For many years I've needed to wear glasses. I can see OK without them but not clearly. It first became apparent when I was driving and it was difficult to see the highway signs clearly until I was almost passing them. Before that all signs for distance to the next town or even the speed limit signs were becoming noticeably blurry until I was less than 100 ft near them. Had my eyes checks and went right to bifocals, so I ended up with progressive lenses for my first pair and also since... until just 4 years ago.
I found out that since I was retired military I could get lined bifocals from the Navy Ophthalmology Department... for free! They did not offer progressive lenses for retired persons so I decided to try the lined bifocals and also bought a pair of progressive glasses locally. I could get a new free pair from the military every 2 years. I decided I liked the military glasses since they do NOT have AR coatings applied on them which I always found to start flaking off after about 1.5 years. I know there are some glasses with coatings that are better quality but I'm cheap and not about to pay the prices for those. And since the military glasses do not have such coatings and were actually better quality than any other glasses I bought I decided to try going with just the lined bifocals from the military. It was the lined bifocal bit that had me most concerned and was the only detail I didn't like about them, but the last 2 years with only those I found that they were not so bad. I found that I was able to see clearly through the distance part of the lens for reading the road and signs on the road, and see the dash clearly through the lower near part. All without moving my head.
BUT I could not use lined bifocals to work on my computer since I found myself needing to lean forward and tilt my head back to read my computer screen which ended up giving me a sore neck. So I would continue to wear my old progressive glasses for any computer work.
Well, aging continues to take its toll and also with different bikes and cars as well as still trying to read the computer screen. And my old progressive glasses are getting so out of my current prescription as well as getting so scratched up and flaked that they are getting harder and harder to use.
I had a vision checkup last week to update my prescription and talked about what I can do to make the computer screen easier to see with the bifocals. I also talked about how the bike and car instruments are a bit farther out than they used to be and also hard to see. I needed to focus on those things at somewhere between the distance and near sections of the lined bifocals. I asked if I needed
TRIfocals now or if progressive lenses were the only way to do what I needed. The vision doc told me that trifocals are about the same as progressive lenses. The only difference is the smooth blend of progressives but they really do the same that trifocals would do since I wanted to continue to get my glasses from the military. Did I mention that I'm cheap?
So I ordered my military trifocals last week and expect to have them next week. 🤓
Anyone else use, or have used, lined bifocals or trifocals?
