My frustrating eyesight.

[PrettyCandlesAndTinselToo]

Why do the optometrists say I have good corrected vision and the correct prescription, when I find it a struggle to focus and never feel that I am seeing clearly?

I can just about manage to read the second line up from the bottom of the chart (with my glasses on, obviously) but I cannot focus on anything detailed. Eg I struggle to read teletext and I cannot recognise faces at a distance.

This is so frustrating. I feel like my world is getting so pinched and small.

are you getting older? over 40? some people find that as they get older it gets a lot harder to change focus between different things. the mimute i turned 40 this became a severe problem for me.

I would go back to the optician. If you have the correct prescription surely you should be able to read comfortably.

I think the amount of light in the room also makes a bigger difference as you get older.

I completely sympathise with your frustration, I had perfect eyesight, quite amazingly good until the age of 45. I am finding it very hard to adjust to being short sighted.

I had problems like this when I went to a different optician and they dispensed my prescription.

I struggled for about two years then went to another optician who told me that the shape of the lens was affecting my vision. The previous optician had tried to make it too thin or flat or something.

The new opticians dispensed my prescription and I've been fine.

Perhaps you should go somewhere else.

I think my optometrist is good. She's the senior one at the practice, has changed prescriptions her colleagues gave me, and I now refuse to see anyone else. She also sent me to a specialist optician to double-check.

It's a bit like trying to describe a flavour - Jilly Whatsername, Oz Clarke etc, with their blackberry ov ertones and a subtle hint of burnt tyres, and so forth. How to describe my vision?

Maybe go to your GP and ask to be referred to an opthalmologist (specialist eye doctor)? It is possible that you have an eye problem that is beyond the expertise of an optician? Nothing to lose by having it checked out.