I’m having a bit of an argument with Boots at the moment: I went and got an eye test there a few months ago. Recently, I went and got some new glasses, based on the prescription that came out of said eye test.

Whilst at home one day, I noticed my new glasses weren’t as sharp as my old ones. In order to be sure, I went back to the opticians where I got the glasses from to check they were accurate to the prescription: They were.

I then went back to Boots and told them what the situation was: The rather conceited manager explained all the ins and outs and ended up by saying “this is the prescription YOU and the optician came up with”. Now, I know I have a role in the eye test, but it seems a bit haphazard to rely on someone’s subjective view. Is there not a more precise way of doing it?

Should have gone to Specsavers……. 🙄

what do you think all the sharper not sharper, questions are about?

The optician can only work on your answers, i try and give the optician as much help as i can. I know it is going to cost me a fortune and i want it right!!!!

The manager might have been an idiot, i don’t know, but they are telling you the truth about it being a two way process.

Sounds a poor excuse as it’s the opticians job to keep going over the answers and refining the result. I dare say that after a couple of months they could claim that your eyesight has changed since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorefractor

That is pretty much my point fubar. It seems far too inaccurate to leave it up to the subjective view of someone who may have been looking at a computer screen all day, or has been up all night on a night shift.

Oh, and he tried that one too.

I think you’ve got to chalk this down as experience. I am not surprised Boots “don’t care” you had the test there but bought glasses elsewhere. You should have taken your old glasses to the eye test to compare.

It’s nothing to do with my new glasses, it’s to do with the potential that they got the prescription wrong. It’s what they do, they should care about that, regardless of where I get the glasses from.

Oh, and they did have my old glasses for comparison.

A sight test result can be a little bit subjective between different opticians, there can also be underlying medical reasons for the difference ie diabetese badly controlled can change your prescription on an almost daily basis.

Whilst at home one day, I noticed my new glasses weren’t as sharp as my old ones. In order to be sure, I went back to the opticians where I got the glasses from to check they were accurate to the prescription: They were.

Was this straight after collection, a few days later or have you constantly been switching between old and new pairs as like the first time you put glasses on your brain needs time to adjust to the new prescription, if it was when you first wore them or you have been swapping then you need to put the old glasses away in a drawer for a week and just wear the new pair, after this week compare the difference and see if you still think the new pair are deficient then here’s a cutting from our practice leaflet that gives you a national body to complain to if you feel you are being badly served find out which PCT or clinical comissioning board controls your area and complain to them (Boots are legally obliged to have a brochure on premesis that will give you these details)

Was this straight after collection, a few days later or have you constantly been switching between old and new pairs as like the first time you put glasses on your brain needs time to adjust to the new prescription, if it was when you first wore them or you have been swapping then you need to put the old glasses away in a drawer for a week and just wear the new pair, after this week compare the difference

It was a few days later and I had been wearing the new ones continuously.
Tomorrow it’ll be two weeks since I got them and still the same, and I’ve been wearing the new ones continuously, other than for a couple of days riding at weekends.

At this point I should say, in the interest of fairness, they have offered to give me a new eye test, which is booked in, so we shall see.

It seems far too inaccurate to leave it up to the subjective view of someone who may have been looking at a computer screen all day, or has been up all night on a night shift.

So, how would you suggest it be done? You’re the one looking at the various images, and the differences caused by changing lenses, etc. the optometrist has nothing at all to go on except what you tell them, whether the letters are sharper, clearer or not. I don’t know of technology that can deduce the prescription required, unless there’s some sort of 3D laser scanning of the eyeball that can tell what prescription you need.
Unlikely to be available to high-street opticians yet, if it exists; in the meantime, it remains down to subjectivity.

Then you need to go back to boots but…………

……..it still may not be the prescription, I am guessing from the way the above reads you didn’t buy your glasses at boots, if this is the case take the glasses to boots and let them ‘neutralise’ them, I have seen many occaisions where ‘bucket’ shops have sent a patient back to get the prescription checked only to find the glasses made either dont meet the prescription via wrong powered lenses or lenses being off axis or badly centered in the frame, boots will probably happily check them for you (we would) and redirect you to the glasses seller if there is an issue in that direction, if this isn’t the case then boots then need to recheck which they should also do. Out of interest is your prescription single vision or multi focal?

Single vision.

Boots checked the prescription of the new glasses and they are accurate to the prescription.

then as above, to be fair to boots they are doing a ‘recheck’ which is all they can do at this point, ht outcome of the recheck will obviously decide what happens next.

One final question was there a large or small change in the prescription? if a large then you might be struggling to cope with this, some opticians would give you this full change some would give you an increment of it, neither is wrong as said some optics is subjective.

If you have any other queries before or after the recheck regarding the results etc feel free to PM me for an independant viewpoint who understands both sides of this

Very straight forward.
They do recheck then they change lenses if needed.
This is standard procedure.
If they resist, email head office.

BTW….get a quick diabetes check.

just a thought, are the lenses the same index material?

My current 1.7ish are different to my previous 1.6ish.

Noticably different!

It isn’t easy to explain, but they distort the world in a different way?

It’s quite a large change for the axis: They changed one eye from 95 to 100.

5 degree is quite normal (on basic prescriptions nearest 5 degree steps is standard, more complex it will be done in 2.5’s only in really complex will it be taken to single digits)