Anyone wear varifocal contact lenses?

[Chancer]

An update on my situation.

The opticien who was helping me with my DIY attempts to find the right contact lenses suggested I contact an ex colleague of his who has recently set up as an independant optométriste, it turns out he is the son of my médecin traitant.

The whole métier is un polémique, not recognised, not remboursed but despite that I am a very very happy Chancer.

This guy having  to win clients against a state subsidised Monopoly is all the things that the optahlmos at my eye hospital were not, à l'ecoute, really understanding and loves to use the word feeling, from the get go I was really optimistic and had confidence in him, his selection of those glasses in frames thingies they used gave me far better vision than I ever got at the hôpital and he wasn't just concerned about me reading letters on a chart at 5m, could I see the brick joints on the basilique in the background? Could I read a piece of paper on a desk a few feet away, could I see things on shelves etc, both in good and poor lighting.

 

His initial consultation lasted a good hour and cost €45 or €55, cant recall including €10 for lentilles d'essaie (which he doesnt pay for but its the ordering time etc) he came up with a proposal for varifocal contacts with an astigmatism correction but being sur mésure they were not cheap.

I talked with him about having just one lens in my right eye to give me (corrected) monovision, all the pros in France are told its a no-no but he was interested to learn that thats exactly what I have had since my eye surgery, so he ordered a trial single lens with astigmatism correction to try before going to the full monty, he explained that whilst my astigmatism was too small to be corrected with contacts because my prescription was also quite mild it the stigmatism was assez consequent par rapport l'ordinance (cant express that in English).

Today I tried the lens and it is superb, far better than all of my glasses used individually, the close, the mid range and the long vision ones, it is like I have been reborn again again [:D] at my running training tonight I could see people I have known for several years in a completely new light as it were, I can type at my computer, read stuff further along the table and Watch the TV some 5m away all at the same time.

To be able to wear my old uncorrected Ray Ban sunglasses again was an absolute joy.

 And cerise sur le gateau, we are not even there yet, some slight changes might even yield better results, today I was reading 15/10 at 5 metres and I thought that 10/10 was the highest one could go!

It cost only €10 today which was not nearly enough, I must have words with him, I go back for another examination next week and then maybe another change of lens, it will cost some money for sure but I am 100% happy to be paying it, in fact I would pay 10 times as much for the results and the service even knowing that it isnt remboursable.

So if you are unhappy with how the opthalmos in France treat you as I was, apart from the clinical and surgical work where they are superb, then dont hesitate to try an optométriste.

[Judith]

optométriste.

Chancer, is this somewhat like a dispensing optician in the UK ... like you, I am happy enough with my opthahlmo (he did my cataracts after all) but interestingly at his last control he did not pick up a small change in astigmatism which my sister's extremely good optician did in the UK ... I'm wearing that new prescription for reading (and typing this) and whilst in day to day life it is not too bad, it is much better for the computer. 

I also find here that opticians here (ie the ones you have to buy your specs from) are not always very good at fitting especially varifocals ... even if now my prescription is nothing like it used to be, the astigmatism still needs them to fit correctly) and so many opticians in France do not understand this it seems.  I am happy to have found a good fitter, but they are few and far between.

But brill news that you can see so well again - I do very much understand where you are coming from!

[Chancer]

I know tha sun has only just arrived in Picardie for its brief 2 day summer appearance but everything seems so much brighter!!!

Mine was only a small correction for hypermétropie and astigmatisme and I had supposedly correct glasses albeit the prescription was from the opthalmo but wearing this single lens, no other correction for the other eye which is massively short sighted everything is so much clearer and brighter.

I am and will be working 24/7 all this summer so am very tired, I Wake up after a good nights sleep refreshed but after 1/2 hour I felt tired again, it was my eyes either tiring me or the gloomy vision making me feel tired, today there is none of that at all.

I had one prescription done at the hospital, the examination was done by internes and the opthalmo signed it, it looked completely wrong to me and it was, I went to an opticienne friend here and sho tested me and gave me her prescription on a post it note, it was exactly the same as the one done by boots opticians in the UK and nothing like what the hospital had given me, It may even have been for another person.

The opticians here are dead scared of doing eye tests, the eye hospital wont do  a contrôle de vision any more and has a sign up saying you must go to an ophtalmo de ville of which there are none, this optométriste is the one doing all the eye tests but seemingly he is not allowed to give out prescriptions and the Secu wont rembourse for glasses made to the ordonnance, its a stupid can of worms where the most competent person I know is not actually allowed to practice. 

 

[Chancer]

An update, I am still seeing the optométriste trying different lenses etc, its a slow process to get it right and:or the right compromise so definitely something that the impatient opthalmos at the hospital could not do, its only costing me €10 per consulatation with the optométriste which isnt really enough.

Interesting to read my last post about being tired and the new lens waking me up, that one lasted a month then I had another to try and some dailies none of which worked and I have been tired and unenthusiastic until today when I am once again wearing a lens which is 90+ % correct, but it has been a long tiring summer of attrition so who knows!

A couple of things to recount, the dailies are very fine and hard to remove, sometimes they dissapear when removing them, are they in the sink or still somewhere in the eye? You would think no to the latter but after all the eye ops I am pretty desensitised and support wearing lenses really well, never any discomfort, after losing said lens I had a liitle itching from Under the upper eyelid but could not see anything there, after 5 hours including a 10K running session I could still feel something, frightened to go to bed for the night in case it was in there i went and sought help from a contact wearing friend, it was folded in half and wedged tight right in the cul de sac as the optometriste calls it! - Unbelievable how desensitised I am.

The other was my final lenses, a pack of 6 monthly toric ones that I collected while the optometriste was on Holiday, put one in and it really didnt feel right, it was doing something but not much, I had to wear my glasses over the top, tried it for a week and then gave up, had a RDV with him today, wore the lens and told him of the problems, did all the tests and he was very worried about my sudden vision loss from 12 tenths (never could undersrand that one) to 7 tenths, could I be diabetic etc? Tested without the lens and I was as before, could it be the lens? are all the others also faulty? opned another packet tried the lens and bingo all is well again.

These things are complicated enough to get right without having faulty ones, it could be another 4 months before I know if there is another faulty one in the batch.