For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By Rob P
#1835103
Bill McCarthy wrote:... is laser correction a fading treatment nowadays - and does it affect flying medicals ?


No idea. Not something I have ever investigated. Mine was cataract surgery, checked with a well known AME beforehand.

Rob P
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By Charles Hunt
#1835179
Apart from anything else, I assume laser surgery can correct to give perfect long vision, but as our aged eye muscles have weakened we'd still need glasses for reading and/or the instrument panel.
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By Rob P
#1835182
I'd guess so. I know nothing of the lasik(?) procedures, but as I own several pairs of optician produced aviator sunnies with inset magnifier I am relaxed about my future, post-cataract aviating.

As best I can tell the instrument panel won't be an issue, but SD will need a little help. Particularly frequencies and the like.

Rob P
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By seanxair
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1847657
Well I'm giving up on my local optician as they can't produce a pair of varifocals that work. Latest attempt has right lens ok and left one does not have a single clear focus point on anything. Old ones produced by previous proprietor work better.

Has anyone here used Boots Varilux lenses by any chance?
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By OCB
#1847733
Find a properly qualified Ophthalmic surgeon.

No idea how you find one in the UK, but once Covid is a bit kinder on travel - I thoroughly recommend coming over here to Belgium and paying not too much money for a highly qualified professional to take a keek at your peekers (or is it peek at your keekers?).

The missus managed to find a gem here whilst looking for someone to deal with her extremely poor unaided eyesight - the surgeon she found has a research doctorate in ophthalmology, and has been our family “opthalmo” for 20 years.

The missus had surgery in the early 2000s, went from needing glasses to see the large display on her bedside clock - to hardly needing glasses at all. Don’t remember the term for the type of surgery - but in practical terms IIRC they sliced open the cornea, took a precise little triangle cut out of it then glued it all back together again.

Alas, the waiting time for seeing our opthalmo is about a year, but there is a decent network of them - and once you’ve managed to get your first appointment, it’s simply a case of scheduling things. 



She predicted with decent accuracy when I’d need varifocals. When that did happen, and it happened almost one night to the next, she did a fantastic job of doing my prescription - and also which specialist to see to have the glasses made.

I was a tad dubious - as it was a place in the fanciest part of Brussels, and I did challenge her on “why them”. She explained they had the best kit available for doing extremely precise varifocal measurements - she knew I had “flying” on my insurance - and wasn’t kidding when she said they had good customer service. I wouldn’t pay a penny until I had signed off the glasses did the job, and the first year was “fully comp” insured - both in terms of damage/loss or whatever to the glasses, and also if there had been a change in my eyesight and I needed a replacement prescription.

Expensive? Yes - but I have to begrudgingly admit “worth it”.

Don’t get me started on UK High Street Opticians…..
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By Rob P
#1847734
My experience of one High Street optician (Vision Express - Bury St Edmunds) has been 100% positive.

Rob P
By Bill McCarthy
#1847735
Just last week I got a pair of reading glasses and varifocals from Specsavers. When I picked them up I expected two pairs of each with their 2 for 1 offer that is in all their advertising blurb. Things do get expensive when you add on “superclean” and the scratch resistance. I’m not happy.
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By GrahamB
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1847737
Bill McCarthy wrote:Just last week I got a pair of reading glasses and varifocals from Specsavers. When I picked them up I expected two pairs of each with their 2 for 1 offer that is in all their advertising blurb. Things do get expensive when you add on “superclean” and the scratch resistance. I’m not happy.

All in the fine print, undoubtedly.

You should have gone to .... Oh, you did.
TopCat, Charles Hunt liked this
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By Rob P
#1847751
Bill McCarthy wrote:I expected two pairs of each with their 2 for 1 offer that is in all their advertising blurb.


GrahamB wrote:All in the fine print, undoubtedly.



With our 2 for 1 offer, you can buy a pair of glasses from our £69 range or above and get a second pair from the same range for free. If you decide a designer frame is more your style then your second pair can come from the same price range too.


I must confess I wouldn't have read it in the way @Bill McCarthy did, ordering two pairs and expecting four to arrive. But I can see where the confusion might have arisen. Not a gem of the copywriters' art.

Rob P
Last edited by Rob P on Tue May 18, 2021 2:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1847752
You get what you pay for .

I have attended for over thirty years a local opticians recommended by one of my former colleagues , a former consultant ophthalmological surgeon who also did contracted ‘out-patient’ sessions there for complicated ophthalmological cases and knew their set-up .

Not cheap by any means but all my specs from there were correct from the moment of delivery and never had to be returned or gave rise to a forum moan.

Like I said in my opening statement….. :wink:
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By OCB
#1847757
seanxair wrote:Well having paid just shy of £500 I'm expecting two lenses that work....


That's the unsavoury/dishonest aspect of that trade I dislike.

You can pay 500 quid, end up having expensive designer frames - but lenses that are well below your price-point expectation.

I admit I'm a utilitarian with near zero concept of "fashion" - but can live with a "fashion price supplement".

I cannot live with the concept that "fashion" becomes by far the largest proportion for such a fundamental tool, and other than my bliddy expensive varifocals - all my other bog-standard daily glasses are sourced via low-cost internet shops, costing as little as 7 euro a pair.
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By seanxair
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1847760
I've gone for cheap frames as well. Not a fashion item. I can't fault the service I've had in the shop but whatever is happening with lens making has been abysmal...
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1847790
Well - I've got "ordinary" short sightedness.
Last time they needed done, I got high street opticians to do the free checkup (free in Scotland), then took prescription to an online retailer who supplied glasses and at the same time re-lensed an old set of perfectly good frames with new prescription. They've both worked perfectly, in the same "designer" frames available from the high street, at a fraction of the cost.

I'm glad my eyes are "simple" in their errors!