Hi - I just wanted to share my recent experience with my eyes/opticians in the hope it will help others:
I wear glasses, but I've never had problems with my eyes in terms of irritation etc. One day in November (I can pinpoint the day) they began to be very tired and dry .
I left it a week or so, then I booked an appointment with the usual opticians - to investigate the problem and also have a sight test. I was told that I had dry eyes and they changed my prescription. I went away and bought the eyedrops recommended and ordered some new glasses.
Six weeks later my eyes were no better and my new glasses were causing me problems (I could see distance but not close up - this happened with new glasses only, I'd never had this problem before).
I phoned the opticians and they told me:
- they could only look at my eyes again if I paid for a health check because any problem should have been picked up at the previous appointment
- if I wanted to be re-tested they would charge me (despite me having concerns about the original prescription)
- dry eyes are something that I should just "get used to"
I wasn't happy about this because I'd gone to them with a problem, their suggested treatment had made no difference (I wanted to take out my eyeballs and scratch them it was so irritating) and in addition to that my new prescription was not right for me. I was passed backwards and forwards between shop assistants, supervisors etc who eventually spoke to an optician who reluctantly agreed to see me over a week later.
It turns out that I had an aggressive allergic reaction in both eyes - the first test hadn't looked under my eyelids, which would have shown this up. A couple of weeks with specific eye drops and things are significantly better.
My prescription was also causing me problems as it was apparently biasing distance sight at the expense of close sight - not sure if that's an obvious thing, but it was acknowledged that the second optician was more experienced than the first, so maybe a learning point for them. They've offered to check my lenses for free.
I'm pleased it's been resolved, but a bit miffed that they weren't originally going to check out my problems (without charge) when the original test didn't cover everything and when my eye sight difficulties were a direct result of their change to my prescription. I'm also annoyed that staff told me that I'd just have to "get used to" having dry eyes (when In fact I actually had a raging allergic reaction).
So I thought I'd put this on here in case anyone else has similar problems that aren't getting better, please stick to your guns and insist that you go back and are re-checked.