Childrens glasses strong prescription

[sthitch]

Does anyone know if there's a big difference in lens thickness between a +2.75 to a +4? We're on 3 monthly appointments so I'm concerned about paying for thinning if we have a new prescription in 3 months, but I don't want the glasses to be really heavy. The current +2.75 aren't too bad, but they said they would build up to a +4.

Does anyone recommend any opticians for reasonably priced thinning on children's glasses? Specsavers thought it would be £100 per pair !

Some opticians don't charge for thinning. Maybe shop around and ask other opticians.

I think Asda do free thinning?

I am a -9.50 and I’ve been very short sighted my whole life. A -4 is quite significant so you definitely want them thinned as much as possible however you can also make the lenses look better by choosing a chunkier plastic frame as it will hide the edges of the lenses. Asda are the cheapest when it comes to thinner specs - but from my experience the lenses aren’t as good quality as specsavers or an independent opticians - I ended up having to return mine for a refund as I felt I couldn’t see properly. However, on similar threads I’ve seen nothing but praise for them so maybe I was just unlucky! (I do have a complex prescription - not just short sighted but also needed varifocal lenses and I have retinal issues, I pay £500 for my lenses through my local optician and they’re the best lenses I’ve ever had).

My DD is +5 and +8, this is the first pair of glasses where we’ve had any thinning. I got thinning this time as the +8 eye was an increase and that lens was going to be 1 cm thick! Only went for the lowest level of thinning, 1.56 I think and cost £50. This was at a small independent optician.

You can just get one lens thinned and the opticians I went to could tell me how thick each lens would be with each level of thinning so I would go in and have a chat to some opticians about the options.

Apologies I read your post as a -4, not. +4 🙈 but the rest of my waffle stands 😁

I paid £60 to have DD’s mahoosive lenses thinned with Vision Express.

£100 (£110) at specsavers is for top level thinning. That prescription would not require it (in actual fact, with a '+' prescription, the difference between 2nd/3rd level is not worth the extra cost (and can actually increase the weight).

How old/big is child? If they are small, they might not need it. I will definitely be thicker but a nice small, round frame (with eyes positioned centrally in the lenses) will do a better job at decreasing the thickness (have a google of lens blank sizes and decentration).

Asda definitely used to do thinning for free. Worth calling to check

Is your dc getting their glasses via a hospital prescription or from the optician?

Dd1 (15) has a very thick lense - can't remember exactly what but she's blind as a bat without her glasses. As a toddler she had a hospital script so that covered the cost of thinning. Because of her young age (2 years for first pair) and high prescription, she's always had ultra thinned to reduce the weight on her face. Now she is older and discharged from hospital optician we have to pay but we've only ever been charged half price for thinning, around £60 from memory - last year. She has always found a pair of frames covered by her nhs voucher though.

If you're on the hospital prescription, the code is I if the others are not appropriate. Check out the different voucher codes and costs here. If you're unsure, take the information to your prescribing optician.

We've used 2 different branches of specsavers, after trying some independent opticians unsuccessfully. The first branch needed telling every time that dd had a hospital script and all costs were covered by that. They argued even after the hospital had spoken to them to advise of the correct code.

The second branch bent over backwards to help and we've been with them ever since - 13 years and another 2 children in glasses. So in terms of costs, it's really fixed by the nhs costs and what your dc's prescription code is. But it helps to have that information when you speak to an optician in future.

Will it be a new prescription every few months? My DC has had regular reviews, and they look at how his eyes are adapting to the glasses, but only has his eyes tested for new glasses every 12 months.

Thanks all. She's 5 and new to glasses. We were given the wrong prescription to start with (+6.5) and I was shocked at the thickness, I don't want them that thick.

Wow ..1cm thickness 😦that's mad isn't it. They really should include it on the nhs!

Boots do kids thin lenses for £20 upgrade.
With a +4 it’s definitely worth it for weight as well as cosmetic.

Thank you, we're now under the hospital. I checked the first prescription we were given but they write on there what category, they gave us 'A' so wouldn't have covered thinning.

I'm not sure why we need such regular prescriptions. He wasn't comfortable with the high street opticians +6.5/+6, and said they were +4, which we would build up to. Its all new to me as we don't wear glasses!

You will need regular prescriptions to get dd's eyes used to corrected vision. If you go straight in with a strong prescription, it can be quite overwhelming.

Dd2 couldn't wear hers at all until they used a very low prescription and gradually increased it every 3 months. The change between what she was used to seeing, and what she was seeing with glasses was too much for her 8 month old brain to cope with.

Ds2 on the other hand, at 8 months, took to his glasses straight away and had them tweaked up until his eye surgery, when they were tuned down again.

It can be quite challenging to check a young child's vision, especially when they may barely know the alphabet and still mix letters up. Certainly until 6-7, dd2 was still using pictures to get a more accurate check of her vision.

We use boots. Always have and they have been brilliant. I pay around £80 for 2 pairs plus thinning.

Boots used to do it quite reasonably and yes I'd say you need it for a 4 myself.

Thanks all!

DS is on 5.5 lenses now - although not sure if that's + or -
He actually prefers them unthinned - he claims it's a better lens with glass rather than polycarbonate.
So, he's still on thick lenses.

My Foster son has +6.5 and +8 as he has terrible sight. I pay about £160 each new pair of glasses so he can have light glass. Also he plays a lot of sports so really needs the lighter glass. I know Boots told me they had to send his prescription to a specialist lab.

Wow it's expensive. I really feel for families that can't afford it or have more than one child. We ended up back in Specsavers today as the second pair had lost a screw. We picked up some sunglasses in her current prescription (since the sun has finally come out) and they did them half price which was great. In general I think the opticians aren't too bad, it seems thinning is a costly thing, but I'm going to ring around and check out prices/also check a local independent.

Optometrist here - I wouldn’t have them thinned at +4, just choose a nice plastic frame, which isn’t too big or small and ask them to use the optimum blanc size for the frame.
you need a dispensing optician - one trained to dispense glasses some specsavers have them, but you may need to call round.

These are my daughter’s specs - she’s currently +3.00 and +4.00

Ds is +6 and we haven’t moved to thinned lenses yet. We discussed it with Specsavers and they said for the difference it would make it wasn’t worth the cost. They are thick but not ridiculously so.

(I think they said it’s the - prescriptions that are more likely to be the ones that need thinning but I may be mis remembering that!)

Thanks a lot for the picture, that's really helpful!

@Sirzy her first pair (which were wrong, far too strong and too much for a first pair) were +6.5 and 6, they were so thick and made her eyes look huge, they were also really heavy, I don't know why they were so bad but it did worry me!

Would highly recommend tomato glasses. My son was +4.75 and +5.25 we had those thinned. He is now +3 and +4 haven't had thinning this time and cannot notice a difference. However, the tomato glasses fit so much better than the ones he had before from specsavers.
We have private prescription so no voucher but our local optician was £75 for frames £39 for lenses and another £30 when we had the thinning. There is a fb page kids in specs uk which gives great advice