Just got some new glasses, but I can't see any better. Possibly worse actually!

[pleasenotmondayagain]

I am now the owner of a pair of reading glasses to correct middle age presbyopia.

When I collected the glasses they gave me a 'test' card to read and I said that I could read the same with the glasses as I could without the glasses. The staff member suggested that with a weak prescription (+1.00) the difference in sight between glasses and no glasses will be fairly minor, but that wearing the glasses would make it less likely that my eyes get tired.

I've been experimenting at home, and I'm now wondering if the glasses actually make my vision worse. I was slouching over a recipe book in the kitchen today with my face closer to the table in order to see the words properly. Being more upright just made the page look blurry.

Do my eyes need some time to get used to the glasses and a different reading position? Maybe I've just got used to reading things at a distance. I've just tried reading a magazine and moving the page in and out from my face and the text does seem clearer but only when unnaturally close.

They may be too strong if you're having to get closer to get the clear focal point. Ring the opticians and explain your issue and ask them to book you a recheck. It should be straightforward to sort out.

Doesn't sound right at all.

Have they mixed up your glasses with someone else's?!

You should be able to find +1 prescription pair of glasses in the pharmacy for a couple of quid to compare with your ones.

Hi OP not that long ago I went for an eye test and then picked up my glasses. I wore them for a week thinking I would get used to them as everyone told me but I felt like it was worse. I took them back and it turned out they had put + instead of - on my prescription. Definitely take them back!

Thanks. It doesn't sound as if there is much point in waiting to query whether these are the right set up for me. The suggestion about the focal point makes sense. It is possible that the prescription isn't entirely accurate - at times during the eye examination I really couldn't see which set-up was better so my answers may have been less than consistent! The clear focal point is certainly closer with the glasses though. How close is 'normal' or is that a very personal thing? I don't think I'm doing that arm-at-maximum-extension-to-read-the-label thing that DM did in her pre-glasses days

It has taken me several weeks to realise why my new gas permeable contact lenses felt so wrong and why I had all sorts of strange vision problems.

Testing with just one lens at a time became clear both lenses are for the right eye and neither are for the left. This was proved by putting one of the new lenses in my right eye and an old spare left lens in my left and all the problems have gone away. Mistakes do happen.

Thank you for the advice. I went back to the shop and had a chat with the desk staff who fetched one of the other opticians. They checked what I could read on the test card with the new glasses, and then held up lenses in front of the glasses to adjust their strength. On that basis they agreed that the original prescription seems too strong and said that many people wouldn't bother with glasses.
I need to see the original optician who will recheck, and decide whether I'd benefit from glasses with the weaker prescription, perhaps for occasional use, and sort out free replacement lenses.
I'm okay with that I think, but I paid a fair amount for the original glasses and lenses on the basis that I'd be wearing them a lot of the time. If one eye is perfect and the other 0.25, and we are down to 'occasional use' I'm not sure if I would have made the same decision.

My reading prescription is about +1 and I have never really got on with my reading glasses so don’t tend to wear them, they don’t seem to really make my vision any better. If I need to read anything really small I just use a magnifying glass, I keep one in my drawer at work.

Thanks redriver
One of my colleagues does something similar with her mobile phone - photograph the text and expand it on the screen. She has reading glasses but doesn't get on with them because the range at which they are comfortable for reading is limited. She doesn't carry them around with her like she does with her phone. It depends how much small-time reading you do during the day I suppose.
My eyes sometimes feel tired after a lot of computer use. A magnifying glass won't help with that, but the environment does - if I'm working at home it tends not to happen.