may turn their nose up at it!

[GnarlyOldGoatDude]

@underneaththeash

Right: sph +5.00, cyl -5.00, axis 178 for distance. Near add +2.00

Left: sph +050, cyl 2.75, axis 172 for distance. Near add +2.00

Any help much appreciated! I’ve always had dreadful eyesight

[underneaththeash]

I'd go for R: +4.50/-4.00 x 178
L: as your current prescription.
A lot of these online spectacle providers are a bit slap dash and with your prescription it's massively important to get the axis of the cyl spot on and that with not actually being measured correctly to your face/distance between eyes etc may make them unusable. But if they're free???

That's a difficult prescription to get right in varifocals full stop, you must have a good optometrist. Another alternative would be to just ask your current optician for the cheapest single vision glasses they can provide with your full distance prescription. They may be much cheaper than you think.

[GnarlyOldGoatDude]

Thank you so much for your help! I think you have to pay postage, so not totally free. But as you say, if they’re unusable that’s still money wasted!

I was with Specsavers for a while but they didn’t advise varifocals when my eyesight started changing. Then found my current optometrist and he is indeed fantastic! I couldn’t cope with switching between two pairs.