To think reading with varivocals shouldn’t be this hard

Varis absolutely didnt work for me. Got cheaper ones, then upgraded to the best ones.
my eyes refused to play ball.
so, i’ve got 2 pairs of bifocal which way cheaper than a pair of vari’s
1 pair is distance and mid for driving
1 pair is distance and reading

work perfectly!

@Lacew1ng55 did you ever get used to them? I've just got mine today and am struggling with reading so much! I feel like there's only a tiny area in which I can see words in focus. If I move my head sideways even a little bit it goes blurry.

Do you have astigmatism? I have and it's taken me two weeks to get used to my first pair of varietals. Apparently, you are more likely to get the swimmy/ dizzy effect until your brain adjusts. My optician told me to point my nose at what I wanted to look at.

I have had varifocals for decades with no problems. One pair that I bought online had the changes in the wrong place, but took them back and corrected them.

I do not have to tilt my chin either up or down to read - I just look down with my eyes and I am then looking through the right bit of the lenses.

You have paid a massive amount for these glasses, as I used to before having cataracts removed and distance vision lenses inserted in my eyes, which means I no longer need the thinning so the price has gone down a lot. But at that price you must go back and get them to tinker with them. Sometimes a bit of adjustment is needed to the frame (usually ones with nose pads), but sometimes they need to recut the lenses sop that the changes occur in the best place for you.

The only time I need to tilt my head is when walking downstairs because I do not wish to fall and need to be looking through the distance bit at the top of my glasses.

Do stick with it and insist that they make the necessary changes - at that price they must get it right! It is so much easier than carting glasses around.

Now that I have distance vision in my eyes - a revelation after being as short-sighted as you! - I could choose just to have reading glasses. But I find it so much easier to have varifocals that now have barely any prescription in the top but change to reading capacity at the bottom. Everyone is used to me in glasses and I look weird without them now!

An optician told me you need to get office glasses for reading

I have found that as my prescription increases, the longer it takes to get used to them (last single lenses took almost two weeks). But varifocals - wow!

The optician said ‘you have a month money back guarantee’ and I thought he was joking! It took a while and I mostly got them because my close up vision is perfect but it was a pain to cook or so close up work as I had to keep taking them iff or is end up cutting / burning my fingers.

I still have glasses for screen work as I never managed to get used to them for that, and still take them off completely for close-up work.

I think 3 days is still suite early days.

It’s always good to have a separate near vision pair, varifocals are always a compromise with reading, tho some cope very well with them. It’ll be your heights, they’re a mm or two out.

Sorry, I don't. It's probably best to return them to the optician and ask for advice.

Definitely get them checked. I’ve had 3 pairs of varifocals and got used to them within a day until my most recent pair. Went back to the optician and the measurements were out by 4mm - they remade them and I can now read no problem.

I have very strong varifocals. I can't read close up with them ever. I have to have the book quite far away from my face.
At the end of the day if I've done a lot of computer work I just can't read at all as everything is blurry.
I found out I had very dry eyes which makes it worse and once I started the eyedrops I could actually see a lot better, it took me ages to realise that I don't blink. I don't need to because my eyes are protected by the glasses.

Got my first varifocals a week ago and have had exactly the same issue . I can only see a small circle area if the laptop and have to keep my head up all the time …..Gave in and ordered a second pair of reading glasses too .
Mine were 400 euro with a free second set . I thought that was dear !

As others have said, it's quite possible that the measurements for the lenses need changing a little, and the optician should do that.

Another possibility though (thank you, optician😟) is middle age, when the eye muscles become a bit less flexible. Because of that and the narrow field of view for each distance on my varifocals I have three other pairs of glasses - reading, laptop and computer screen. It's a pain but sadly necessary.

@Lacew1ng55

It depends on the strength of your varifocals, or your prescription. I had exactly this problem with my last pair of varifocals when I haven't had an issue adjusting before. I wasn't able to read comfortably, no matter how much I adjusted my position, the light levels - everything I could think of. I took the glasses back to the optician thinking they were incorrect.

It turned out that at a certain point it is better to have separate prescription reading glasses in addition to the varifocals. Ordinary reading glasses you can buy yourself may not do the job if they aren't a high enough strength. I have two pairs of glasses now I swap between.

Go back and get it all checked then. My db had some glasses once that weren’t properly adjusted. He got massive headaches. Got the - balance or something (no technical knowledge!😊) adjusted, and no more issues.

I paid a similar sum for mine, and have always struggled to read.

I end up taking them off

I had to return my set and go back to two pairs of glasses. The varifocals made me want to throw up but I suffer from vertigo anyway and the optician did say that I may not tolerate them.

Where do you hold books (or tins to read the label) compared to phone?

First pair took me about half a minute to fall in love with.
No pair has ever been as good as that though. But minutes rather than anything more tedious.

It’s not the position of your head exactly it’s the position of your eyes. Varifocals have a small area where they are actually at pin point focus. Was this not explained? At £700 I’m assuming you chose a wider field - I paid for a slightly wider field (you might note I’m aware of the ideas involved but not the technical terminology and detail!). Even so if I’m going to be reading for a long time, for an online course or something, I often find it easier to use my dedicated reading glasses.

I like reading curled up, head down and with the book pretty much in front of me, so varifocals are useless for that. They’re great for everything else though, apart from hiking, so I have a cheap pair of reading glasses and then a cheap pair of single vision distance reactolite glasses for hiking. Works well

I got my varifocals from Specsavers, their top level ones. It’s important that all the measurements are correct. Specsavers have a promise that they want you to be happy and will put things right within the first 100 days of your purchase. I have used this in the past. Hopefully your optician will sort it out for you.

Chances are, if you were short-sighted, you'd got used to holding the book too close. I can't hold a book at the 'proper' distance, I always end up moving it to 'my' distance.

I have solved this by reading mostly on an ereader and adjusting the font size 😆