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?

NHS complex lens vouchers. To be eligible, your lenses need to be either -10/+10 dioptres or more, or prism-controlled bifocal lenses.

You get about £15 off

-15 1.9 glass from asda

@Iamaslummymummy

-15 1.9 glass from asda

Isn't it the + prescriptions that create the thick edges though, not the minus ones?

Glad you're getting them looked at - yes I think 1.74 is highest for plastic lenses but I'd be amazed if those had actually been thinned - pic attached is my -10 prescription at 1.74 in plastic lenses. They're thick but not that thick!

Glass can go thinner but are heavy and I didn't get on with them.

@VanGoghsDog
Minus lenses are always thicker at the edges, thin centre, effectively concave, the bigger the lens the more the thickness increase.

Plus lenses are thicker in the centre and thin toward the edges, convex. However, depending on the finished lens shape often the thin edge is lost as the shaped edge is nearer the centre.

With a plus lens you also have to worry about the overall diameter required to cut the shape, as the larger this diameter is the thicker the lens will become. It's hard to explain without props! This doesn't happen with minus lenses as they are all basically the same centre thickness, it's just the power and size of frame that dictates the edge thickness

@LaurieSchafferIsAllBitterNow

I was originally short sighted which I though was plus. And my glasses were always thick and need the highest thinning. And the optician told me that the smaller the frame, the thinner the edges. So, I've obviously got one part of that equation wrong in my head somewhere!

I am now both short and long sighted and have varifocals so I need a bigger frame now.

Short sighted eyes are too strong or too long....so maybe that's where you get it from? That's why you need minus lenses to take away the power and allow the image to be focussed properly on the retina.

Also reading adds are always positive so although positive lenses correct long sight, it's not technically correct to describe presbyopia (the need for a separate reading prescription) as longsightedness.
If you are even moderately short sighted your reading prescription can still be a minus one.

Having said that some people think they are short sighted cos they cannot see at a short distance and need only reading specs
...it is a minefield of confusion tbh :o :o

You can get shorter corridor varifocals though so don't sacrifice nice neat frames and lenses unnecessarily.