I got a new pair of glasses recently which had such a fish-eye lens effect I felt off balance and queasy when I put them on. After several trips to the optician, and lots of waffle and wasted time, I was told that paying another £90 for ultra thin lenses would definitely fix the problem. It has reduced the distortion slightly, but it’s still a problem.

Apparently my brain needs to get used to it. I’m not convinced. I’ve never had this problem before, and my prescription is weak, and has barely changed.

Have you had any experience of this? What would you do?

use them to burn ants?

My brother did – spent ages going back and back and back and back.

In the end he just had to get used to them. Your brain is very good at getting used to change so it will fix what it sees.

I once saw a programme where people were wearing upside down glasses – after about a week the brain had adjusted and started seeing everything the right way up. Then they took the glasses off and ‘normal’ was upside down for a week.

Ah yes. Strong prescriptions do that. You have to get used to it, and then it all looks weird when you take them off.

Or get contacts.

I felt queasy when my scrip changed a lot, for a few days. For a really weird experience, try wearing them a lot, getting used to it then taking them off and riding a bike. The foreground in front of your wheels looks huge and weird.

how strong is your script? sounds odd to me…

Apparently my brain needs to get used to it. I’m not convinced. I’ve never had this problem before, and my prescription is weak, and has barely changed.

I’m not convinced you’ve got the right glasses…. get them to check the prescription out

I’d go to another optician and ask for;

a) an eye test
and
b) that they check your glasses against the prescription they give you.

only time I’ve had that ‘queasy’ feeling is if I’ve looked through other peoples glasses, not my own. maybe they’ve measured the centre of your eyes wrong?

I used to get really bad headaches for the first couple of days after getting new glasses. The floor would look like it was sloping, and I’d feel like shit for 2-3 days. This would disappear after a while – seemed to just be me adjusting to the new prescription / the way the new frames sat on my face. I no longer get this as my prescription doesn’t vary as much as it used to when I first started wearing glasses.

Similar – I have a prism in one of my glass lenses as I have slight double vision following an assault on Princes Street 10 years ago (another story) but these lenses correct the double vision. But of course in the interim my eyes have become used to correcting it on their own. So when I first put these glasses on I could barely walk down the street. Went back to optician and got the same story you got.

Within a couple of days I was used to it and now (6 months) they are a godsend. I can still operate with contacts etc for biking but the brain does compensate although YMMV.

I’ve never ever felt sick or queasy with new glasses or contacts, and wouldn’t expect to either

I remember when I was given a radical new prescription some years ago. Was totally spaced out, could barely walk straight when leaving the shop. Within 2 weeks my eyesight was trasnformed. Headaches I’d started getting had gone.
Your eye will adjust.
I’ve just lashed £250 on my first varifocals. Wish I’d gone for two seperate pairs now. They’re postitvely dangerous to drive in. Planning on getting a single-vision pair to keep in the car.

Did they explain why ultra thin lenses would fix the problem?

btw, my last pair took 2 days to get used to as well.

My personal experience is that if they don’t feel right then they probably aren’t right, especially if your prescription isn’t particularly strong. I am sure your brain will compensate eventually but only if it has to.

I always go for thin lenses + anti-glare anyway – they look much nicer than bog-standard lenses IMO.

A single lens will always distort the field of view. Look at a vertical object like a window frame or lamp-post through the edges of your glassesa and you’ll see it break up. Of course any short sighted glasses wearer knows this.

It’s this distortion that makes things look weird and CAN make you feel queasy. If your eyes are changing rapidly and you go from a mild to a strong scrip, it can be quite bad.

If you’ve never experienced it, it may be that you’ve never had a sudden change to a strong scrip.

Still, extended-wear contacts ftw.

Were your previous glasses a flatter lens than the new ones?
I had this problem when I bought new wrap around sunglasses after usually wearing a ‘flat’ lens.
When I went back to complain that they felt odd the optician explained that it was all to do with the curvature of the lens. ie the curved lens seemed stronger cos it was better due to following the curve of the eyeball.
I stuck it out on his advice and now, even though I don’t wear the sunglasses very often, I don’t notice any difference.

i had a similar experience, after 3 months of back and forward i told them i wanted a full refund as they were not fit for purpose and that i would take my custom elsewhere. They then turned around and said the head optician would see me straight away, which he did. It turns out the optician that tested me had got my prescription completely wrong.

He told me that if the glasses were correct then there is no ‘brain adjusting time’ that i had previously been told.

Don’t accept them, kick up a stink after all your eyes will get worse if you struggle on with them.

Don’t accept them, kick up a stink after all your eyes will get worse if you struggle on with them.

That’s the opposite of what happened to me.

But it only took me three or four days to adjust.

I have had a similar experience with a sudden change in prescription it wore off after about a week.I only ever had the experience once in my early 20’s having worn glasses since i was about 9.

Subject to you adjusting in about a week I would not be worried.

I recently went for varifocals after many many years of single vision glasses and contacts. They felt very odd at first, they’re not the most basic form, they’re Specsavers £75 option, but after wearing them for a couple of days I felt confident enough to order the free sunnies with the same lens and I love them to bits. It’s do much easier now not having to take my glasses off to read a magazine or a label or a CD in a shop, and, unlike takisawa they are fantastic for driving, I can actually see clearly my dash instruments and heater controls while still being able to see the road, and it’s made it possible for me to use CoPilot on my iPhone on a windscreen mount and be able to see what I’m doing safely, which made a three hour drive down to South Devon a doddle. If taki’s finding them dangerous then it sounds like he hasn’t acclimatised to them properly yet. They, unlike most lenses, need a lot more time to get used to them. I now wear mine all the time at work, whereas I used to take them off indoors because it was such a pain having to take them off to see to work, but put them on again for outside. Love’em.

I have a strong (~-10) prescirption, and yes new specs sometimes mean a weird change to the image distorsion. I get used to it in a day or so.
However, I had the opticians / labs screw up twice. Once they got the cylinder axis wrong (lens rotation), and on another time mounted the lens 2mm too high in the frame, so normal sight line wasnt through the centre of the lens. Give a day or two, and then complain if it still feels wrong.

To really answer this we need to know your prescrition, unless you are greater than a +/- 2.50 ultra thin lenses are not going to make a great deal of difference, if you can give details of your prescription I can give a better answer as to possible causes and solutions to the problem ( knowing your old prescription would be useful too)

Great, thanks. I will find out tonight.

My mum had a similar problem and it took weeks (months even?) of arguing to get the opticians to accept they were not right, that it wasn’t just my mum being a wuss – turns out the optician had got the left and right details transposed so her lens prescriptions were correct but for the wrong eye.

I can’t find my old prescription, but the new one is:
R sph -3.50 cyl -0.75 axis 177.0
L sph -3.25 cyl -1.25 axis 180.0

The right eye has barely changed in years, and the left eye has become slightly worse over a decade. My contact lenses are both -3.25

My daughter is doing an optometry degree and when I mentioned this thread she said they could have your pupilliary distance wrong
Means nothing to me, but maybe ask them to recheck it

I had the same ‘fish-eye’ problem with my ultra thin Nikon lenses in my specs – took a couple of weeks until I didn’t really notice it anymore.
Still get the distortion at the edges of the lens, as i have a mid-strength prescription + astigmatism, but at least it doesn’t make me think the world’s gone wonky anymore!

One of the main things that can throw you with new lenses is a change in the axis measurement (the angle the lens is rotated to in the frame) , a change of 10 or 15 degrees really seems to make a huge difference with new lenses.

My daughter is doing an optometry degree and when I mentioned this thread she said they could have your pupilliary distance wrong
Means nothing to me, but maybe ask them to recheck it

I know this one – it’s the distance from pupil to pupil (ie between the centres of your eyes). It’s important because it should ensure that you’re looking through the centre of each lens. If it’s out, then weird things happen to your vision

Apparently that’s it nicko and can possibly cause a fish eye effect

Luckily i dont need glasses 😀

Hmm could be as above, but could also be the lenses them selves, can I ask does the ‘front’ surface of the lens have quite a strong curve as well as the rear? Or is the frame more ‘wrapped’ to your face compared to your old frame?

Oh and btw at your prescription thinnes leads would make a difference, one other thing, is the frame significantly bigger than your last pair?

The frames a very similar, with no strong curves or wrapping. (The new ones are black)

hmm bit of a strange one, as everything looks standard (hard to tell from a pictuse alone though, so its either a stronger prescription that will take some getting used to, or the PD is out, or the axis is off, any opticians will have machines that can check this, whoever some will charge you to let you know what is wrong