specsavers have my prescription/nhs voucher question (and contact trial question)

suki1964

Midnight_Tboy wrote: »

Just because tescos site says free eye tests....nothing about contact lens eye tests being excluded.......anyways...

i suppose best bet re contact lenses is basically sticking with a direct debit for 6 months or more or however long it takes to get settled....then once settled I can then look elsewhere.

Are the direct debits monthly though, or quarterly?

As presumably if you bought 3 months supply at a time, then they wanted you to change, there'd be a lot of waste lenses. Monthly would of course be better

But you wouldnt be needing to buy them untill your tial is done. For some its the first pair of lenses that they were trailed that they are happy with and go on to have prescribed, for others like myself it can take up to 8 attempts before everyone is happy. Until you and your optician are both happy with fit and vision, you are still trialing - and not paying.

Even now we have finally ( fingers crossed ) have the prescription right, I still ended up with two free months worth of lenses and wont actually be needing to open the new boxes for a while yet.

The only reason you would be changing lenses months down the line would be if like me to started not being able to tolerate the ones you have. In my case it was back to specsavers and back to trialing and a full refund on the unopened 3 month supply I had sat at home - no money wasted at all

GlasweJen

TheSavingGuru wrote: »

I find the best place to buy new glasses online is speckfoureyes they are amazing and have great prices. You will need your full prescription and also need to ask for your pupil distance as this os something they don't normally put on your prescription.

:-)

I never give out PD to people who ask for it. 3 reasons:

The NHS don't require me to do it, it takes time away from the customers who will actually buy something and if there is a glazing error with the online order they will likely blame an inaccurate PD and I can't be bothered with the hassel.

Midnight_Tboy

ah right - well if they refund unopened boxes thats fine etc. And good that in effect get a new trial should you need to try a different lens etc.

With regards to Torics though....like I said, the optician himself said that I could likely use either toric or non-toric and case of trial and error.....

It was only when I got downstairs back to the shop floor that they said no you'll be using Torics.

Could I still insist/request to use nontorics as start of the trial to see how I get on?

And for that matter, I wonder if I could see the difference straight away. Both the fact that a) nontorics are considerably cheaper but also b) seems that nontorics would be easier to actually put in seeing as torics have a correct way round that they need to be inserted etc.

For what its worth, I found a scan of an old regular prescription (from 2004). I know my eyes have been said to have changed very little since then, as my previous eyetest before then, probably about 2008ish, was ever so slight change but needed new glasses at the time anyway

Right :
Sph : -1.25
Cyl : -0.50
Axis: 150

Left
Sph : -1.25
Cyl : -0.75
Axis : 50


If any of that makes any sense to anyone

Edit :

i've now just found my eye test from 2008...again supposedly similar, but the numbers are different.

Right
Sph : -1.25
Cyl : (either -0.15, -0.35, or 0.75...hard to read)
Axis : 140

Left
Sph : -1.25
Cycl - again v hard to read looks like "- oro", could be -0.50
Axis : 35

alleyes

Vision express gives £80 off frames when glasses are bought, this is unlimited ie you can get £80 off any number of frames. Yes all solutions are included with the VE direct debit scheme

alleyes

you should trial both toric and non- toric types and see which you prefer. With your prescription you may find that a toric lens gives you much better vision than a non-toric one hence it may be more justifyable paying extra for those types of lenses. If you dont require exceptionally good vision and youre price concious you could go for non-torics ones. The only way to know is to trial both, there shouldnt be an extra charge for trialling two types of lenses, its all part of the fitting process.

GlasweJen

an 0.75 cyl (middle number) is the smallest toric so it would depend on what you're doing wether or not you need a toric lens. By all means ask to trial both, companies get free trial lenses to use for diagnostic purposes so you wont be costing specsavers anything.

Midnight_Tboy

thanks for the advice.

I called in to Tesco today whilst shopping, and confirm they do indeed charge for contact lens tests.....but anyways....tomorrow I've got the day off so going back to town and specsavers. Will get myself some new glasses ordered and hopefully get some contacts in to try out. As the 2 sales people said they weren't in the beginning of the week, I'll just be going in saying that the optician said I should be able to try both. Not sure whether I should try torics first, and see if it looks 'worse' when I try regulars after or not....but then I guess they'll possibly try both in tomorrow anyway maybe to see if any immediate differences.

Hopefully I take to them great....and good timing to try them I hope, as seeing a blues brothers tribute show on the evening

GlasweJen

Well we would usually try both in the test room. We'd get you in, fit you with a lens (non toric usually as we're more likely to have spheres kicking about), teach you to take them in and out and then get you back a week later to see how you're getting on. In the mean time we'd order in the torics for you, during the follow up we'd pop a toric in and do a quick fit and vision check and then give you them home to try.

Depending on how well you got on we'd probably tell you to wear your preferred lens to the fortnight check up and let you order the preferred one in boxes if we can't find any problems.