Best Optical Properties

 

Been wearing glasses more than sixty years.  Some technical and economic transitions along the way.  Economical to expensive, plastic frames of mostly gray to metal to rimless in the lower half, single prescription to bifocal progressives, glass to plastic.  My current ones are the least functional that I've had.  When I take them off the world looks brighter.  My optometrist told me that there have been some advances in lenses with better optical properties than Costco, my usual source, offers.  A quick query to the WWW brought me to a plastic called trivex, and also informed me that glass lenses still have the best optical corrections and are still available, but have become a small part of the market due to some of their downsides.

In any case, my world brightens every time I remove my glasses.  Healthy eyes though maybe a year or two away from having lens implants/  The coated polycarbonate lenses that I have filter out too much light.  With prescription in hand, off to Costco, the largest provider of lenses that bypasses some Italian fellow whose monopoly of other major retailers extorts unreasonable prices.  I asked the optical agents at Costco about glass and trivex. They didn't know what trivex was, which is a bad sign for eye professionals in this era.  I thanked them, saved $60 by having no reason other than bifocals discount to purchase a Costco membership, and drove on.  

Nearer my home, there was what I thought was an independent optician, which turned out to be part of another chain.  I do not know their relation to that Italian extortionist, but I stopped there to see what my options were.  They had access to everything, with an agent who can guide me.  I wanted to see better.  Price only a secondary consideration.  They have all the materials, including glass which I did not know could be ordered with progressive prescriptions, though not with rimless.  I chose trivex, picked a new frame, selected an optical option that gives me best peripheral vision, and got gouged for the coatings, anti-reflective and scratch resistant.  Adding machine came to $519, but I just want to see as well as technology will allow.  For now that's high-end lenses.  Not too far into the future, that's probably with surgical lens implants.