Spectacle and Contact Lens Perscriptions
for Special Uses

Commonly, prescriptions are written from the perspective of what type of lens is going to cover the greatest of the patients needs on an everyday basis with just one pair of glasses. However, certain tasks may be made much easier to perform with a special prescription designed for the task. Painting on an easel, tying flies for fishing, playing the piano/organ or use of a computer are just some examples. This becomes increasingly more probable as we lose our ability to focus and we perform these tasks for longer period of times. Typically, this starts be come a higher concern from our mid 40's and up.

The Dr. does not know in advance, if you require a special pair of glasses for all your tasks. People have different tolerances and work on these tasks for various amount of time with their everyday pair of glasses just fine. Your level of frustration at the specific task would determine the need for a special prescription.

If you find that you are frustrated, see if you can adjust the heights and distance/s with the task to make your frustration go away. If you can do this and you are comfortable, you do not need a special pair of glasses. However, if you cannot, your frustration is saying a special pair of glasses would work better for you. If this is the case, return to the office with your measured distance/s to your task. In the case of computer work, bring the measured distance from your eye to the monitor screen, to the keyboard and to your input area. It should just take a few minutes based on your prescription, frustration and distances to figure out what would work for you.

The above also holds true for contact lens wearers. As an example, take a contact lens wearer that has a mono-vision set up that is causing frustration only when they are bicycling in races. A simple solution would be to fit both eyes for the distance when the races are on and away from there; we stay in the mono-vision set up.

Additional consideration needs to be made to the following areas:

• BACK UP GLASSES


• SAFETY GLASSES


• SPORTS GLASSES


• GLASS VERSUS PLASTIC LENSES


• SUNGLASSES VERUS PHOTOCHROMATIC LENSES