Help! with a few questions about LENS SIZE...???

I've had the same glasses for about 10 years now. I had 2 pairs of
glasses made at Wal-Mart in 1998. One for distance, and one for
reading.

Well... I lost the "distance" glasses and still use the "reading"
ones. Funny thing is... the reading glasses now seem to not only
improve my reading vision, but also my distance vision.

Here are my questions.

1- How important is the size of the lenses to filling a prescription
correctly. My lenses are about 1 3/4" wide and 1 1/2" high. That's
OK... but I would prefer a smaller size lens the next time.

Is that possible? A much smaller lens? I do have some astigmatism in
both eyes so I was wondering if that factors in the lens size. Is
there any benifit for a larger lens? Such as a better field of
vision?

2- Is there a trend away from square or rectangular lenses? It seems
I see more and more lenses that are oval or have some "roundness" to
them. I like a "squarish" kinda lens.

Anyone who can shed some light on my questions would be very helpful
to me.

Thanks in advance.

~david~

 

Sounds like time for a new exam, and maybe new glasses.

I'll see if a can shed some light. I am not a vision professional, of
any kind, but I have worn glasses, of various types, strengths and
shapes since fourth grade. I am now 58. I have seen big lenses, small
lenses, round lenses, oval lenses and square lenses. As far as I can
tell, it's all cosmetic. Whenever the optician is pushing something,
the only explanation I can get is that anything else won't look right.
I have gotten glasses that were unwearable (think -12D huge lenses, as
that was the style). When I said that I wanted something different, the
optician said they wouldn't look right. I suspected that they had
nothing in stock.

 

If you get a progressive lens (distance and reading in the same lens) it
helps to keep the lens size as large as aesthetically possible, but many
people have very small progressive lenses. It is just a trade-off of the
size of the viewing area of the lens versus aesthetics.

You can usually go fairly small with a single vision lens without a big
problem.