DH, high prescription and new glasses that are too thick

[Rollergirl11]

DH has very bad eyesight, his prescription is -9.5 in both eyes. For one reason or another he has not owned a pair of glasses for the entire time I’ve known him. So 20+ years. He wears daily disposable lenses but recently had a burst blood vessel in his eye that made wearing contacts uncomfortable and has prompted him to finally get some glasses. He picked them up yesterday and he absolutely hates them as the lenses are sooo thick. He says that they said they are the thinnest he could have them. I wasn’t with him so I’m not sure what amount of “thinning” that he went for. But my daughter has -6.5 prescription and we paid to have her glasses thinned as much as we could and they look absolutely fine. DH’s have that coke bottle effect and the lenses are so thick that from the side they protrude very far out from the frames.

The upshot is that DH says that he won’t wear them other than at home as he hates how they distort his face. This totally defeats the purpose of getting them as he as planning to wear them instead of contacts some days. They were £500+ and I think I that’s a ridiculous amount for him to pay and not be happy with them. Is there anything we can do at this point? Can we ask the optician to return the glasses and make the lenses thinner? Is this even possible or is it because his prescription is so high?

There are degrees of thinning, maybe he didn’t get the max possible? I think that the smaller the frame the less thinning you need, something about the central bit of the lens is thinner anyway. (I may be wrong here). Mine are -5 and just slightly protrude out of the frame.

I’m boggling at the idea of -9 out of the house without specs. I don’t even go to the toilet in the night without mine on

There are good reasons why it is always incredibly busy in SpecSavers

My DH has a really high prescription and always got frameless glasses, in glass, with polished edges and max thing. Almost £1k a pair though

Wow! That is crazy! He can definitely do better! My glasses are a similar frame style (actually have a bigger area) and I have a stronger prescription and my glasses look nothing like that!

@Neolara

It may be because he chose a big frame. Smaller frames are much better.with a high prescription. Specsavers will change glasses for any reason within a certain time frame (3 months?). Who did he buy them from?

Agree with this. DH has a high prescription and wears pretty small frames. They're often so hard to get on the high street for a reasonable price, though, as they're not in fashion.

Thinning not thin

Glasses for nearsighted people (so prescriptions that start with a minus) do make their eyes look smaller/ distorts their face. The higher the prescription, the smaller their eyes will look through the distortion of the glasses lenses.
At least he is same in both eyes because if you have a big difference between eyes, then you look really odd with different size eyes.
I agree with prior posters that he’s picked too large a frame for the prescription. He’d have thinner lenses if he went with old fashioned round glasses. I also agree they could be thinned down a bit more, ask if he paid for high index lenses. These are very expensive but are lighter and thinner.

How can he not remember what he ordered?

Surely he got some form of written receipt, he needs to dig this out.

Some independents do charge a small fortune for Raybans.

I think you need to go in - with him - and talk the options through with the optician.

If dh wants them changed he should go in and talk through the options, he's not a baby.

We get DDs from Specsavers and they replaced her latest glasses as she'd gone for a huge pair and the lens really stuck out, even with level 2 thinning. She's got a smaller pair now and it's a lot better. And we can go to level 3 thinning if her prescription worsens.

I'd get in touch with them and say you're unhappy, and see if they'll exchange for a different frame more suited to that prescription or if there's an additional level of thinning.

Does he get his contacts from there too? I get my contacts from specsavers and i get 50% off my glasses which really helps with the cost.

Then they came back and said he could have thinner with glass rather than plastic which he said no to.

I was genuinely shocked by the cost of DH's high prescription lenses. He would go for every thinking option and asked for advice when picking frames, costing a lot more than £500, sorry.

Welcome bonus of having cataract surgery: they now replace with prescription lenses so his long vision is now better than 20:20 and he only needs relatively cheap reading glasses.

@Neolara

It may be because he chose a big frame. Smaller frames are much better.with a high prescription. Specsavers will change glasses for any reason within a certain time frame (3 months?). Who did he buy them from?

This. The smaller the lens size in width and height the more successful the thinning.

Actually I’ve just seen the frames. That can’t possibly be the highest level of thinning?!

Here are some photos of my glasses. They’re not the best (not easy to take photos of your own glasses when you are very short sighted). Like I said my prescription is higher than your husband’s.
I strongly recommend you return those glasses and try Asda opticians, even if you have to travel (it’s not my closest opticians by a long shot).

(Please excuse the mess, Catfish in the background and my nails- I’ve just come out of hospital)

My eyes are worse than that & my glasses aren’t that bad! They do stick out a bit but I purposefully choose glasses with thicker arms so you can’t see it as much. I wouldn’t be happy with those. I use boots, contact lenses with them means half price glasses which is well worth it as they are so expensive with a complex prescription.

I have a -10.5 prescription and have them thinned too. They are right sadly. I never go out in glasses i look ridiculous

The optician really should have been advising him about the need to choose frames very carefully, mine are -12 and I can't have frameless, wire or large glasses, I always have plastic ones which go in a bit at the sides. I would go back to the opticians and see what they say. Mine do stick out a bit from the frames but not too much. This is with max thinning. Despite all this I much prefer contact lenses, the peripheral vision is so much better. But I do wear glasses at home and for the odd day at work.

My prescription is about -11.5 or so. I wear contact lenses day to day but have glasses that I wear in the morning and evening and wear them sometimes all day.

Mine were from Asda and I had free thinning done on them. I forgot exactly what amount and they are plastic not glass. These cost £50 I think.

Your husband needs to take them back and tell them that they are unwearable . My eyes are a -9 prescription and my glasses look fine -Specsavers with the greatest thinning .

I agree with others, take them back. Maybe a different frame is needed. My prescription is -11.5 and my glasses look fine.

Cross posted lots while taking photo. Mine are 6mm thick at the side with a -12 prescription but they only stick out by 1.5mm. However they are always going to look a bit "milk bottle bottom" from the front unfortunately.

I'd take them back. Be firm but polite, and just say they are totally unwearable.

I have the same prescription as your h and I can barely see the lens poking out of my Asda glasses. (1-2mm?)
Thinning is included in the price

I’m not convinced they’ve done anything except the minimum amount of thinning on those.
My prescription is slightly higher and my lenses don’t look like that. I pay for maximum thinning at vision express and pay about £300 depending on the frame.
I’d take them back on the basis they are pretty much unwearable. They’ll be heavy and uncomfortable. I’d go as far as to say they’ve misadvised him. A decent dispenser is quite hard to find!

I have 9.5 in each eye, and even thinned my glasses look awful and shrink my eyes to small holes. The vision is also shit.

I HATE them. I don't know what I'm going to do if I can't wear contacts at some point.

He’s just spoken to them and says he is really unhappy with them and can’t wear them how they are. He says that he gets lots of light refraction at the outer edges when wearing them too. He has an appointment to go back in and see them. The manager admitted that she wasn’t particularly happy with them either and had to get a second opinion on them (although they still gave them to him). Apparently he had the 1.74 thinning so is that the thinnest they can go? And it sounds like the frame he’s gone for is not suitable for the lenses?

DH is absolutely dreadful when it comes to keeping paperwork/receipts so he had actually thrown it away and the bin has since been emptied so that’s why we didn’t know what he’d paid for. I wanted to go with him but they are limiting people in the shop due to COVID.

He actually gets his contact lenses through a David Clulow optician close to his work in London but has been meaning to change that for a while, especially now he’s not going in to the office as much.