How choosing a pair of glasses is like buying a shoe

You’re at the shoe store, scanning the aisles for a new pair of dress shoes. You spot a pair you like — dark blue ones in a nice suede material — and find that they have them in your size. You grab the box off the shelf, and since you’re in a hurry, you briefly consider going straight to the counter with it. Not wanting to be too reckless, you quickly take the shoes out and try them on. As you expected, they fit fine, so you put them back in the box and check out.

One successful trip to the shoe store later, your new pair of shoes are sitting in the closet. You bring out them out for a special occasion, a date marked on your calendar with a big red X. When it comes, you wear a sharp suit with the shoes to match. But you’re only a few steps out the door when you feel your feet starting to hurt. By the time you’ve taken the elevator down to the lobby, you’ve concluded that the shoes are unwearable. Somewhat embarassed, you settle for that old pair with the wine stain on them.

The disappointment of the day’s events has taught you this: try walking with the shoes on in the store. To modify an old saying: you won’t know if the shoe fits, until you actually wear it.

Now, what’s true of shoes is also true of glasses. Think back to your last eye exam. Do you remember peering into a machine and seeing a barn or hot-air balloon? As the image went in and out of focus, the instrument was taking a measurement called the autorefractor. This number is a rough estimate of the prescription that will eventually be put in your glasses. It’s something like your shoe size: it gives a general idea of the glasses you’ll end up getting.

Later on, a large metal device called the phoropter would have been brought to your face as you looked at a faraway letter. Using the autorefractor as a starting point, the doctor then looked for the right combination of lenses that would make the letter look as clear as possible. Those lenses would later be put into your glasses. This step, called the subjective, is like finding your size on the shoe-box.

Relying only on the subjective measurement for your glasses prescription is only as good as putting on a pair of shoes while you’re sitting down. You gauage your comfort with the lenses while you’re stationary: sitting back and holding your head still as you through a phoropter. But just as shoes are made for walking, glasses are made for looking around. Among other things, we wear glasses when we drive, play sports, and read books, all of which involve the movement of our head and body. So wearing glasses that were based solely on the subjective is like buying shoes without having walked in them first.

It’s no wonder, then, that some patients don’t end up liking their glasses. They recieve the wrong prescription because, like our hypothetical shoe-buyer, they didn’t try on their product before wearing it. Sometimes, their vision isn’t as clear as it was during the exam. Other times, the glasses simply make them feel uncomfortable, which can even lead to eyestrain or headaches in some cases. Either way, the patient will have to schedule another appointment and repeat their exam, leading to further delays in getting the right pair.

At Vision Specialists, we let you trial-frame your glasses before you buy them. We fit you with an exact copy of your future prescription and invite you to stand up, walk around, and look in all areas of your environment. This step is akin to walking around in a pair of shoes: it lets you know with more certainty that the prescription will be comfortable for you.

Vision is an active process that involves the coordinated movement of our eyes, neck, and torso. For that reason, it’s sometimes the case that sitting back and looking at a phoropter — how you’re seeing during the subjective — isn’t enough to find the right prescription. In some cases you need to recreate the activities you’ll be doing when you wear your glasses.

Trial-framing is one of the things that makes eye exams at Vision Specialists more comprehensive. We practically live in our glasses, and finding the right prescription often comes down to a single appointment a year. You owe it to yourself to make that appointment as thorough as possible. Schedule your next annual eye exam at Vision Specialists.