Contact Lenses.....varifocal?

[harryandmarv]

I’ve had contact lenses before but not for a while and I’m thinking of giving them a go again, I think the reason I gave up or rather didn’t wear them a lot of the time was because I couldn’t get varifocal ones and my eye prescription had changed to varifocal. Having googled this I see you can get contact lenses in varifocals now? I also have astigmatism though and i’m not sure sure if this is maybe the reason why I didn’t carry on with my contact lenses, I know it was something. So along with the varifocal & astigmatism does anyone have contact lenses with these?

Me, although mine are called multi-focal so maybe not quite the same. I am about -5 shortsighted in each eye, and in the last year I now have a +1 addition for near vision. I tried wearing one lens to correct near sight and one for distance first - I can’t remember what this is called, mono-vision maybe? - but didn’t get on with that. This works really well for me, although the optician says you compromise on both being slightly imperfect. I have astigmatism in both eyes.

I wore dailies before, and stuck with that. I pay £41 a month. My glasses are still regular distance lenses, but I only wear them with my pyjamas really.

Yes you can get them. I haven’t but was told I need them (or by a cheap pair of varifocals from the pound shop when using my laptop).
Optician put me off the varifocal contact lenses by saying they may make you feel travel sick.

I trialed them and felt horrendously sick.

I have one lens which is near vision and one which is far. It works well for me

I tried the one lens distance, one lens reading for years. It worked until the difference between the 2 prescriptions became too great. I’m now wearing multi-focals and love them. It’s just like having ‘normal’ vision again.

I wear them and they are amazing. I have astigmatism too.

I trialled multi-focal ones and just didn't get on with them, so the optician gave me a different make to try. We did this 3 times and eventually it was 3rd time lucky because I found a make that was the best of both worlds for me.

It's annoying not to have perfect vision but it really is close enough to cope. So cope I do!

@Iknowtheanswer

My optician at Specsavers told me that you couldn't get varifocal lenses that correct astigmatism too. Would you mind telling me which ones you have and where you got them from?

@pomacentrus I was going to ask the same thing. My optician (independent not one of the big chains) said the same, so I have one varifocal lens and one toric lens

I have multifocal lenses, and they work really well, although took some getting used to. I find them harder to wear after a few days of just wearing glasses (as my brain has to get used to them again). The way my optician explained it is that multifocals have concentric rings of near and far vision, so your brain has to “learn” to stitch the full scene together.

I've got an astigmatism in one eye.
My prescription has been around -1.75 in both eyes for years until my near vision started to deteriorate in my late 40s last year.
Lots of to-and-froing to the optician last year, took about 6 months due to covid.

Initially tried me with multi-vision (optician explained this as a standard lense with dots of the lesser prescription within it). These were hopeless for me, I couldn't see near or far.

Then tried mono-vision, this is standard lenses but you have your normal prescription in your dominant eye and a lesser prescription in the other.
This worked for me but we had to mess around to get the balance right, which took the time.

I can now see distance, TV, pc screen & reading all fine.

We did try with no lense in my short eye but that wasn't quite good enough. The optician said that might be the solution in the future as my near sight deteriorates more.

My mum has had mono-vision lenses for about 20 years. She is either -6 or -12 with the lesser eye being half the normal prescription.

Thanks everyone so there is hopefully some kind that will work, but could be expensive! The ones I had before were just prescription toric ones, not varifocal or anything, which we’re fine for my distance vision & wearing to go out for walks etc but not brilliant for reading/texting and I certainly couldn’t drive with them in.

Mono-vision are no more expensive, as they are just standard lenses (or toric if that's needed) of differing prescription.
I've ended up with -1.75 in my dominant eye and -0.75 in the other (both eyes -1.75 for distance).

Good luck.

I have monovision (one eye slightly undercorrected) with one toric lens for astigmatism. It works well for me but I do have to tweak the prescriptions every now and then (been using this method for about 15 years now). I don't think you can get multi-focal lenses strong enough for me - I'm wearing -10 in both eyes and that is undercorrected for one of them.

My current glasses prescription is right -4.00 and left - 3.25 but I know contact prescription is different. I can vaguely remember for my old contacts (going back 2-3 years) it was something like -2.00 and -1.75 but I could be wrong, I remember those numbers though!

My prescription is very similar to yours. I go to an independent optician and trialling the various lenses was free. I tried varifocal ones to fit my prescription but felt unsafe while driving as the distance vision was less good. We then tried removing some of the reading power but that didn't quite work either. The solution of having one eye corrected for distance and the other for reading sounds bizarre but does work well for me. I do have astigmatism but this is not corrected by the lenses. I still use readers (cheap, off the shelf) if the light is not bright enough, or if I am tired. It is worth a try but you may need to persevere. I don't wear contact lenses as much in the winter as in the summer when I want to wear sunglasses.

I had monovision lenses which worked for years but became less effective and was moved to varifocals.

I got used to the varifocals pretty quickly and they are fine most of the time. I find they are not great for far distance for example, if I'm hill walking not done that for a while my vision isn't as sharp as I'd like. I keep a set of distance lenses for that (and carry cheap reading glasses)

Also, in recent years I find I just can't trust the varifocals for night driving and keep distance glasses in the car.

I did try varifocal glasses but they made me feel very dizzy. Tried to persevere but gave up.

Can you wear contact lenses and then wear glasses for close up/ using computer?

I’m an optician. There will be options for you op but a lot will depend on your prescription, mainly how high your astigmatism is. Multifocal (varifocal) contact lenses are better than they used to be but won’t work for everyone. A good optician can take the time to help you work out the best plan. Independent opticians often have access to a wider range of products for you to try than a chain optician might have.

I have Clariti multifocals and they have been a game changer for me. They are daily and cost around £40 a month but worth every penny and were good from day one.

I have varifocal glasses and daily contacts that are one reading eye one distance which works well for me as I am +5.5 and +1.0. No trouble switching between. I prefer the lenses to glasses especially as I have dry eyes. Had to try a few options before settling on this. Good luck finding what works for you.

So I have been to the opticians today.i have a trial pair of contacts in, monocision, so one eye for near & one eye distance and I type the text is blurry, it’s like I’m not wearing my glasses or contacts! But as I can read and type it’s not a problem, but the text is blurry. My distance vision is ok.

My near vision contact does have to be tweaked a bit so they are ordering another one for me to try.

I have a few pairs to last for a few days, so I will persevere and see how I get on. I did mention varifocal contact lenses but she mentioned they don’t do them for my prescription- something about my astigmatism and they aren’t available to them yet.

I’ll see how I go with these. She did say they were around £39 a month depending on how many you purchase in a month. If I’m looking for contact lenses to wear instead of my glasses more then I really want them to do a better job than this and if this is as good as these get then they are not worth the £39 a month, I’d rather have bog standard contacts for distance & just wear them for whenever I don’t need to wear glasses.

OP mono should just be having two different lens strengths so that sounds really expensive. I wouldn’t have had any change from my regular distance prescription cost if that had worked for me. The cost really shot up with the multi-focals - I have the Clariti ones per pp.

I go to an independent optician and find they really do take time with me, and are happy to try different options with no charge. I was back and forth for tweaks over about a month, until we were both happy with the outcome.

Just to add, I can see the text on my phone better without the contacts in! So my near vision is definitely failing with these contacts, but i’ll continue to try them.

I've got astigmatism in both eyes and a prescription of -3.5 for both. I wear a -3.5 lens in one eye and -3.5 with +1 in the other. It took some getting used to but it's fine now.