Instructions on what not to do with your progressive glasses
- Do not clean them dry
- do not leave your natural posture in your neck while you are looking at your PC
- do not leave them in the car in the summer
- do not use clothes to clean
- do not clean them with hot water
- avoid putting them off with one hand
- avoid cleaning agents except for the expelled ones
- do not place them on the lens surface
- don’t place them on a seating
- do not just perform eye movements to look somewhere
Instructions on what you should do with your progressive glasses
- clean them with lukewarm water and a rinsing agent
- if your progressives do not fit your visual need of the situation, switch to another pair of glasses
- take your lenses with you, if you don´t wear them put them in a hard case
- put them on and off with both hands
- always place them on the temples as you want to put them down
- Try to wear them as much as you can in the beginning (If it makes sense)
- point your nose a little bit more in the direction you want to look at
Cleaning Your Progressives Dry Is a No Go
On the surface, you will always find some little dust or other particles. If you rub the surface to get rid of which is mostly skin fat you will scratch the surface a tiny bit every time you do this. With this happens a few times per day over a year or two the coating will be destroyed. First, you see some starbursts at night when driving with your progressives on and cars come towards you. Then the coating peals of. And you do not have an anti-reflective coating anymore.
Usually, a few months before this happens so many tiny scratches are on the surface that you can´t clean them properly. So always rinse lukewarm water to get the particles washed away. And then get the rinsing agent to free your lenses from the fat.
Do Not Leave Your Natural Posture in Your Neck While You Are Looking at Your PC
Progressive glasses provide a tiny zone that holds the prescription for the PC distance. What we see often when people use their PCs a lot is an unnatural posture. They place their chin up to use the tiny zone for the PC. In those cases, the misuse of progressive glasses can lead to neck pain. (we have a whole article on how to avoid that) That usually happens with wearers of progressive lenses that are older than fifty. because they rely more on the reading power even if they are not looking at a distance that is super close.
So watch your posture a little bit as you perform your daily routines. Do you position your neck in a weird way to be able to watch television with your progressives? If you want to perform very detailed work is it may be better to switch to reading glasses? Do not force yourself to wear them in every situation. Progressive lenses are an incredible tool but they are far from perfect. So think of the second pair of glasses to get the best vision in those situations.
Leaving your progressives in the car can lead to little splits in the coating
The coatings of progressive glasses are really weak in handling the heat. If heat is applied and in the summer your car gets pretty warm the material of your progressive lenses does not expand as much as the coating does. This, of course, results in a broken lens coating which is irreversible. First, you do not notice much of a difference. But with every cleaning, the coating now erodes a little bit more until it begins to peel off.
Your clothes may feel super soft but it still to rough for your progressive lenses
A lot of people use their shirts or pullovers to clean their glasses. But what we did see is that people that do this definitely have to replace their lenses sooner. You are just scratching the coating a tiny bit as you use your clothes. First, you are rubbing the particles on the surface around and next is the clothes themselves. The surface will get dull very slowly but it will happen.
Avoid Putting Them off with One Hand
If you are putting your progressive lenses on and off just by holding one temple the frame will go out of shape over time. And it happens in an asymmetrical way. Over time the distances and angles change maybe you will not recognize it directly but if the lenses are not sitting right your vision probably could be better. And you do not stress the material which can lead to a broken frame sooner.
Avoid Cleaning Agents When You Want to Clean Your Progressives
As we mentioned before your coating on the lens is pretty sensitive. If you use cleaning agents that contain solvents like alcohol your coating will get broken over time. We saw these dozens and dozens of times. When wet cleaning cloths are used on a regular basis and they contained alcohol. The coating suffered damage. There are some you can use. But watch out for the alcohol in it. If you are not sure do not buy it. Just use lukewarm water instead and in combination with it a rinsing agent.
Do Not Place Them on the Lens Surface
This one seems to be pretty obvious but most people get this wrong. As soon as you lay your lenses on the surface you can see tiny scratches. And this one is a biggy. Do not put something other than your microfiber into your Hardcase. A lot of people want to take their prescriptions printed out with them and they place the little sheet of paper in the hard case.
What happens is that the lens surface gets scratched by the paper every time the lens moves in the case. Often times the same happens if you place them in your pocket when the zipper is near to your progressives. Just watch out for those little things. A little attention can save you a lot of money.
Always Put Your Progressives in a Secure Spot
You can not imagine how many broken glasses I had to repair (if it was even possible) over the last 15 years. The lenses were placed on the rooftop of the car, they got washed in the pocket of a jacket, someone sits on them and on and on. Really most of this was avoidable. So get you a secure spot in your environment as you do not wear them and do not leave them anywhere else.
Switch Glasses If Your Progressives Can Not Do the Job
Progressive glasses give you the ability to switch from near to distance vision without the hassle of switching to another pair of glasses. They can do this while you maintain an upright posture. If your neck and shoulders are relaxed you should be able to see clearly with your progressives in the distance. That’s why normal progressives are not made to be used with a normal PC screen that sits on the height of your head.
Because it forces you into a position where you need to lean back your head so you can look through a part lower in the lens. And that part gives you the support for reading what’s on the screen. In such a case just switch to office lenses. They provide you a lot more field of view for the screen. Furthermore, you can see clearly while maintaining a normal head and neck position. The same is true for TV.
A wearer of progressive lenses often tries to get in all kinds of positions to use their progressives glasses while they are heavily leaned back into the couch. Just do not try this. It is a pleasure to use single vision lenses instead. You can position your head as angular to the TV as you want and you can see sharp.
Point Your Nose a Little Bit More in the Direction You Want to Look At
Of course, you can get individualized progressive lenses that make it easier for you to wear those glasses. But one thing people do have to learn is to perform more head movements while are looking at something instead of just performing eye movements. This is probably the most important instruction I can give you. When you are used just using your single vision lenses you did not experience any restrictions in your field of view.
With your first pair or your new stronger pair of progressive glasses this changes. The blurry sides in the lower part of the lenses will force you to perform more head movements. In the beginning, you are using old movement patterns and you will be mostly looking through the wrong areas. But within a few days, you will understand how to move and things start to go easier.
Walking the Stairs like a Pro with Your Progressive Lenses
When you are not used to walking the stairs with your progressive lenses you can get irritated easily by the blurry and distorted stairs you see. This experience is vastly dependent on the reading power you need in your progressives. The more lens power they have the blurrier the stairs get. If you are walking the stairs the stairs are blurry no matter what. because as you are looking down you are looking straight through the reading zone.
The easy way is to look at the stairs before you want to walk them. Just a few steps before arriving, look at them see how they are built, and then just walk the stairs. And do not look down. When you think about it. You probably did not do this with your single vision lenses anyhow.
When I am looking at people they are not standing on the stairs and scanning the structure and the built of watch step. They just walk on it. Maybe do yourself a favor and grab the handrail in the first few days.
Give Yourself Time to Get Used to Progressive Glasses
With all the information here in this article, you should know by now that adaption will take a little while until you are familiar with your progressives. Do not expect to get everything right by the first time. Those glasses can do a lot for you but just nailing your head and eye positions when using them for the first time will just not be the case. For some people, it takes only a few days to get used to them for other people it means a time of adaption for many weeks.
Straight lines may appear bent with your progressives
In progressives lenses you have different prescriptions form the upper to the lower part. That can lead to an unrealistic perception of straight things. As you approach your desk you may experience it as arched. It does not have to be that way and it is highly dependent on your prescription. This effect will disappear with time and you experience straight lines as straight again. But this also takes time.
See That the Progressive Glasses Are Carefully Adjusted to You
All the time I hear things like you need to adjust to the lenses and force yourself to wear them but it is not all on you. It is also the optician’s job to adjust the frame as perfect as possible to your nose and your ears. Those glasses have special points where you are supposed to look through. When they are sitting in an angular way in your face you can not expect to get used to them or to have the best vision.
So watch the distances of the frame to your face is it symmetrical. How are the nose pads adjusted? Do they place the frame right in the middle of your nose or does the frame sit a little bit more sideways? All those aspects can change your vision. So make sure when you get your new glasses the opticians just take their time to go over the spots where the frame touches your face.
Look in the mirror and see your pupils have the same distance to your upper and lower frame. Symmetry is king when it comes to your progressives. Just be a little more cautious about the lenses and how it sits. If it slides down the distance to your eyes will be increased and the field of view you get out of your progressives will get smaller as the distances get bigger to your face. So do yourself a favor and visit your optician when questions come up.